Don’t let the woman on the cover of Courtney Melody’s 1998 re-release “Modern Girl” on Artists Only! fool you – Courtney Melody is a male dancehall singer whose peak output came in the late-1980s. This release is a compilation of previously hard-to-find material from that era.

I had never heard Courtney before this disc, and I was pleasantly surprised. Courtney immediately evoked images of a Johnny Osborne/Barrington Levy hybrid – the vocal control of both and some of the individual trademarks of each.
Reggae is a music that has lots of imitators and coattail riders: One Pint sounds frighteningly similar to Half Pint and in ‘95 who could tell the difference between Bounty Killer, Beenie Man, Merciless, and the myriad other Cookie Monster DJs? Well, the imitation here works very well – Courtney is a strong artist in his own right who used a combintation of styles from Osborne and Levy to form his own. The DJs of the mid-’90s were like analog tape-tape dubs while Courtney’s similarity is more like Junior Reid was to Michael Rose: a high-quality digital copy.

On “Modern Girl,” Courtney croons: “I need a modern girl with the old fashioned kind of loving, / To put me in bed at night and wake me up at morning.” Solid riddims are provided by Robert Ffrench. This is some good roots style loving where Courtney really stands out as his own man.

Some worthy imitations come on “Just My Kind of Girl,” which bears a striking resemblance to Barrington Levy’s “A Ya We Deh,” and “Down in the Dance Hall,” where Courtney adopts the “Get up, stand up, and dance” chant that Levy trademarked on “Do the Dance” in 1984. There’s even a healthy dash of Half Pint on “Bad Boy Business.”

Sure, Courtney Melody is a generally a hodge-podge of some of the best dancehall singers of the ’80s, but he does manage to stand out on his own as well. And this disc is just plain fun – positive vibes and strong vocals make every track a joy (except the updated “Modern Girl” called “Modern Connection,” which features so-so performances from Ffrench and Heavy D).