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Play, download and edit the free video Dave Ansell Collins - Double Barrel (1971).

Originally published at YouTube on February 15, 2016.

I can still remember when "Double Barrel" came out here in the US in 1971, and of course the names Dave and Ansell Collins never rang any bells ... I was 17 years old and just graduated from high school ... none of us had ever heard music like this before. Some of my friends made fun of it, it was like WTF? and some laughs, and we'd walk funny in time to the rhythm, but when we really got down to talking about it, we all thought it sounded REALLY cool. Different. We didn't know what reggae was. Even when "Israelites" came out a few years earlier, especially sung by a guy with a 50's-style name like Desmond Dekker, we thought it was a kind of reworking of some 50's or early 60's do-wop oldie (which, melody-wise, despite the reggae rhythm, it did). This song has stayed on the fringe of my consciousness all these years till I heard it again two years ago ... and it brought back the summer of '71 like the overwhelming fragrance of a flower you can't name, but you never forget it .. or maybe your first trip to a bus terminal and the smells of oil and exhaust fumes or that hardcore road construction smell walking downtown on hot summer days. It's great to have those memories come alive, even for a few minutes. It makes you young, just for a little while.

I thought I'd show scenes from city life as it was around that time. This footage was shot in 1971 and 1972.

"Double Barrel" peaked at #27 on Cash Box on July 31, 1971 and at #22 on Billboard on August 7, 1971, but of course was #1 in the UK.

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