Live On

AMG Review of Live On

Steve Leggett
All Music Guide

When Live On was released by the Wailing Souls (Winston "Pipe" Matthews and Lloyd "Bread" McDonald) in 1994, many longtime fans of the Jamaican oots duo felt it was too commercial, too far to the pop side of things, and the album was roundly criticized at the time. In retrospect, it would appear that the Souls may have been about a decade ahead of their time, because heard today, Live On sounds amazingly current with its mix of oots, funk, soul, jazz, and pop, and while it is true that it might be the least Jamaican-sounding of their albums, with a pedigree of crack island session players like Sly & Robbie, Dwight Pinkney, Sticky Thompson, and Earl Lindo all over these tracks, Jamaican it most certainly is, just updated a bit. True, the cover of Paul Simon's "Mother & Child Reunion" might be so obvious as to be unnecessary, but cuts like the choppy and funky "Jah Jah" and the enduring "What the World Needs," with its striking sax touches from Larry Klimas, are Jamaican in origin but international in scope. Live On may not be the most representative of the Wailing Souls' albums, but it certainly isn't the embarrassment many proclaimed it to be when it was originally issued.