Old Enough to Forget

Johnny Nash is probably best known for his 1972 hit "I Can See Clearly Now," a song I once thought my Uncle Lloyd had written because he used to sing it when I was a kid. When I finally heard Johnny Nash's version on the radio, I was pretty excited. "My uncle wrote that!" Sigh ... the innocence of youth. But before his big breakthrough, he recorded on his own JAD Records label, which was named after himself, producer Arthur Jenkins, and manager Danny Sims. They recorded in Kingston, Jamaica, which was a pretty tropical place to record a holiday album. It kind of explains why songs like "Baby It's Cold Outside," "Winter Wonderland," and "White Christmas" are absent - but record a Christmas album he did, and in 1969 The Prince of Peace was released. I'd never heard any of these songs before, which gave me a moment's pause, but the album looked really cool with the 3D image of Johnny on the cover. As an added bonus, it was...