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Jackie Edwards has been called the Nat King Cole of Jamaica, and in many ways it is an apt description for this smooth and versatile singer, who was also a gifted songwriter. Born Wilfred Gerald Edwards in 1938, he was a star on the island by the late 1950s, when he was discovered by future Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, who persuaded Edwards to relocate to the U.K. in 1962. Edwards had a huge talent, and although some critics have dismissed him as too smooth and sentimental (he was the original "cool ruler"), he recorded solid material in all of Jamaica's evolving musical modes, including ska, rocksteady, roots and lovers rock (a style for which his approach was clearly a prototype), but also made contributions in straight pop styles, even recording a marvelous gospel album. He wrote the first three chart hits for the Spencer Davis Group in the mid-1960s, including the classics "Keep on Running" and "Somebody Help Me," and his "Get Up" formed the compositional base for The...