10 rare songs of rebellion and redemption
It's a well known fact that wherever you go in the world, you're never more than 20ft away from a copy of Legend by Bob Marley and the Wailers. Limiting yourself to the hits, however, is to deprive yourself of a whole galaxy of world-changing reggae. BBC producer and historian Colin Grant is the author of I & I: The Natural Mystics: Marley, Tosh & Wailer (Vintage), a new book which tells the story of how Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer formed the Wailers and how their complex relationship and competing ideologies shaped some of the most remarkable music ever recorded. Here, Grant guides GQ.com through ten tracks which help explain the band's journey from the Trench Town ghetto to worldwide acclaim.
1. Simmer Down
Simmer Down
The first track ever recorded by the teenage Wailers at Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd's fledgling Studio One in 1964. Marley wasn't enthused, thinking it sounded like a nursery rhyme. As novice vocalists, the Wailers were backed by the exemplary Skatalites. The studio only had crudely padded walls and the most basic mixing desk, but the tight arrangement of "Simmer Down", with its appeal to the island's rude boys to put away their weapons, thrilled Jamaican audiences and gave the Wailers their first hit.
2. Dreamland
Bunny Wailer's ethereal vocals on "Dreamland" melt the heart. First recorded in 1966 with Tosh and Marley on backing, it's widely credited as Bunny Wailer's masterpiece and as a yearning for a return to the dreamland of Mother Africa. "Dreamland" though was actually written by Al Johnson and was an America R&B released four years earlier by the El Tempos. Even so Wailer's rendition is a stunning piece of work.
[Bunny Wailer pictured above with the author, Colin Grant]
3. Soul Rebel
Soul Rebel
"Soul Rebel", which was produced when the Wailers teamed up with the mercurial Lee "Scratch" Perry [pictured], is the best example of their 1970 funky folk experiment. The group had broken with Coxsone Dodd and tried to go their own way, but their career was floundering when they took a chance with Perry. Their involvement with the mischievous producer was a musical high point although Perry offended their growing Rasta sensibilities by producing an eroticised cover for the Soul Rebels album, featuring a girl in revealing battle fatigues brandishing a machine gun.
Duppy Conqueror
Like many Jamaicans, the Wailers were not immune to superstition and fear surrounding Obeah (witchcraft) and Duppys (ghosts). With "Duppy Conqueror" they amusingly and defiantly conquered those fears (at least temporarily) and laid the ghosts to rest. The wit and lyrical inventiveness of "Duppy Conqueror" owes much to their collaboration with Perry who also introduced greater fluidity to the music with the addition of the Barrett brothers on drums and bass [Bob Marley and Aston 'Family Man' Barrett pictured above].
5. 400 Years
400 Years
Peter Tosh's [pictured] plaintive cry on "400 Years" captures the heart-rending angst of the Wailers, the pitch-perfect harmony and the group's skilful overlapping call-and-response. The memory of slavery is never far from the surface of contemporary Jamaican life; "400 Years" is a pitiful lament for the sufferers who laboured for centuries under the degradations of the Driver's whip.
6. Small Axe
Small Axe
If this 1970 track has something of the quality of a hymn about it, it is also evidence of the Wailers at their most playful and provocative. Perry, allegedly, was visiting the toilet when the lyrics came to him and he quickly scribbled them down on the back of toilet paper. The line: "If you are a big tree, we are a small axe" is explained by Jamaicans' tendency to drop the 'h' in words. The big three refers to the three record studios - Treasure Isle, Federal and Studio One - who dominated the music scene; the small axe represents the smaller outfits like Perry's Upsetters' label and the Wailers' Tuff Gong who were going to take the big three and cut them down.
Concrete Jungle
A spine-shivering yet achingly beautiful remembrance of the ghetto life and the concrete jungle that was home to the Wailers for many years - a place, despite being a sun-drenched island, where no sun will shine on their lives. "Concrete Jungle" will be remembered for the group's scintillating performance on the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test in 1973 where Marley demonstrated the full power of his Jamaican duende, the ability to transmit a profoundly felt emotion.
8. Kinky Reggae
Kinky Reggae
The Wailers were not above being suggestive and penning songs dripping with innuendo but "Kinky Reggae" is light and joyous, though often mistaken for being a dirty song. The misunderstanding comes not just from the title but also from the line: "She had brown sugar all over her bugga wugga". But a "bugga wugga" is actually just a pair of cheap shoes worn by sugar cane cutters whose feet would be covered in dark residue from the cut cane by the day's end. "Kinky Reggae" is much more saccharine than lewd.
Rastaman Chant
By the early 1970s the Wailers had become Rastafari's greatest ambassadors. In "Rastaman Chant" listeners are transported to the campfire, and are seduced by the drumming; they conjure the Rastas, flashing their dreadlocks as lightning conductors and happily passing the chillum pipe. "Rastaman Chant" is a praise song and an invocation of Babylon's downfall. It is elemental and mesmerising, and offers an escape from the tribulations of life.
10. Corner Stone
Corner Stone
One of Bob Marley's most biographical songs was born out of an attempt at reconciliation. Abandoned by his father at birth, the teenage Marley went in search of his wealthy relatives and was brutally spurned by them. In "Corner Stone" Marley aligns himself with the wretched of the earth, the sufferers who were rejected by society. Marley, who was rarely apart from the Bible, took comfort from the suggestion that the corner stone or head stone is the one that the builder first rejects. In "Corner Stone", Bob Marley sings beyond pain and finds a poignant and fitting parable for his own triumphant life.
- Published 23 Jan 2012
- Online editing by Kevin Perry
