Third World has always had a more commerical R&B sound. In concert they reminded me of Earth Wind and Fire with the same kind of slick 90 minute stage presentation with that never varied. The second time I saw Third World they played almost the exact song set and even used the same exact "impromptu" stage banter and jokes they used at a show I attended 2 years earlier. It all seem very contrived. And if I attended a Third World concert today, it wouldn't be too much different different from the two times I saw them perform in the Eighties.
Third World was formed by a group of musicians that were longtime players in Inner Circle a band that made a living playing tourista reggae for American audiences in the lounges of posh resort hotels in Montego Bay and Negril during the Sixties and Seventies. For a short lived period the band became more rasta conscious when Jacob Miller joined the band as vocalist, but this was a few years after 1973, when the three members of Inner Circle members had already departed the band to form Third World.
1865 (96 Degrees in the Shade) a song about the Maroon rebellions in Jamaica was indeed their finest moment. There is also a second song on the same album called Tribal War that is also a keeper. I think that the reason why 96 Degrees in the Shade album worked was the legendary Jamaican producer Sylvan Morris was the enginner and de facto producer of the album, although Third World took the production credit on album sleeve.
After the Sylvan Morris recording, Third World developed as long time association with American producer Alex Sadkin who was most noted for producing pop music stars like Stephen Stills, the Thompson Twins, Foreigner, Simply Red, Joe C0cker, and Duran Duran.
Alex Sandkin also was engineer on three early Wailers albums and those three albums had the worst sound mixes of all of the Wailers albums.
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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt
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