40 Year Itch : Wake Up & Turn I Loose

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   Following shortly on the heels of the 1973 Island Records release Catch A Fire, Trojan Records put out African Herbsman, a collection of  recordings by Bob Marley and the Wailers most of which were produced as far back as the 1960s by Lee Perry. In Jamaica they were released in 1971 as Soul Revolution.

Among the tunes that would be re recorded for future Island releases: "Lively Up Yourself" ( Natty Dread). "Duppy Conqueror" (Burnin) and "Sun is Shining" ( Kaya). Not just the hipster fans claim the original, less dynamically produced Wailers is the superior stuff.

Billboard Magazine interviewed Marley for a November 1973 article that begins in a way that shows the author, Leroy Robinson, is not overwhelmed.:

The fact that reggae music has not been able to "Catch A Fire" (on Island Records) as the title of the Wailers' recent album suggests cannot be blamed on the Kingston, Jamaica group, headed by Bob Marley, for they have literally been steaming for ten years.

Marley is clearly in the position of selling this little known form of music to the America.

"I think as soon as the people in America find out what the real Reggae is, it will be around for a long long while."

He says Reggae is "mostly out of own living, our ghetto, our own oppressions. It's the kind of thing that really tears your heart open. The Jamaican man grows up with Reggae.It's our blues...Yeah, man it's a black people's music. But I prefer all people to like our music."

That day would soon come.

40 Year Itch: No Sun Will Shine In My Day

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In retrospect, Chris Blackwell's bet on Bob Marley and the Wailers looks like the best $6000 ever placed. Catch A Fire, released April 13, 1973 in its now iconic zippo-shaped record cover, drew rave reviews and set off reggae's greatest band on the track to super-stardom. 

Not that Blackwell didn't hedge his bets.

After paying for the stranded Wailers ( which then also included future stars Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingstone) to fly home and record Catch A Fire  in Jamaica, Blackwell sweetened the master tapes with input from uncredited American session players like guitarist Wayne Perkins (who would play on the Rolling Stones Black and Blue album and contributes solos and guitar lines on "Concrete Jungle", "Stir It Up" and "Baby, We've Got a Date") and Texan Rabbit Bundrick ( who also played keyboards on The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack). The first ten seconds of "Concrete Jungle" ( and therefore of the album) sound like any number of prog rock acts.

     Like most Wailers albums, there's a good mixture of love songs ("Stir It Up", Baby We've Got A Date") and political songs ("Concrete Jungle", "Slave Driver", Peter Tosh's "400 Years") that will dispel any notions of Jamaica being a vacation paradise.

   Catch A Fire is now considered one of the greatest reggae albums ever made. But the live shows are what made the Wailers stars. The Wailers would make one more record (Burnin')  before Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingstone left. All would be great forces in making reggae one of the world's most popular forms of music.