Max Romeo (born Maxwell Livingston Smith, 22 November 1944) is a Jamaican Reggae artist who managed to have an succesful career outside his home island as well. He is best known for his hit albums "Wet Dream" (1968) and War Ina Babylon (1976) and for appearing as a backing vocalist on The Rolling Stones' album Emotional Rescue (1980). In return of favour Keith Richards then played on and co-produced Romeo's album "Holding Out My Love to You". The Prodigy sampled his song "Chase the Devil" as "Outta Space".
Albums
- War Ina Babylon (1976)
Max Romeo's work provides examples of:
- Censored Title: Wet Dream was not only banned from the air by the BBC, its title couldn't be mentioned either. This led to listeners to Alan Freeman announcing the new chart on Pick of the Pops hearing him mumbling "the Max Romeo record" before passing quickly on to play the next entry.
- Cover Version: "Blowing in the Wind", "Three Blind Mice".
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: "Chase the Devil", in which Romeo boasts he'll chase the devil off Earth "into space".
- God-Is-Love Songs: "When Jah Speaks".
- Nocturnal Emission: "Wet Dream".
- Patriotic Fervor: "We Love Jamaica", "God Bless Jamaica".
- Protest Song: "War Ina Babylon", "Let the Power Fall".
- Record Producer: He is one of many reggae artists to have been produced by the legendary Lee Scratch Perry.
- Repurposed Pop Song: "Three Blind Mice", a nursery rhyme with lyrics about a real-life police raid on party.
- Silly Walk: "One Step Forward"One step forward, two steps backward
