Spring 1985, I was walking along Petchburi Road, Bangkok, Thailand when I suddenly noticed a small cassette shop.
Of course I had to check it out and there discovered a tape by a completely unknown artist, whose name didn’t ring any bells, but the title I Scare Myself reminded me of the Thomas Dolby hit (I wasn’t aware at the time that it was a Dan Hicks cover…).
Plus it was on Island Records, so perhaps worthwhile…
The songs definitely raised my eyebrows as they included Broken English, Guilt, Times Square, and Over Her (No Time For Justice), all titles I recognized as Marianne Faithfull tracks!
Despite the high price as it was not a bootleg cassette I had to buy it.
Once I handed over some baht, I ripped off the plastic wrapper, inserted the cassette into my walkman, pressed Play and started reading the very limited info…
Musically I was very pleasantly surprised as it was bordering on reggae but at times quite different, brilliant!
The liner notes only mentioned the musicians, but what a line-up: besides Reynolds on guitar & vocals there were Sly & Robbie, Wally Badarou, Mikey Chung and Uziah “Sticky” Thompson.
Later I would learn that these were in fact the Compass Point All Stars…
Another surprise was the final track, Reynolds alone doing an Irish rebel song “The Bold Fenian Men”, very impressive.
Months later I returned home and finally had a chance to listen again to Marianne Faithfull’s versions.
There I discovered that Reynolds played on those (& most other!) tracks as well…
About a decade later I found the Edsel CD of I Scare Myself at Bangkok’s Tower Records and bought it immediately.
This time the liner notes were very informative and gave me a much better idea about Reynolds’ background.
He started playing with a band called Pacific Drift in 1970 and got involved with another outfit (Blodwyn Pig) as well.
Marianne Faithfull met Reynolds in the mid seventies which led to Barry putting a band together for her and writing songs together.
The resulting Broken English (1979) was a critical and commercial success, follow-ups Dangerous Acquaintances (1981) and A Child’s Adventure (1983) less so, but all contained some great tracks.
When Reynolds went to the Bahamas he initially thought he was going to work with Gloria Jones instead of Grace!
It took a while to settle in with the other musicians, but eventually things started working out and he also started writing songs with Grace as well as playing guitar for Joe Cocker and Black Uhuru!
Reynolds performed live with Marianne as a duo on several tours successfully and kept himself busy with studio work and producing other artists.
He has recorded only incidentally a few tracks after I Scare Myself…
In interviews he mentioned a new album of his songs with guest vocals done by Beth Orton, Marianne, Grace, and others, but until now nothing has been released.
Similarly his new work with Grace (post Hurricane for which he contributed ‘Well Well Well’) remains in the can…
For this JOKONKY special we have selected tracks from Pacific Drift, Barry’s 1974 solo single, Marianne Faithfull (both album & live), Barry’s 1982 solo album, Compass Point All-Stars with Grace Jones and Joe Cocker, Black Uhuru, Baaba Maal, Hillary Bratton’s Reynolds Tribute, and Tammy Faye Starlite’s Faithfull Tribute.
