General Trees – Nuff Respect

Shanachie, 1987

If there are any Bim Kill Him superfans out there you may have noticed I am making an effort to make writeups for all the General Trees LPs, which puts “Nuff Respect” next in line. In my last post about “Negril” I wrote that many of these Trees albums re-use the same hit songs, and none is a greater offender than “Nuff Respect”, with not one nor two nor three but FIVE hits re-appearing from albums I have already written about, and with three of the other tracks being singles, this is almost a compilation record. And it is indeed a good one – Trees’ hit songs are hits for very good reasons – but as a fan of the artist, this is perhaps not exactly what you need, except maybe (these days) as a pre-curated playlist.

Some solace comes in the new, cleaner mix of Gone To Negril which features some lovely guitar licks, and a totally new arrangement and recording of Mi Teeth from “The Younger Horseman” in blues-calypso fusion style. Count on General Trees to do something like that, not just confidently but well. And on top of that comment, you will not hear anything like it anywhere, which is saying a lot. But one point against it is that you are likely to make out very little as a first or second or fifth-time listener if you don’t already know the lyrics to the original.

We finally find fresh content with Calling All Higglers, higglers being hawkers – streetside sellers – to the exact same Scorpio cut of Mad Mad which we heard Great Jamaican Jockeys on in the last album. Few tunes have purer Tree flavor coursing through their rhythms – razor-sharp deejaying, energetic adlibs, a singjay hook, promotion of earnest work, and preaching of racial unity. It has stuck me in the way that every time I sight a higgler it comes to mind, and I expect it to do the same for you.

And yet, while fine, Calling All Higglers is not an album-seller, and neither are most of the other non-recycled tunes in this set. Come Mi Darling‘s hook meanders over the Punaany riddim, not one of my favourites, We Naw Run is just okay, being a fine tune in some disagreement with its riddim, and Nuff Respect is an anthem tune with less grit than other Trees hits or other anthem tunes from the time. Admiral Bailey’s Big Belly Man comes to mind. Which leaves us with one new hit from this set, which is $50 Bill, a very catchy piece on Heavenless. It was big enough to also get a video from Big Daddy Leo, and like his other hits, it’s a hit for a reason. And it comes with many of the same themes that made Calling All Higglers great.

“Nuff Respect” is a paradoxical album. None of the cuts are bad, and half the record is hit songs, but with so many tunes that I had heard elsewhere before I came to it, I found myself personally underwhelmed and hardly ever find myself putting this set on or recommending it to anyone else. Make of that what you will – perhaps it is best digested as the first Trees record, perhaps as the last.

My picks: Calling All Higglers, $50 Bill
Bim count: 0