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Bob Marley, Concrete Jungle
I’ve never heard anyone but Bob Marley refer to the sun as the “high yellow moon.” Fantastic poetry. “Concrete Jungle,” from Catch a Fire, is one of the bleakest songs about urban dystopia you will ever hear. It was the lead-off track from Bob’s 1973 masterpiece, Catch a Fire, and is an incredible piece of…
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Bob Marley, Pimper's Paradise
“Every need got an ego to feed.” If that’s not the lyric of a master, than nothing is. “Pimper’s Paradise,” from 1980’s Uprising LP, is one of Bob’s best songs. Anyone else obsessed with the way he sings “Well-ell aelll..?” How about the line, “Now she is blusing when there ain’t no blues…?” I’m not…
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Bob Marley, Duppy Conqueror, Rare Studio Take
We’re back in the 1974 Catch a Fire sessions as Bob Marley and the Wailers cut a fifth version of “Duppy Conqueror.” What is a “duppy,” and why is Bob conquering them? Interesting question. Well, in Jamaica, duppy is slang for ghost, and Bob was thinking about opening up a Jamaican branch of the Ghostbusters. …
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Bob Marley, Get Up Stand Up, Rare Studio Take
Some very generous youtube benefactors recently uploaded over 30 videos of Bob Marley in the studio recording tracks for his Catch a Fire record. The video below is a priceless take from the sessions of “Get Up Stand Up,” Bob’s most righteous moment in his career. This version is a hard slow funky jam of…
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Bob Marley, Stir it Up
Part 55 of my countdown grooves on with Bob Marley’s gem “Stir it Up.” Written in 1967, this was one of Bob’s first songs to gain international fame when Johnny Nash covered it and made it a top 20 hit in 1972 in both Britain and America. The song is one of Bob’s incredible love…