I plea guilty to being a bit dogmatic about reggae music and apologize.
Gregory Isaacs is indeed the most prolific of reggae musicians. In the early Eighties he was releasing 2 or 3 singles a week on his African Museum label.
Unfortunely Gregory spent many of his prime musical years behind bars in General Penitentiary on drug and weapons charges. Many of Gregory's sufferer's tales are about his own incarceration in GP. For instance the song Dieting is about a hunger strike Gregory organized in GP in the late Seventies. Gregory Isaacs has composed more prison songs than Johnny Cash if you check out his recorded works.
The worst part about Gregory's years in prison at GP was he couldn't tour when there was a broad public interest in reggae in the USA and England; and his drug and weapons charges. Gregory's criminal record also make it difficult for him to secure a travel visa to enter the USA and the UK to perform. If Gregory is lucky he can get a one week limited visa to tour outside of Jamaica. It's very hard for reggae musicians to secure travel visas anyway.Under Jamaican law it's very easy for white tourists to enter Jamaica while it's very difficult for any black Jamaican national to get a visa to exit Jamaica.
Gregory has a great deal of regret about his rude boy years and the negative effect of his outlaw style on his musical career. Gregory made a small fortune in his prime but most of that money was poured into his ambitious musical projects at his Black Museum recording studio. He still receives a few modest royalty payments for the ubiquitous anothologies and collections of his music. And Gregory can still make a great deal of money touring but his visa status makes touring outside of Jamaica problematic for him.
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