I grew up with Dennis Brown. Though he was a little older, I felt Dennis and I were good friends. I don’t recall another singer whom I have studied their songs line by line the way I did Dennis. I practiced his singing style and yearned for his songs more and more. Dennis stole my heart from the first time I saw him smiling at me with his guitar on his first album cover.
No song by Dennis Brown is ever old; his voice was crisp like the sound of a new 45 record on vinyl and the smell of your first new car. I always recalled the beginning of his most revered song. “Tuh dup tuh doom tum tum tum🎶🎵🎶🎵, Tuh dup tuh doom tum tum tum 🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶 “……No maaan is an island. No man stands alone….🎵🎶” And we swayed to the rest of the song. All boys my age and above were proud to have a famous youth singer as America had Michael Jackson. We had our own.
I also recalled in the early 70s, when there was talk Michael Jackson was going through puberty, and his voice was changing. We heard he had to pause singing for a while, not our Dennis. Dennis was singing through puberty and adjusting for voice changes. Dennis Brown was golden.
