Fever

Possessed of a sinuous baritone voice guaranteed to set dancehalls alight, Tenor Saw is best remembered for 1985’s “Ring the Alarm,” a sound-system killer built on the insistent steady bass line of the inimitable “Stalag” rhythm. "Ring the Alarm" remains a standard among hardcore dancehall heads, but Fever, the album that Tenor Saw cut in the wake of “Ring the Alarm’s” blockbuster success, is every bit as compelling. Here he cuts loose in a wavering “sing-jay” style, invoking Barrington Levy’s dexterous vocal trickery over a series of spare Casio-powered rhythms. Though Wayne Smith’s “Under Me Sleng Teng” stands as the first fully digital dancehall recording, Tenor Saw may have been the most skilled of digital dancehall’s early practitioners. On the propulsive “Pumpkin Belly” he spits rugged verses, alternately lascivious and reverent, over the brooding “Sleng Teng” rhythm. Dancehall innovator Sugar Minott produced Fever’s lean and ferocious rhythms, and for a glimpse of the man’s soundboard wizardry, check out any of the eight dub mixes generously appended to this reissue.