The common conception is that child stars don’t make it off the stage unscathed. People point to Michael Jackson or Britney Spears and figure all the whipsawing from an early age between fandom and ridicule must do permanent damage. Yet here’s Barrington Levy coming to the Miami Beach Bandshell at 61 years young, a steady and remarkable reggae presence who got his start as a 14-year-old.
At age 18, Jamaica native Levy released a quartet of LPs that established his sound: Shaolin Temple, Bounty Hunter, Shine Eye Gal and Englishman all came out in the same calendar year, 1979, and established Levy’s bumping fusion of traditional reggae and soulful American r&b. As his career unfolded, his groove-minded style came to be known as dancehall, differentiating it from the roots reggae that Bob Marley and Peter Tosh popularized.
Beloved in Jamaica, Levy crossed over in 1985 with a hit single, “Here I Come,” landing on the U.K. pop charts and sounding like nothing else in heavy rotation at the time. Hearing Levy’s smooth patois crooning over steel drums today, it’s awesome to consider that “Here I Come” shared airspace with some of the most iconic of the ’80s. The song peaked at No. 41 on the February 16, 1985 UK singles chart, two spots below Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer” and two spots above Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love.”
There were other hits like “Murderer” and “Black Roses,” and collaborations on tracks by everyone from Snoop Dogg to Gorillaz. But the Barrington Levy guest spot worth checking out above all else is the beyond-trippy “The World’s Gone Mad.” The 2004 song by Handsome Boy Modeling School features Levy taking vocal turns with rapper Del the Funky Homosapien before Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand joins in for a verse. The sum is even more than the parts as Jamaican dancehall, American hip-hop and Britpop meld into perfection that will take up permanent residency on your playlist. It might even lead some showbiz parents to push their young prodigies even harder to get on stage.
Barrington Levy performs 7:30pm Wednesday, July 23 at Miami Beach Bandshell. barringtonlevy.com ~ David Roland
