Bob Marley & Wailers - Catch a Fire
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CD Details
Artist: Bob Marley & WailersBrand: UNIVERSAL
Edition: Music CD
Format: Extra tracks, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2001-06-12
Music Label: Island
Product features:
- MARLEY BOB & THE WAILERS CATCH A FIRE
- Concrete Jungle
- Slave Driver
- 400 Years
- Stop That Train
- Baby We've Got A Date (Rock It Baby)
- Stir It Up
- Kinky Reggae
- No More Trouble
- Midnight Ravers
- High Tide Or Low Tide
- All Day All Night
Music reviews of Catch a Fire
Music Review: Wailers' Classic Island Debut
Rating: 5 Stars
By the time The Wailers began work on "Catch A Fire" in September 1972, the original group (Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Bunny Livingstone) had been together and making a lot of superb music for nearly a decade, but discounting the Leslie Kong-produced "Best Of The Wailers" (the title literally a misnomer, as it was not a compilation), until Island Records head Chris Blackwell bankrolled this project, they had never entered a studio to make an album. Classic singles for the Jamaican market, seminal collaborations with Lee Scratch Perry, self-produced gems on their own label, or Johnny Nash/Danny Sims JAD recordings all deserve to be heard and are easily available, but in 1973 the black music market had caught up with the trend that began in the mid 1960s when the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Rolling Stones, who proved the youth/rock 'n' roll market was not just territory for singles, and the major artists of the era fought for artistic freedom and proved the 'album' was both artistically and commercially viable; thanks to the visionary work of Sly & The Family Stone, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, and others, the idea of a reggae album seemed viable, and The Wailers were just the band to surpass expectations and create a unified classic.
Of course that great band was not together long enough to make very many. The great rhythm section of Aston and Carlton Barett (from Lee Perry's Upsetters) joined the original trio around 1969-70, but following the release of The Wailers' second great album, "Burnin", late in 1973, Bunny Livingston left, and in 1974 Peter Tosh split as well, so that by the time of 1975's "Natty Dread" the group was billed as Bob Marley & The Wailers, and it was clear just who would be the visual focus (or star) and creative force, though the Barretts especially continued to make Marley's great songs and vision into viscerally exciting music.
The "Catch A Fire" available on the single cd is a great album, on just about every level that matters. The songs - seven by Marley, two by Tosh - are very good to classic - the socially concious songs always seem personal, and the album is enriched with terrific and sexy pleasures such as "Kinky Reggae", "We've Got A Date" and "Stir It Up." If the lyrics lapse, the melodies and rhythms never falter, and Blackwell's post-production - adding ex-Free and Johnny Nash keyboardist Rabbit, and guitarist Wayne Perkins (best known for his work on the Stones' "Black And Blue") and a new mix - keeps the album texturally engrossing. Blackwell's intent may have been to make the album more 'commercial,' but the result is actually a hypnotic, almost dub-like effect, and compared to the original Wailers' production, the songs seem to be somehow moving in slow motion - an illusion, not the result of actually slowing down the tapes.
This brings me to the next point: if you love this album, you should really get the 2-cd "Deluxe Edition" which provides the familiar Island classic, in a marvelous remaster, plus the unissued "Jamaican" (Wailers) version, before the tapes were worked on in London. Both versions are wonderful, the Wailers' original clearly a bridge between the group's previous recordings (especially from 1969 - 72, when Perry and the Barretts became involved) and the Island years. The mixes are more direct, each vocal and instrumental part more clearly defined, and the vocal harmonies of the original trio more upfront in the mix. It is clear some of the lead vocals were re-done, as there are some slight lyrical variations. The soul and charisma are evident on both versions, and I'm glad to be able to alternate depending on my mood. I should mention that the two bonus tracks are both superb: "High Tide or Low Tide" is a gorgeous and passionate gem worthy of Curtis Mayfield at his best, while "All Night All Day" is a nifty vocal showcase with a groove and lyrics that show just how immersed the Wailers were in American soul music. "Catch A Fire" was one of only two classic studio albums made by the Marley/Tosh/Bunny/Barretts lineup, and I recommend without reservation the Deluxe edition; it's twice as much of one of the great albums of its era, in any genre.
Description of Catch a Fire
MARLEY BOB & THE WAILERS CATCH A FIREInternational CDs
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