After making his recording debut at the height of the Rock Steady era, Junior Murvin remained a peripheral figure on the Jamaican music industry until he teamed up with enigmatic producer, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry in 1976. Their initial collaboration, ‘Police And Thieves’ became an international best-seller, the restrained, understated refrain providing a backdrop to the political violence blighting Kingston and the riots at London’s Notting Hill Carnival. The highly acclaimed album of the same name followed, but subsequent Island collections by the singer failed to materialise following Perry’s break down and destruction of his Black Ark studio.

Originally released to widespread acclaim in the spring of 1977, the ‘Police And Thieves’ album has since become regarded as one of the finest and most important Reggae collections of all-time. Recorded at Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s famed Black Ark studio in Kingston at a time when both singer and producer were at the peak of their creative powers, the LP caught the mood of the times, its themes of civil unrest and social injustice striking a chord on both sides of the Atlantic.