The history of the original Wailers - Tosh, Livingstone and Marley - as never before told.WITH THANKS AND ALL CREDITS TO THE BBC FOR THIS FANTASTIC FOOTAGE
Over one dramatic decade, a trio of Trenchtown R&B crooners, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer and Bob Marley, swapped their 1960s Brylcreem hairdos and two-tone suits for 1970s battle fatigues and dreadlocks to become the Wailers -- one of the most influential groups in popular music
From youth to early adulthood, they had been inseparable; united in their ambition, through musical harmony and financial reward, to escape Jamaica's Trench Town ghetto. On the cusp of success however, they'd been pulled apart by the elevation of Marley as first among equals and by the razor sharp instincts of Chris Blackwell, the shrewd and charming boss of Island Records.I & I: The Natural Mystics examines for the first time the story of the Wailers, arguing that these musicians offered a model for black men in the second half of the twentiethcentury: accommodate and succeed (Marley), fight and die (Tosh) or ret reat and live (Wailer). It charts their complex relationship, their fluctuating fortunes, musical peak, and the politics andideologies that provoked their split.Following their trail from Jamaica through Europe, America, Africa and back to the vibrant and volatile world of Trench Town, Colin Grant travels in search of the last surviving Wailer. He unravels the roots of their charisma, their adoption of the cult of Rastafari, their suspicion of race pimps and Obeah men (witch doctors), and illuminates why the Wailers were not just extraordinary musicians, but also natural mystics.
Published January 2011 by Jonathan Cape
www.vintage-books.co.uk
From youth to early adulthood, they had been inseparable; united in their ambition, through musical harmony and financial reward, to escape Jamaica's Trench Town ghetto. On the cusp of success however, they'd been pulled apart by the elevation of Marley as first among equals and by the razor sharp instincts of Chris Blackwell, the shrewd and charming boss of Island Records.I & I: The Natural Mystics examines for the first time the story of the Wailers, arguing that these musicians offered a model for black men in the second half of the twentiethcentury: accommodate and succeed (Marley), fight and die (Tosh) or ret reat and live (Wailer). It charts their complex relationship, their fluctuating fortunes, musical peak, and the politics andideologies that provoked their split.Following their trail from Jamaica through Europe, America, Africa and back to the vibrant and volatile world of Trench Town, Colin Grant travels in search of the last surviving Wailer. He unravels the roots of their charisma, their adoption of the cult of Rastafari, their suspicion of race pimps and Obeah men (witch doctors), and illuminates why the Wailers were not just extraordinary musicians, but also natural mystics.
Published January 2011 by Jonathan Cape
www.vintage-books.co.uk
via youtube.com
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Bunny Wailer Interview with Colin Grant
BUNNY WAILER
In a rare interview Colin Grant catches up with reggae legend Bunny Wailer on his tour bus at the start of a European tour. Discussing his recent song "Don't Touch the President." about the debacle over the hunt and arrest of the mafia don, Christopher "Dudus" Coke, Bunny also talks about his own controversial prsion sentence for marijuana posession in 1967 which produced one of his greatest songs "Battering Down Sentence."
To listen to the interview:
To listen to the interview:
Colin Grant is a BBC radio producer and independent historian. His first book, Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey, was published in 2008 (Jonathan Cape/OUP). His memoir Bageye at the Wheel, an extract of which, ‘Lino’, will be printed in Granta 111: Going Back, will be published in February 2012.