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Bob Marley and the Wailers | |
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 Bob Marley and the Wailers performing in 1980 | |
| Background information | |
| Also known as |
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| Origin | Kingston, Jamaica |
| Genres | |
| Discography | Bob Marley and the Wailers discography |
| Years active | 1963–1981 |
| Labels |
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| Spinoffs | |
| Spinoff of | The Upsetters |
| Past members | |
| Website | bobmarley |
Bob Marley and the Wailers (previously known asthe Wailers and prior to thatthe Wailing Rudeboys,the Wailing Wailers andthe Teenagers) were a Jamaican ska, rocksteady andreggae band. The founding members, in 1963, wereBob Marley (Robert Nesta Marley),Peter Tosh (Winston Hubert McIntosh), andBunny Wailer (Neville Livingston).
During 1970 and 1971, Wailer, Marley and Tosh worked with renownedreggae producersLeslie Kong andLee "Scratch" Perry.
Before signing toIsland Records in 1972, the band released four albums. Two additional albums were produced before Tosh and Wailer departed from the band in 1974, citing dissatisfaction with their treatment by the label and ideological disagreements. Marley continued with a new lineup, which included the I-Threes, and went on to release seven more albums. Marley died from cancer in 1981, at which point the group disbanded.
The Wailers were a groundbreaking ska and reggae group, noted for songs such as "Simmer Down", "Trenchtown Rock", "Nice Time", "War", "Stir It Up" and "Get Up, Stand Up".
The band formed in 1963 following self-taught musicianPeter Tosh (1944–1987) meeting the singersBunny Wailer (1947–2021) andBob Marley (1945–1981). They developed aska vocal group called the Teenagers. The group soon changed their name to the Wailing Rudeboys and then to the Wailing Wailers before settling on the Wailers.[1]
The band topped the Jamaican charts in 1964 with "Simmer Down", which was recorded at Studio One with the rhythm section from the studio house bandthe Skatalites. "Simmer Down" was a message to the Jamaican rude boys to "simmer down, oh cool your temper" and became an overnight hit. The record played an essential role in changing the musical agenda in Jamaica from imitating foreign artists, to capturing the lives and spirit of Jamaica.[2]
Wailer, Marley and Tosh recorded withLee "Scratch" Perry and his studio bandthe Upsetters. They also worked with renownedreggae producerLeslie Kong, who used his studio musicians, called Beverley's All-Stars (Jackie Jackson,Paul Douglas,Gladstone Anderson,Winston Wright, Rad Bryan,Hux Brown) to record the songs that would be released as an album titledThe Best of The Wailers.[3]
By late 1963, singersJunior Braithwaite,Beverley Kelso, andCherry Smith had joined the group. The line-up consisted ofBraithwaite on vocals,Marley on guitar,Tosh on keyboard,Wailer on percussion, withSmith and orKelso on backing vocals. Kelso remembered those early recordings fondly:
After we rehearsed, under this big mango tree on Second Street in Trench Town, the next morning, I think it was in late 1963, we went to Studio 1 and recorded Simmer Down and some other songs. It was Peter, Bunny, Junior, Bob, and me. I will never forget. Sid Bucknor was the engineer, andCoxsone was also there along with Roland and Jackie Mittoo. We recorded Simmer Down about 10 times, probably because Dodd wanted to get the best cut, she said.[4]
In 1965, Kelso left the band. Marley, Tosh, Wailer and Braithwaite took turns on lead vocals.[5] Braithwaite left shortly after providing lead vocals for the single "It Hurts to be Alone", leaving the band consisting of the trio of Wailer, Marley and Tosh.[5] The band's first full-length album,The Wailing Wailers, was released the same year, a compilation of tracks recorded at different times.
