Bob Marley And The Wailers Live!, het beste live album aller tijden?

Bob Marley And The Wailers – Live! – Album cover print proof

This, I wanna tell you, is a Trenchtown Experience.
All the way from Trenchtown, Jamaica, Bob Marley And The Wailers.
Come on!

Inleiding

Op 5 december 1975 werd het klassieke Live! van Bob Marley And The Wailers uitgebracht. De wereld maakte (eindelijk) in grote getale kennis met Bob Marley, reggae, Jah Rastafari, ganja, No Woman, No Cry en een van de beste live albums aller tijden!

The Wailers

In 1972 tekenden The Wailers een contract met Island Records, dat in april 1973 leidde tot het debuutalbum op dat label, Catch A Fire. Al in oktober werd dat album opgevolgd door Burnin’. Hierna verlieten zowel Bunny Wailer als Peter Tosh The Wailers (zie ook het verhaal over Peter Tosh’ Equal Rights), wat in oktober 1974 leidde tot het debuutalbum van Bob Marley And The Wailers: Natty Dread. Pas in juni en juli 1975 werd de tour voor het album gedaan.

Bob Marley And The Wailers – Live Kingston 04-10-1975

Natty Dread Tour

De tour deed de VS, Canada en Engeland aan:

Datum	Stad	Land	Zaal
05-06-1975	Miami	Verenigde Staten	Diplomat Hotel
08-06-1975	Toronto	Canada	Massey Hall
09-06-1975	Chicago	Verenigde Staten	Quiet Knight Club
10-06-1975	Chicago	Verenigde Staten	Quiet Knight Club
14-06-1975	Detroit	Verenigde Staten	Showcase Theater
16-06-1975	Cleveland	Verenigde Staten	Agora Theater
18-06-1975	New York City	Verenigde Staten	Wollman Skating Rink
20-06-1975	Philadelphia	Verenigde Staten	The Spectrum Theater
21-06-1975	New York City	Verenigde Staten	Manhattan Center
22-06-1975	Hartford	Verenigde Staten	Bushnell Memorial Hall
23-06-1975 *	Boston	Verenigde Staten	Paul’s Mall
24-06-1975 *	Boston	Verenigde Staten	Paul’s Mall
25-06-1975 *	Boston	Verenigde Staten	Paul’s Mall
26-06-1975 *	Boston	Verenigde Staten	Paul’s Mall
27-06-1975 *	Boston	Verenigde Staten	Paul’s Mall
28-06-1975 *	Boston	Verenigde Staten	Paul’s Mall
29-06-1975 *	Boston	Verenigde Staten	Paul’s Mall
04-07-1975	San Francisco	Verenigde Staten	The Boarding House
05-07-1975	San Francisco	Verenigde Staten	The Boarding House
06-07-1975	San Francisco	Verenigde Staten	The Boarding House
07-07-1975	San Francisco	Verenigde Staten	The Boarding House
08-07-1975	Oakland	Verenigde Staten	Paramount Theatre
09-07-1975	Los Angeles	Verenigde Staten	Roxy Theatre
10-07-1975	Los Angeles	Verenigde Staten	Roxy Theatre
11-07-1975	Los Angeles	Verenigde Staten	Roxy Theatre
12-07-1975	Los Angeles	Verenigde Staten	Roxy Theatre
13-07-1975	Los Angeles	Verenigde Staten	Roxy Theatre
17-07-1975	Londen	Engeland	Lyceum Theatre
18-07-1975	Londen	Engeland	Lyceum Theatre
19-07-1975	Birmingham	Engeland	The Odeon
20-07-1975	Manchester	Engeland	The Hard Rock

* 2 shows per dag

Voorafgaand aan de tour gaf de band in maart 1975 een concert met de Jackson Five en na de tour op 4 oktober 1975 samen met Stevie Wonder. Beide concerten vonden plaats in Kingston, Jamaica. Bij het laatste concert verschenen zowel Bunny Wailer als Peter Tosh op het podium (de laatste keer dat originele Wailers samen op het podium stonden).

Bob Marley And The Wailers – Live at the Lyceum London 17th & 18th July 1975

17 en 18 juli 1975, Londen, Lyceum Theatre

Na de vijf prestigieuze shows in het Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles had de band 3 dagen vrij. In die tijd werd wat gerust en afgereisd naar Engeland, waar het Lyceum Theatre op het programma stond. Het theater bood plaats aan 2100 mensen. Toen de kaarten in de verkoop gingen waren die binnen een paar uur weg, wat een behoorlijke prestatie is voor een artiest die nog niet erg veel albums had verkocht. Maar er broeide iets, Bob Marley en reggae waren bezig met een onstopbare opkomst. Tijdens de concerten had de politie zijn handen vol aan de duizenden die kwamen opdagen, maar geen kaartje hadden. Opvallend was dat de blank-zwart mix in het publiek 50-50 was. De crossover potentie van Bob Marley was enorm.

