"I shot the sheriff/But I swear it was self-defense." Marley's skin-taut phrasing accents the song's metaphorical thrust, protesting an oppressive temporal order: "Every day the bucket a go a well/One day the bottom a go drop out." It is righteous threat reiterated by "Burnin' and Lootin'," although the ultimate aim remains life: "Give me the food and let me grow." Opened by bone-dry rim shots, the group enters vocally over whip-muffled guitar against staccato piano, ethereal. For another, it contains more individual high-points, although collectors will still want African Herbsman (Trojan TRLS 62), an English anthology of Jamaican Wailer singles.Īmong the new material, "I Shot the Sheriff" stands out. For one thing, the album sticks more closely to the ensemble's live sound, minus too many psyche-delicate embellishments. (Rastas live in the knowledge of human divinity, incarnate in the person of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie.) The cumulative impact of aromatic lyrics and loping pace builds an aura of privileged spiritual access - as if the listener were privy, however indirectly, to ecstatic vision in a kind of Jamaican Gnosticism.īurnin' offers a rather more representative sampling of the Wailers' unique wares than Catch A Fire, their previous US LP. Most of Marley's compositions hover in an iridescent half-haze of mystery his oblique allusions frequently draw on a recondite imagery, based in Rastafarian iconography.
Wire Lindo's keyboard incursions, on organ, piano and synthesizer, further garnish this mainstream with bounding harmonic quips. The band's rhythmic pulse resides in the restrained interchange among Aston "Family Man" Barrett's loping bass, Carlie Barrett's splintered drums, and McIntosh's swat-chunk guitar. Marley's lyrics, generally sparse, encourage an equally languid instrumental spaciousness. In Marley's mouth, reggae almost sounds simple. His brittle vocal tones, parched locutions and angular metrics propel the band with lazy force. Percussionist Bunny Livingstone sings with the gospel intensity of Eddie Kendricks, while lead guitarist Peter McIntosh rasps with the emotive force of David Ruffin.īut the main vocalist, and the band's chief creative focus, is Bob Marley (probably most familiar as the composer of "Stir It Up"). (Other Jamaican stars, like "Toots" Hibbert and the Maytals, only sing and compose.) The group's three founding members all handle vocal as well as instrumental chores.
He prefers instead wah-wah and synthesizer, the spaced-out effects popularized in this country by Sly and Stevie Wonder.īy merging original compositions, tight instrumental reflexes and a distilled mix of church voices (exiled), the Wailers (like the Family Stone) can lay claim to musical completeness. Marley naturally eschews strings and assorted orchestral goo he hardly needs them.
#Bob marley burnin zippy free#
In contrast to the polished "chart" reggae essayed by artists like Jimmy Cliff and Desmond Dekker, the Wailers brew a more potent blend of herbal and melodic remedies - aural impressions of ganga-befogged mental expanses, dotted with lucid oases of dancing souls, free at last. One of their Jamaican hits ("Trench Town Rock") put it succinctly: "One good thing about music/When it hits you feel no pain." When Bob Marley and the Wailers play reggae, they approach something akin to temporal release.
0 kommentar(er)
