In his first album without Peter Tosh and Bunny Waller, 1974’s Natty Dread, Bob Marley doubled down on themes of social injustice and spirituality, with a dash of sex thrown in for good measure.
To help fill the gap left by his departing childhood friends, Marley brought on a trio of female vocalists, the I-Threes, one of whom was his wife Rita. Their backing vocals add a new texture to the songs in contrast to the harmonies of Tosh and Waller.
Continuing a torrid release pace, The Wailers dropped their fifth album in three years, and their second in just six months, in October of 1973. That album was Burnin’, their second straight release recorded in Jamaica and mixed and overdubbed by producer Chris Blackwell in London.
Like Catch a Fire before it, Burnin’ features some of Marley’s best-known tracks, including opener ‘Get Up, Stand Up’ and ‘I Shot the Sheriff,’ which Eric Clapton took to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 just a year later.
Bob Marley and the Wailers released their first major-label album in 1973, when Catch a Fire was distributed by Island Records. Marley would release every subsequent album in his career through the Island label.
Catch a Fire was recorded in Jamaica, after Marley received an advance from producer Chris Blackwell to help him and the band — flat broke — travel back home after a tour of Great Britain. Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Waller recorded seven new tunes penned by Marley, plus rerecorded two Tosh songs previously released on other albums (‘400 Years,’ ‘Stop That Train’).
1971 saw the release of Bob Marley’s fourth studio album, The Best of the Wailers, and again, the title is confusing. This was not a greatest hits package, but a 10-song collection of all-new recordings.
And if it feels like a throwback compared to the two albums preceding it, that’s because the tracks were recorded a year and a half earlier, before Marley and the Wailers joined forces with producer Lee “Scratch” Perry.
The confusingly titled Soul Revolution Part II, released in 1971, was Bob Marley’s third release, and the second produced by Lee “Scratch” Perry. There is no Soul Revolution Part I, though a companion album to Part II was released stripped of vocals and featuring only the “dub” music tracks.
This album moves Marley and the Wailers closer to the traditional reggae sound I associate with them, and a little farther from the R&B and rocksteady sounds of their earlier work.
Meet Me In Montauk 