Singer A J Brown is committed to original material. This is evident in the 16 songs on ‘Shots of Love’, his fifth solo album. He wrote or co-wrote all of them.
‘Shots of Love’ is scheduled for release on August 7 at Mature Mondays, located at 52 Dumbarton Avenue, near Half-Way-Tree in St Andrew.
It is the veteran singer’s first album since ‘Voice of Love’ which came out in 2007. “What I do is keep writing and writing. The difficulty is getting it to the level of popularity because the marketing and distribution has to be at a certain standard,” Brown said.
Three of ‘Shots of Love‘s’ songs have been released. Those are ‘Living in The Now’, ‘You Used to Believe’, and ‘Jah Will Always Be Around’.
On ‘Voice of Love’, Brown covered a number of spiritual songs including ‘You Raise Me Up’, which is one of his biggest hits. ‘Love People’, ‘My Father My Friend’, and ‘Words of Wisdom’ were also strong sellers for the St James-born vocalist who first came to prominence in the late 1970s on the north coast hotel circuit.
Since 2014 Brown has been lead singer for Third World. He succeeded Bunny Rugs, who died from cancer in February that year. On ‘More Work to Be Done’, the band’s 2019 album, Brown co-wrote eight of its 11 songs.
He believes being original is critical for an artiste. “Most originals, if written properly, can become classics. I write about what’s happening around the writer… I write to connect,” he said.
Artistes Hezron and Tamara B are scheduled to perform at the album launch event with music from DJ Snow, proprietor of Mature Mondays, DJ Smurf, DJ Candy out of New York and Billy Slaughter.