Bob Marley averaged an album per year through the 70s, a decade that saw reggae grow from its humble Jamaican roots to a global phenomenon, with Marley as its figurehead.
In 1978, Marley returned to Jamaica after a brief exile in London, and released the exuberant Kaya to coincide with his homecoming.
While Marley’s previous few albums were a mix of political and personal content, Kaya was a laid-pack paean to love, peace, and marijuana.
In December of 1976, Bob Marley was shot during an assassination attempt at his home that injured three others (including Marley’s wife, Rita) but resulted in no fatalities. The attack, by seven armed assailants, is believed to have been ordered by a political opponent unhappy with Marley’s public activism.
A conspiracy theory suggests the shooting was a set-up aimed at cementing Marley as a left-wing martyr (which would explain the surprisingly superficial nature of the victims’ wounds). Another theory says the hit was ordered by the CIA, a story one of the gunmen reportedly supported.
Bob Marley released his eighth studio album, Rastaman Vibration, in 1976. The album gave him his first top ten placement on the Billboard 200, and produced his only single to crack the Billboard Hot 100, in ‘Roots, Rock, Reggae.’
Commercial success aside, this is an odd album, split between steely-eyed calls for revolution in the face of injustice and forgettable love songs. Playful synthesizers butt up against hard-edged electric guitars, giving Rastaman Vibration a split personality both lyrically and musically.
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.
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