In 1966, they created arocksteadyrecord labelWail N Soul M.[6] Constantine "Dream" Walker provided backing vocals from 1966 to 1967.[citation needed]
In May 1970, the band recorded with renownedreggae producerLeslie Kong; producingThe Best of the Wailers, which they released later in 1971 as their fourth album. Over the rest of 1970 and 1971, the band worked with Lee 'Scratch' Perry, producing the bands second and third albums,Soul Rebels (1970) andSoul Revolution Part II (1971). During this time, theUpsetters membersAston "Family Man" Barrett (bass) and his brotherCarlton Barrett (drums)[7] were recruited as instrumental backing for The Wailers.[citation needed]
In 1972, while in London, the Wailers asked their road manager Brent Clarke to introduce them toChris Blackwell, who had licensed some of theirCoxsone releases for hisIsland Records. The Wailers felt they were due royalties from these releases. Blackwell was not convinced, but he was impressed by their character. He thought they "exuded power and self-possession" despite being poor. Despite not having seen the band perform live, he advanced them £4,000 to record an album. He did not even require them to sign anything, feeling they deserved a break.[8][9]Jimmy Cliff, Island's top reggae star, had recently left the label. His departure may have primed Blackwell to find a replacement. In Marley, Blackwell recognized the elements needed to snare the rock audience: "I was dealing with rock music, which was really rebel music. I felt that would really be the way to break Jamaican music. But you needed someone who could be that image. When Bob walked in, he really was that image."[10] The Wailers returned to Jamaica to record at Harry J's in Kingston, which resulted in the foundational tracks what would make up the albumCatch a Fire. Primarily recorded on an eight-track,Catch a Fire marked the first time a reggae band had access to a state-of-the-art studio and were accorded the same care as their rock 'n' roll peers.[10]
The tracks were taken toIsland Studios in London and worked on by Blackwell, with Marley supervising. Blackwell desired the tracks to appeal to rock audiences in the United Kingdom and United States, to whom the band would be novel.[11][9] To this end, he made the tracks sound "more of a drifting, hypnotic-type feel than a reggae rhythm".[12] He restructured Marley's mixes and arrangements. The tracks were overdubbed with the help ofWayne Perkins on guitar andJohn “Rabbit” Bundrick on keyboard.[11] The mix deviated from the bass-heavy sound of Jamaican music, and two tracks were omitted.[10] The album released in April 1973, closely followed byBurnin' in October 1973.Burnin' contained the songs "Get Up, Stand Up" (credited to Tosh and Marley) and Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff"; acover version of the latter wasEric Clapton's first US #1 in 1974.
In 1974, Livingston left the band due to various disagreements with Blackwell, including not getting paid for the English leg of their Burnin' tour, and his refusal to play in the "freak clubs" that Island had booked the band. Tosh believed that producerBlackwell, whom he unfavorably called "Chris Whiteworst", was responsible for the bad relationship between the band members. He thought Blackwell favored Marley over the rest of the band, giving him more attention and money,[10] and with the decision to release their albums under the name "Bob Marley and the Wailers" instead of "The Wailers".[citation needed]
Marley continued with a new line-up, which included the Aston Barrett (bass), Carlton Barrett (drums),Junior Marvin (lead guitar),Al Anderson (lead guitar),Tyrone Downie (keyboards),Earl "Wya" Lindo (keyboards), andAlvin "Seeco" Patterson on percussion. Additionally, the I-Threes provided female backing vocals. The three I-Three members were Marley's wifeRita Marley,Judy Mowatt andMarcia Griffiths.[13] Their name is a spin on theRastafarian "I and I" concept of theGodhead within each person.
The albumNatty Dread was released in 1974, the first without Tosh and Livingston and with the I-Threes. It featured "No Woman, No Cry", a seminal song in the Wailers' canon, along with "Lively Up Yourself" and the more political "Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)". In 1975 a live version of "No Woman, No Cry", recorded at theLyceum Theatre in London during theNatty Dread tour, became Bob Marley & the Wailers' first successful single outside reggae circles, reaching #22 on the UK singles chart.[14]
Perry released two compilation albums forTrojan Records in 1974,Rasta Revolution andAfrican Herbsman, which contained songs fromSoul Rebels andSoul Revolution Part II, respectively, and he was the copyright holder of several songs from these albums.[15] These changes caused a major dispute between Marley and Perry, when the former saw the albums, six months after their publication, in the Half Way Road in England.[16]
Bob Marley & the Wailers' next album, 1976'sRastaman Vibration, was a breakthrough success in the US, reaching #8 on the Billboard 200 chart.[17] The song "War" featured lyrics taken directly from the text of aHaile Selassie speech. The album credits numerous songwriters, including Bob and Rita Marley, the Barretts and Marley's childhood mentor and friendVincent Ford amongst others. Marley was in dispute with publishing company Cayman Music and sought to avoid contractual entanglements by putting the songs in the names of his family and friends, and provide them with potential future income.[18]
Also in 1976, Bunny Wailer (Livingston) released his debut solo albumBlackheart Man, with Marley and Tosh contributing backing vocals and the Barretts forming the rhythm section on some tracks. Peter Tosh also released his first solo album entitledLegalize It. Marley and Livingston received co-writing credits on some of the songs. Most of the then-current Wailers band (the Barretts, Anderson, Downie) played on the record, with Rita Marley providing backing vocals.
