Private Life: The Compass Point Sessions

While Grace Jones' career encompasses several successful phases, fans new and old continue to return to the music she made at the Nassau-based Compass Point Studios in the early '80s. The Bahamian recording facility (owned by Island Records CEO Chris Blackwell) was Jones’ home base from 1980 to 1982, and everything she recorded there is on this superlative collection. Jones served as an ideal frontwoman for The Compass Point All Stars, the studio’s mostly Jamaican house band. They were looking to push the musical principles of reggae into the future, while Jones was a born futurist looking to reconnect with her Jamaican roots. While this collection boasts such definitive works as “Slave to the Rhythm,” “Pull Up to the Bumper," and “My Jamaican Guy,” the dub versions are equally essential to any understanding of the Compass Point ethos. Who else but Jones could have led this formidable group of Jamaicans to make a dub cover of “She’s Lost Control,” originally recorded by the doomed Manchester punk outfit Joy Division? Perhaps because of the tropical backdrop, the songs seem shaped by a deep conviction in musical voodoo.