For a woman who tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II on live television, Sinead O'Connor is downright devout. Her faith now is Rastafarianism, the Jamaican creed that brought righteousness to reggae.
Ms. O'Connor's latest album, "Throw Down Your Arms" (That's Why There's Chocolate and Vanilla), is a collection of songs by reggae patriarchs like Burning Spear, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, the Abyssinians and Lee Perry. Like a convert making a pilgrimage, she recorded the album in Kingston, Jamaica, with the eminent reggae producers Sly and Robbie: Sly Dunbar on drums and Robbie Shakespeare on bass.
Sly and Robbie also lead Ms. O'Connor's band on the tour that brought her to Webster Hall on Friday night. Winston Rodney, a k a Burning Spear, was by her side, playing congas and sometimes joining her with his craggy, adamant voice.
By Friday's concert, Ms. O'Connor had all but sloughed off her previous career. She sang none of her own songs, and onstage as on the album, she strove to reproduce the original reggae arrangements. She only briefly unleashed the banshee ululation that was once her trademark; it got cheers. Most of the time, she sang in broad, forthright phases with a hoarse edge, a voice of abiding conviction.
Ms. O'Connor largely ignored reggae's love songs, dance tunes and ganja songs. Except for Mr. Perry's "Curly Locks," a seduction ballad in which she urges, "Play with me," her reggae testified to belief, compassion and righteous wrath. She dedicated Peter Tosh's "Downpressor Man," with its Biblical images of vengeance, to "the ladies."
The songs, many of them dating back to the 1970's, are stalwart ones, and Ms. O'Connor had the best back-up imaginable. Mr. Shakespeare's bass lines were laconic and unswerving. Mr. Dunbar's drumming was just as steady but constantly surprising, using little cymbal flurries or clattering rim shots or stuttering tom-tom accents to customize each steadfast midtempo song. Ms. O'Connor danced to their beat with a skipping, bouncing motion somewhere between Jamaican skanking and an Irish reel.
Reggae is no recent infatuation for Ms. O'Connor; before tearing up the pope's photograph in 1992, she sang Bob Marley's "War" (with lyrics from a speech by Haile Selassie, or Ras Tafari), which was also part of Friday's set. Her dedication to reggae sounds fervent and genuine. But the best parts of the set were the ones that added her own personality to the homage: singing the Christmas song "Veni, Emmanuel" over Afro-Jamaican drumming during her version of Burning Spear's "Door Peep," or turning the modal melody of "Jah Nuh Dead" into something like a Celtic lament. Ms. O'Connor has more to offer than reggae tributes.
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