Love to see when ya move in the rhythm;
I love to see, when you're dancin' from within!
It gives great joy to feel such sweet togetherness,
Everyone doin' and they're doing their best..
BM. - Jump Nyabinghi.
Bob Marley died on May 11th 1981 from cancer that had spread from a toe injury to his entire body. That was 28 years ago today and since then his music has spread worldwide possibly making him the most popular musician in the world. There are books devoted to showing his acceptance in culures as diverse as the Maori and the Hopi and Navajo Indians and the South African ANC and the Touregs! In short, every third world society.
He affected me in a way that no other musician ever has, I discovered his music right at the start of his Island career with their release in 1972 of his first album, 'Catch a Fire': I was bowled over by it and every year thereafter looked forward with great anticipation to all of his future albums and US tours, in his lifetime he released 10 albums on Island and visited the US regularly, I in turn visited Jamaica equally regularly.
As with many things, I've been obsessive re. his music, I have all of his recordings in multiple copies and formats, every video and documentary that I could find, board checks from many performances and a stack books and bio's devoted to him and his music.
Love of his music brought me into contact with Rasta which is both a cultural and religious movement, I strongly related to the cultural aspects plus it made me aware of the rich cultural heritage of Jamaica, I became involved in the island's art, literature, language and folklore, in short, for a period of about 20 odd years I was obsessed with all things Jamaican and made a point of documenting them.
When Bob died his estate was valued at $200 million, since then his wife Rita Marley has successfully used the courts to deny any of the Wailers a share in the wealth even though every Wailer album states 'Produced by Bob Marley AND the Wailers', Familyman Barrett recently had to sell his house to cover the legal costs of a claim he brought against her; he lost the case. She was able, through her lawyers, to claim that he and all the other living Wailers were only hired hands, similar in a way to how Miles Davis treated all the members of his Kind of Blue band when that became the all-time highest grossing jazz album, it netted him millions of dollars, the musicians were paid for 3.5 hours at union scale. They got $62 each!
A couple of weeks ago I re-activated my mini-disc recorder, it had sat unused on a shelf since my DJ days, I started scanning though a stack of discs and discovered several filled with BMW's vinyl transfers that I'd made for broadcast, they took me back years to that era and I again realised just how much I'd loved his music and how much I enjoy listening to it, so here's a selection from those mini-discs, not the songs that have been played regularly but some which didn't get a lot of airplay but are just as wonderful, hope you enjoy them also.
1. JUMP NYABINGHI.
2. BABYLON SYSTEM.
3. NATURAL MYSTIC.
4. STIFF NECKED FOOLS.
5. TIME WILL TELL.
6. COULD YOU BE LOVED? - 12" mix
7. SUN IS SHINING.
8. RASTAMAN LIVE UP.
9. RIDE NATTY RIDE. - 12" mix
10. ONE DROP.
11. ONE LOVE/PEOPLE GET READY. - 12" mix
12. WAKE UP AND LIVE
13. EXODUS. - 12" mix
The Wailers on all these cuts are:
Bob - Rhythm Guitar.
Aston Barrett - Bass & piano.
Carlton Barrett - Drums.
Tyrone Downie - Keyboards.
Wya Lindo - Keyboards
Alvin Seeco Patterson - Percussion.
Junior Marvin - Lead guitar.
Al Anderson - Lead guitar.
The I Threes; Judy Mowatt.
Marcia Griffiths.
Rita Marley.
Horns: Glen DaCosta - tenor.
Vinnie Gordon - tb.
Dave Madden - tpt.
Lyrics are at: http://www.elyrics.net/song/b/bob-marley-lyrics.html
9 comments:
I love all these songs, Goneforeign, thank you.
Goneforeign -great music, thank you. Also thank you for the wildlife photograhs on Dropbox - absolutely amazing, I really enjoyed looking at them. I presume it's something you do for a living? (Excuse my ignorance if you are famous - and if you're not famous, then you should be!)
Ali: They're not my pictures though I am a photographer, I wish I was that good. They came to me via email and I wanted to share them and the box seemed the appropriate place, I didn't label them GF's pictures, that was an error.
Glad you like the music and thanks for the comment.
Thanks for these songs, gf!
Excellent playlist, gf, yet again. I get deeper and deeper in debt to you with everything you post.
Ali, I thought you'd have recognised the leaping lamb photo - last year's winner for the Countryfile Calendar competition.
DsD: Thank you again, glad you enjoy Bob. If you plan on any party's, play this lot, that'll get 'em up and dancing double quick. I missed the leaping lamb last year but I just wanted to add that those were not the work of one photographer, it's a collection of wildlife pics gathered from everywhere.
DsD - I'm still at work when Countryfile comes on. Ggggngh.
Thanks for these GF, as a very casual "fan" (i.e. i've been content to make do with a battered copy of "Legend" for the last ten years) I think i'll definitely have to start investing in a few individual albums.
When I was about 17 my sister went to Jamaica (to get married) and brought me back a small book/pamphlet that she had bought at the Bob Marley museum called something like "The Intellectual Roots Of Rastafari". It gave the overall beliefs and philosophy of Rasta and was very intriguing to my young mind. I followed it up by reading a BM biography, which again was inspirational and fascinating, but I never followed it up with any music...hmm strange.....maybe the time has finally come......
Panther: Thanks for the comment and for your interest, if I were you I'd dub this lot to your iPod or whatever and give it a few listenings, there isn't a dud in the 10 Islands and there's much besides them.
As the Chambers Bros once said, "The Time has come Today!"
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