Following anassassination attempt at their home inKingston in December 1976, the Marleys moved to London, England in early 1977. Most of the current Wailers line-up followed, with Marley also recruiting Jamaican-born, London-raised guitaristJunior Marvin. This line-up recorded the next Bob Marley & the Wailers album,Exodus, released in June, 1977. The album title (and title track) were conceived in response to Jamaican Prime MinisterMichael Manley's campaign slogan, 'We Know Where We're Going'.[19] Featuring downbeat reggae rhythms fused with elements of soul, blues and English rock,Exodus was a top-20 hit in the US[20] and UK[21] while the song "Exodus" was #1 in Jamaica.Exodus also featured numerous songs which would go on to be hits and iconic Bob Marley & the Wailers tunes in their own right, including "Jamming", "Waiting In Vain", a new version of 1965's "One Love/People Get Ready" and the carefree, optimistic "Three Little Birds". In 1999,Time magazine namedExodus the greatest album of the 20th century[22] and the album has continued to feature in best-of-all-time lists.[23]
In March 1978 the albumKaya was released. The record wascoolly received by critics, who found it lightweight and uninspired followingExodus. Nevertheless,Kaya went top-5 in the UK[24] and contained the hit single "Is This Love".Kaya also contained new versions of three songs from 1971'sSoul Revolution II. Bob Marley & the Wailers toured Europe extensively in support ofKaya, resulting in the live albumBabylon by Bus, also released in 1978.
Marley and the Wailers returned to Jamaica in April 1978 to play theOne Love Peace Concert in Kingston, aimed at calming political tensions and violence in their home country. Near the end of the concert Marley joined hands on stage with Manley and opposition leaderEdward Seaga.[25]
Bob Marley had a lifelong interest in Africa, having visited Ethiopia briefly in 1978.[26] Themes of African independence and pan-African unity dominated 1979's overtly political albumSurvival. Songs including "Africa Unite", "Zimbabwe" and "Wake Up and Live" made Marley's feelings plain, while the single "One Drop" employed a double-meaning of thereggae rhythm used in the song and asystem of racial classification used in the USA. In 1980, Bob Marley (absent Wailers) was invited to perform "Zimbabwe" at the country's Independence Day celebrations.[27]
In 1977, following persistent pain in his right big toe, Bob Marley had been diagnosed withacral lentiginous melanoma, a rare form of skin cancer.[28] Doctors recommended amputation of the toe, but Marley refused for religious reasons; he also feared it would hinder stage performance.[29][30] Bob Marley & the Wailers pressed on, planning extensive worldwide tours.[31]
The last Bob Marley & the Wailers' album released in Bob's lifetime,Uprising, appeared in June, 1980. An assertive affirmation of Marley'sRastafarian beliefs, the album contained the song "Forever Loving Jah", the solo acoustic, folk-based "Redemption Song", believed by some to be Marley'sfinest song and the successful single "Could You Be Loved".
The band embarked on a US tour to promote the album. One of the last performances that included Marley was in 1980 at Madison Square Garden. His final live show was performed at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh. By September 1980, Marley could no longer perform live. He sought alternative cancer treatments in Europe before attempting to return home to Jamaica.[32] Marley's condition worsened on the flight and he died in a Miami hospital on May 11, 1981.
A Bob Marley & the Wailers album,Confrontation, was released in May 1983, two year's after Bob Marley's death. It contained unreleased anddemo songs recorded during Marley's lifetime. Backing vocals by the I-Threes were added to several of the songs to give the album some consistency. "Buffalo Soldier", a single released from the album, was a top-10 hit in the UK.[33]
The music of Marley,Tosh andWailer enjoyed considerable success as reggae music continued to gain popularity during the 1980s. In 1984 Island Records released a Bob Marley & the Wailers 'greatest hits' album, entitledLegend. The album contains all ten of the Wailers' top-40 UK hits, plus "Redemption Song" and three songs from the Marley/Tosh/Livingston era, "Stir It Up", "Get Up, Stand Up" and "I Shot the Sheriff".Legend went to #1 on the UK album charts and peaked at #5 in the USA,[34] but it has stayed in the Billboard 200 and UK top 100 since release. It is officially the biggest-selling reggae album ever, with an estimated 28 million copies sold globally (as of 2024)[35]
Carlton Barrett and Tosh died —both of them murdered— in 1987.[36][37]Braithwaite was murdered in 1999.[38]
The Wailers Band was formed byAston Barrett in 1989.The Original Wailers was instead formed byAnderson andMarvin in 2008, the same year in whichCherry Smith died.[39][40]
The rest of the original members of the band died within a few years of each other:Earl Lindo died in 2017,[41] and bothAlvin "Seeco" Patterson andBunny Wailer (Livingston) died in 2021.[42][43] KeyboardistTyrone Downie died in 2022,[44] andAston Barrett died in February 2024.[45]Donald Kinsey died in February 2024, on Bob Marley's birthday, February 6, three days after the loss of Aston Barrett.[46]
In 2001,Catch a Fire was reissued as a double album, with the first part being the previously unreleased 'Jamaican' versions of the song without Blackwell's overdubs and the second part being the album as it was released in 1972.[11]
In March 2013, an overview of most of the music made by the Wailers prior to their signing toIsland Records was published by theRoots Reggae Library.[47]
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