Bob Marley - The Greatest?
April 28th 2006 07:53
With someone like Bob Marley, who is the biggest name in the non-reggae world, you’d expect he’d be on the nose of many die hard ska and reggae fans. I am surprised I like him and I am surprised how many reggae fans who know about the huge wealth of talent in the reggae/ska world, like him as well. This got me thinking, how can this be so?
I first came up with a comparison. You don’t get many rockers or teddy boys bad mouthing Elvis do you, at least not until his Las Vegas fat man jump suit days. This didn’t really help me answer my question though. All I could think of from that is Elvis put out a lot of quite good stuff. Okay some fantastic stuff. I’ve already answered my question really. Bob Marley over his career was involved with and released some quality material. It is this quality mainly that makes him so enjoyed. Perhaps too, it helps that he didn’t put out anything really gimmicky. If he’d done a string of Christmas albums I wouldn’t have been so respectful, although there is the odd Xmas song!
Looking at the most obvious album, Legend, I realise I like every song on the album. Some more than others of course, but it is an excellent introduction to Marley. There is a lot more to the man of course and I can bet a lot more songs were recorded than most know about, unless you have sought it out.
In opposition to Legend, if you want to go obscure, a great album to get your hands on is Bob Marley and the Wailers - Destiny: Rare Ska Sides from Studio One, which has some really good upbeat tunes on it and gives the non reggae connoisseur an idea of where the Wailers were coming from.
From a personal perspective, I do have some favourite songs:
-Soul Shakedown Party
-Simmer Down
-Go Jimmy Go
-Rocking Steady
-Mr Chatterbox
-Jamming
And the list could go on. I still don’t know whether he is the greatest artist in reggae, but he is up there and he will remain up there. Don’t miss out on what he has to offer.
I first came up with a comparison. You don’t get many rockers or teddy boys bad mouthing Elvis do you, at least not until his Las Vegas fat man jump suit days. This didn’t really help me answer my question though. All I could think of from that is Elvis put out a lot of quite good stuff. Okay some fantastic stuff. I’ve already answered my question really. Bob Marley over his career was involved with and released some quality material. It is this quality mainly that makes him so enjoyed. Perhaps too, it helps that he didn’t put out anything really gimmicky. If he’d done a string of Christmas albums I wouldn’t have been so respectful, although there is the odd Xmas song!
Looking at the most obvious album, Legend, I realise I like every song on the album. Some more than others of course, but it is an excellent introduction to Marley. There is a lot more to the man of course and I can bet a lot more songs were recorded than most know about, unless you have sought it out.
A young Bob Marley with Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh
From a personal perspective, I do have some favourite songs:
-Soul Shakedown Party
-Simmer Down
-Go Jimmy Go
-Rocking Steady
-Mr Chatterbox
-Jamming
And the list could go on. I still don’t know whether he is the greatest artist in reggae, but he is up there and he will remain up there. Don’t miss out on what he has to offer.
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