Private Beach Party is a 1985 album by the Jamaica

Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

n reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

 singer Gregory Isaacs

Gregory Isaacs

Gregory Anthony Isaacs was a Jamaican reggae musician. Milo Miles, writing in the New York Times, described Isaacs as "the most exquisite vocalist in reggae". His nicknames include Cool Ruler and Lonely Lover....

. The album continued Isaacs' working relationship with producer Augustus "Gussie" Clarke

Gussie Clarke

Augustus "Gussie" Clarke , is a reggae producer who worked with some of the top Jamaican reggae artists in the 1970s and later set up his own Music Works studio.-Career:...

, to whom he would return in 1988 for the hugely successful "Rumours" and Red Rose for Gregory

Red Rose for Gregory

Red Rose for Gregory is an 11-track album by reggae artist, Gregory Isaacs released in 1988 by Ras Records. The album combines the style and sound of Lovers Rock with Roots reggae and it features the hit, "Rumours".-Track listing:...

. Clarke employed Carlton Hines to write several of the songs on the album, and the musicians featured include Sly Dunbar

Sly Dunbar

Lowell "Sly" Fillmore Dunbar is a drummer.-Biography:Dunbar, whose nickname was reportedly given for his passion for Sly & the Family Stone, launched his musical career while still in his adolescence, playing with a local group, The Yardbrooms, at the age of fifteen...

, Robbie Shakespeare, Lloyd Parks

Lloyd Parks

Lloyd Parks is a reggae vocalist and bass player.-Biography:Parks' interest in music was fuelled by his uncle Dourie Bryan, who played in a calypso band, and Parks became the band's singer...

, and Willie Lindo.

The album features duets with Carlene Davis

Carlene Davis

Carlene Davis is a Jamaican gospel and reggae singer active since the 1970s. Successful since the early 1980s as a reggae artist, she survived cancer in the mid-1990s, after which she dedicated her career to gospel music.-Biography:...

 (on "Feeling Irie") and Dennis Brown

Dennis Brown

Dennis Emmanuel Brown was a Jamaican reggae singer. During his prolific career, which began in the late 1960s when he was aged eleven, he recorded more than 75 albums and was one of the major stars of lovers rock, a sub-genre of reggae...

 (on "Let off Supm").

Originally released by Greensleeves Records

Greensleeves Records

Greensleeves Records & Publishing is a record label specialising in dancehall and reggae music. The company was founded by Chris Cracknell and Chris Sedgwick and started as a small record store in West Ealing, London, in November 1975 and is based in Britain....

 in 1985, it was released in the US by Ras Records

RAS Records

RAS Records, also known as Real Authentic Sound, is a reggae record label.-History:RAS Records was founded in 1979 by Doctor Dread. In his travels to Jamaica he created a network within the reggae artist community there. By the early to mid 1980s RAS had signed artists such as Black Uhuru, Inner...

.

Reception

Allmusic's Jo-Ann Greene called the album a "masterpiece", stating "There's not a mis-step within the entire set, and every song is so high-caliber that's it's useless to try to pick favorites". Robert Christgau

Robert Christgau

Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...

 rated the album B+, commenting "there's a light touch to this music--Isaacs whispering and murmuring around diffident horn-section filigrees--that I'd call sexy". Trouser Press

Trouser Press

Trouser Press was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow Who fan Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" ...

described Private Beach Party as "his best album in years — a fresh, diverse package". Steve Barrow & Peter Dalton selected the album as one of their recommendations in The Rough Guide to Reggae, calling the duet with Davis "outstanding".

Track listing

1. "Private Beach Party"
2. "Wish You Were Mine"
3. "Feeling Irie" - Gregory Isaacs & Carlene Davis
   Carlene Davis
   Carlene Davis is a Jamaican gospel and reggae singer active since the 1970s. Successful since the early 1980s as a reggae artist, she survived cancer in the mid-1990s, after which she dedicated her career to gospel music.-Biography:...
   
   
4. "Bits And Pieces"
5. "Let Off Supm" - Gregory Isaacs & Dennis Brown
   Dennis Brown
   Dennis Emmanuel Brown was a Jamaican reggae singer. During his prolific career, which began in the late 1960s when he was aged eleven, he recorded more than 75 albums and was one of the major stars of lovers rock, a sub-genre of reggae...
   
   
6. "No Rushings"
7. "Better Plant Some Loving"
8. "Special To Me"
9. "Got To Be In Tune"
10. "Promise Is A Comfort"

Musicians

• Gregory Isaacs
  Gregory Isaacs
  Gregory Anthony Isaacs was a Jamaican reggae musician. Milo Miles, writing in the New York Times, described Isaacs as "the most exquisite vocalist in reggae". His nicknames include Cool Ruler and Lonely Lover....
  
   - vocals
• Lloyd Parks
  Lloyd Parks
  Lloyd Parks is a reggae vocalist and bass player.-Biography:Parks' interest in music was fuelled by his uncle Dourie Bryan, who played in a calypso band, and Parks became the band's singer...
  
   - bass guitar
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  
• Robbie Shakespeare - bass guitar
• Sly Dunbar
  Sly Dunbar
  Lowell "Sly" Fillmore Dunbar is a drummer.-Biography:Dunbar, whose nickname was reportedly given for his passion for Sly & the Family Stone, launched his musical career while still in his adolescence, playing with a local group, The Yardbrooms, at the age of fifteen...
  
   - drums
• Willie Stewart - drums
• Willie Lindo - guitar, arrangements
• Robert Lyn - piano, synthesizer
• Franklyn Waul - piano, synthesizer
• Lloyd Forest - backing vocals
• David Harvey - backing vocals
• Carlton Hines - backing vocals
• Dean Fraser
  Dean Fraser
  Dean Fraser is a Jamaican saxophonist who has contributed to hundreds of reggae recordings since the mid-1970s. He was awarded the Musgrave Medal by the Jamaican government in 1993 in recognition of his services to music.-Biography:Fraser started to play the clarinet at the age of 12...
  
   - horns
• David Madden - horns
• Ronald "Nambo" Robinson - horns
• Rass Brass - horns
• Chico Chin - horns
• Carlene Davis
  Carlene Davis
  Carlene Davis is a Jamaican gospel and reggae singer active since the 1970s. Successful since the early 1980s as a reggae artist, she survived cancer in the mid-1990s, after which she dedicated her career to gospel music.-Biography:...
  
   - vocals
• Dennis Brown
  Dennis Brown
  Dennis Emmanuel Brown was a Jamaican reggae singer. During his prolific career, which began in the late 1960s when he was aged eleven, he recorded more than 75 albums and was one of the major stars of lovers rock, a sub-genre of reggae...
  
  - vocals