AMG Review of Pave the Way [Pave the Way + Dubs]

Rick Anderson
All Music Guide

Pave the Way was the third of three albums that Pablo Moses recorded at Dynamic Studio with producer Geoffrey Chung. Originally released on LP in 1980, it soon fell off the marketplace radar and has remained out of print for 25 years. Enter Young Tree Records, which teamed up with the respected Washington, DC producer and engineer Jim Fox to bring the album back to light. Moses still had the original quarter-inch tapes in his possession; he turned them over to Fox, who worked his typical magic and restored them to their original pristine glory, and they are reissued here on CD with a second disc of dub versions. It's not completely clear whether the dubs were conceived and mixed by Chung or by Fox -- they bear the distinctive Fox sonic fingerprint, but that may be simply because his restoration project began with the pre-master tapes. In any case, the songs themselves range from pretty good ("Proverbs Extractions," "Last Straw") to excellent ("Pave the Way," "I See It Every Day"). As usual with a Pablo Moses album, the weak link is the tunes, too few of which are very memorable -- what saves the album are his fully committed singing style and the fantastic instrumental backing, which was provided by an A-list studio band that includes drummer Mikey "Boo" Richards, trombonist Nambo Robinson and percussionist Sticky Thompson. Pave the Way + Dubs may not be an absolutely essential purchase for every reggae lover, but it's a worthy and important piece of reggae history.