Dreadlock Springs

Rip It Up, Issue 21, 1 April 1979, Page 3

Dreadlock Springs

John Malloy

If reggae hasn’t quite achieved the sales and impact expected of it over the last five years, there is at least one artist that has made the crossover. About half the meagre reggae catalogue in NZ is made up of Marley records, while Bob commutes between his home in one of the wealthier suburbs of Kingston, and Babylon, which pays for it all, doing a fine public relations job for Rastafarianism and ganja, the Islands’ two most interesting exports. This was not always so. Many years ago, Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Livingstone were the Wailing Rudeboys, cleanheads with suits singing for the local market long before the word reggae was invented. As ska and

bluebeat was followed by rocksteady, and then (after Toots) the insidious reggae rhythm, so the band became the Waiters, stealing the Barrett brothers from another band to hold the beat down. Thus was combined the superb Wailer harmonies and the incredibly tight Tosh/Barrett brothers rhythm section. It was in this form that they surfaced in London in 1973 to put out two made-for-Babylon records, Catch A Fire and Burnin', the covers featuring the well-known Marley-with-spliff combination and the not-quite-dread locks. Of the two, Burnin' is my favourite, being the first reggae I ever heard. This was the Waiters peak, an album of songs of religious intensity, played with a snap that made your feet move and your heart beat with the reggae pulse. It opens with "Get Up Stand Up” and includes the muchcopied but never topped "I Shot The Sheriff". Two Tosh songs and two Jean Watt songs, featuring Bunny Livingstone’s high vocals, make for one of the most richly varied albums around. Catch A Fire is another excellent album, once more predominantly Marley songs but with two excellent Tosh tracks giving that added dimension. "Stop That Train” is a Tosh classic, and Marley contributes two great tunes in "Baby We Got A Date” and "Stir It Up", the latter a minor hit for Johnny Na9h. In 1975 the Wallers split up, Tosh and Livingstone leaving for solo careers. Marley added an American guitarist, Al Anderson, and a keyboard player (Touter). The record that resulted, Natty Dread, contained some militant Rasta songs such as "Revolution" and "3 o'clock Road Block", but also included the rockers "Lively Up Yourself" and "Bend Down Low”. It was a strong album, but the l-Threes tended to sound like a soul backup outfit instead of the Waiters’ gospel-influenced harmony. Next came the live album which probably got the band known in this country, and it was followed by Rastaman Vibration, released at a time when more interesting reggae such as Toots and Burning Spear were starting to get heard here. Marley’s more recent records, Exodus and Kaya, have shown a consistency that is unnerving. Both are excellent productions, and Marley keeps coming up with good songs. Kaya was criticised in some quarters for being bland, but I do not agree. The only problem is the sameness of some of the material and of Marley’s voice, a problem that may not bother Marley's newer listeners as much as it does me. We get to see the band, which now includes Junior Marvin on guitar, on Easter Monday. Marley has a superb reputation as a live performer, and from the film clips I’ve seen, and from a listen to "Babylon By Bus”, I can see why. No band rocks you better than the best reggae band, and Marley’s outfit are strong contenders. Come we go down deh. Catch a fire.