The Harder They Come [Deluxe Edition]

Disc 1
1	You Can Get It If You Really Want 2:41
2	Draw Your Brakes / Scotty 2:58
3	Rivers of Babylon / The Melodians 4:18
4	Many Rivers to Cross 3:02
5	Sweet and Dandy / The Maytals 3:00
6	The Harder They Come 3:41
7	Johnny Too Bad / The Slickers 3:04
8	007 (Shanty Town) / Desmond Dekker 2:42
9	Pressure Drop / The Maytals 3:47
10	Sitting in Limbo 4:55
11	You Can Get It If You Really Want 2:45
12	The Harder They Come 3:08
Disc 2
1	Israelites / Desmond Dekker & the Aces 2:37
2	My Conversation / The Uniques 2:40
3	Do the Reggay / The Maytals 3:18
4	Viet Nam 4:52
5	I Can See Clearly Now / Johnny Nash 2:42
6	Reggae Hit the Town / The Ethiopians 2:23
7	Double Barrel / Ansel Collins 2:49
8	It Mek / Aces 2:31
9	Sweet Sensation / The Melodians 3:42
10	Let Your Yeah Be Yeah 3:04
11	Cherry Oh Baby / Eric Donaldson 3:01
12	Monkey Spanner / Ansel Collins 2:45
13	54-36 (That's My Number) / The Maytals 2:58
14	It's My Delight / The Melodians 3:13
15	Wonderful World, Beautiful People 3:15
16	Pomp and Pride / The Maytals 4:27
17	Guava Jelly / Johnny Nash 3:15
18	The Bigger They Come the Harder They Fall 3:11

Barnes & Noble

If this isn't the single most popular reggae record in the world, it is surely one of the most influential. More people got turned on to Jamaican music by this soundtrack album and the Perry Henzel film it accompanied than any other work you can name. The story was brutal and irresistible: A wide-eyed country boy (played by Jimmy Cliff) comes to the big city to make his fortune as a singer. He voices a few tunes, gets ripped off by a crooked producer, gets caught up in the ganja trade before going out in a blaze of machine-gun fire -- just like the cowboy stars of his beloved spaghetti westerns. The film gains much of its power from masterful performances from two of Jamaica's greatest singers: Cliff and Toots Hibbert, sanctified lead vocalist of the Maytals and the man credited with coining the term "reggae." Toots rocks as usual on cuts like "Pressure Drop," and Cliff runs the emotional gamut from the exquisite gospel-tinged lament "Many Rivers to Cross" to the exuberant title track that guarantees "as sure as the sun will shine / I'm gonna get my share of what's mine." Get yours. Rob Kenner

All Music Guide

Some liberal interpretation of what can constitute the bonus material of a deluxe edition went into this two-CD edition of The Harder They Come, which in its original release was both a classic reggae album and a classic soundtrack. The additional material on the second disc is not outtakes from the soundtrack or some such intimately related work, but 18 high-grade vintage reggae tracks from the late '60s and early '70s. Admittedly some of the newly added songs are by artists who also contributed to the soundtrack, those being Jimmy Cliff, the Maytals, Desmond Dekker, and the Melodians. Then, however, there are a bunch of tunes by artists not involved in the soundtrack at all, like the Uniques, Dave & Ansel Collins, Johnny Nash, and Eric Donaldson. But -- and this is a big but -- the excellence of the additional cuts, along with how they fit well with the music on the original The Harder They Come soundtrack, makes such inconsistencies moot. The original The Harder They Come, comprising all of disc one, remains one of the great reggae albums, crossing over to a non-Jamaican audience more than almost any other reggae release of the era, perhaps because there was so much soul (both literally and figuratively) in the melodies and vocals. The 18 songs on disc two include some core reggae classics, among them some of the biggest reggae-pop crossovers of 1968-1972, including Dekker's "Israelites," Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly Now" (yes, Nash was American, but this was recorded in Jamaica), Dave & Ansel Collins' zany instrumental "Double Barrel," and Cliff's "Wonderful World, Beautiful People." These are spiced with somewhat lesser-known delights like the Maytals' "Do the Reggay," Cliff's "Viet Nam" [sic], and Donaldson's "Cherry Oh Baby," famously covered by the Rolling Stones on their Black and Blue album. The additional disc, though strictly speaking not directly related to the soundtrack, does what the bonus material on deluxe editions should do and doesn't always successfully pull off: it makes a classic album better. And for those who want at least a little extra content tied to the film itself, the liner notes include essays by director Perry Henzell, Island Records chief Chris Blackwell, the Clash's Paul Simonon, and reggae author David Katz. Richie Unterberger