PRODUCER WILLIE LINDO TELLS HOW DENNIS BROWN RECORDED THE HIT “LOVE HAS FOUND ITS WAY!”

THREE weeks after recording his second album for American label A&M Records, Dennis Brown visited the set’s producer Willie Lindo.

“I had already started mixing the album in Jamaica… And one day Dennis Brown came to me and sey him know the album finish, but he has a song he wanted me to hear. He took out his guitar and start sing a few lines of Love Has Found Its Way. Dennis is a slippery man an’ if you let him leave the studio, him nah come back. So I kept him at the studio an’ sent for the musicians. That’s how the song appeared on the album,” Lindo told the Jamaica Observer.

Released in 1982, Love Has Found Its Way became the lead single for the project. The set blended lovers rock with a commercial pop sound and introduced Brown to a wider audience.

Lindo — who, as a session guitarist at Joe Gibbs’ studio, played on several of Brown’s hit songs — also produced his Inseparable album five years later. “When Dennis came to record Inseparable… he looked slim and like him lose him voice. Mi couldn’t record him… I told him to come back three months time and he did. When he came back he looked nice and rosy. His voice nice and everything, so we booked a studio for three months and do the album,” he said.

Lindo, who is also the producer for Maxi Priest’s smash album Wild World, said Brown’s style is unmistakable.

“Dennis was jus’ born to be a singer. Him almost perfect in a wey him do. That’s why most of the singers used to try copy him,” he said.

“He was a nice person. Him always have a smile an’ full of manners and respect. Mi never remembering seeing Dennis get mad,” he added.

Brown’s career began in the mid-1960’s. He first recorded for Derrick Harriott, who produced Lips of Wine, the first of his countless hit songs. He featured prominently throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s with tracks including Cassandra, Westbound Train, and Here I Come.

Dennis Brown

Brown would have turned 59 today. He died July 1, 1999, at age 42. He was posthumously awarded the Order of Distinction by the Jamaican government in 2011.