Beide concerten werden opgenomen met behulp van de Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, met de bedoeling een live album samen te stellen van de opnamen.

Bob Marley And The Wailers – Tour programma Londen 1975 (voorkant)

Bob Marley And The Wailers – Tour programma Londen 1975 (pagina 3)

Bob Marley And The Wailers – Tour programma Londen 1975 (pagina 4)

Bob Marley And The Wailers – Tour programma Londen 1975 (pagina 5)

Bob Marley And The Wailers – Tour programma Londen 1975 (achterkant)

Bovenstaand is het tourprogramma voor de 17 en 18 juli 1975 concerten opgenomen (3 bladzijden ontbreken: reclame en twee pagina’s over het voorprogramma Third World). Klik op de pagina’s om deze te vergroten.

Op 17 juli bestond de setlist uit:

Trenchtown Rock
Burnin’ And Lootin’
The Belly Full (But We Hungry)
Rebel Music (3 O’Clock Roadblock)
Stir It Up
No Woman, No Cry
Natty Dread
Kinky Reggae
I Shot The Sheriff
Get Up, Stand Up

Bob Marley And The Wailers – 18 juli 1975 – concertkaartje

Op 18 juli bestond de setlist uit:

Trenchtown Rock
Slave Driver
Burnin’ And Lootin’
The Belly Full (But We Hungry)
Rebel Music (3 O’Clock Roadblock)
No Woman, No Cry
Kinky Reggae
Natty Dread
Stir It Up
Lively Up Yourself
I Shot The Sheriff
Get Up, Stand Up

Bob Marley And The Wailers – Engelse tour advertentie

Rond deze tijd was Bob Marley nog geen grote bekende, maar met name in Engeland was zijn naam al groot. Voor een deel veroorzaakt door een relatief grote groep van oorsprong Caribische inwoners van het VK en deels doordat Island Records een van oorsprong Engelse platenmaatschappij was die veel aandacht besteedde aan marketing in Engeland.

Het resultaat was dat er veel aandacht werd besteed aan de concerten in de Engelse pers. Van opmerkingen als “There was a curious odour in the foetid air which I could not identify” tot “But if it [superstardom] has anything to do with that over-worked word, charisma, with knowing what you are doing and not being diverted from the main object in view, with a burning conviction and a dazzling talent united to communicate, then Marley is possibly the greatest superstar to visit these shores since the days when Dylan conquered the concert halls of Britain, never looking back” en “The Wailers are not simply the most outstanding band in reggae; but one of the premier bands of the moment”, werd duidelijk dat de Engelse pers het allemaal nog helemaal vatte, maar dat overduidelijk was dat Bob Marley iets bijzonders was en dat dit nog maar het begin zou zijn.

Voor diegenen die de volledige recensies willen lezen, klik hieronder voor de tekstuele weergave uit The Times (18 juli 1975), Melody Maker en NME (beiden 26 juli 1975).

Toon de complete recensies in de Engelse pers

Review: Bob Marley And The Wailers, London

By Philip Norman

Bob Marley and the Wailers reached the Lyceum two nights ago, in some style. By early evening, long before they were due to appear, the foyer was impassable and a queue stretched from under the portico into Covent Garden’s hinterland.

Across the road stood a double row of police vans with many constables, shirtsleeved and sceptical. Clearly, the gravest fears were entertained for this home of the quickstep and foxtrot at the hands of the kings of Reggae.

It is unnecessary, I hope, to repeat that the Wailers are adherents to the Rastafarian faith, worshipping Jah in the person of Haile Selassie (‘recently deposed’, as their press handout candidly admits) and believing in their spiritual repatriation, some day, to Ethiopia. For the present, they remain in Jamaica where – aside from periodic jail sentences – they have existed for 12 years, idolised, plagiarised, yet dreamily resisting the demands of world fame. Their last concert tour of Britain was curtailed because it began to snow.

I do not think that they could complain of the temperature this time. I have been in hot places before, but seldom in a place as hot as the Lyceum ballroom, just before the Wailers appeared. It was like breathing through a sodden blanket. Presently, it became like wearing one. The dance floor was a human swamp; the red lamps, on the balcony above, burned with the unearthly brilliance of equatorial flowers.

In such circumstances, the performance itself had something of the quality of hallucination. It seemed that two stout figures in robes and turbans, for all the world like the favourite wives of some ancient chief, swayed and side-stepped and played pat-a-cake together. On one side of them, Marley himself, with hair standing up in the waxy plaits called ‘dreadlocks’, threw his arms wide from an untouched guitar; on the other side, a little kneeling group seemed to be enjoying a quiet game of cards. This, at least, was what I saw through a press of bodies, radiant with heat. There was a curious odour in the foetid air which I could not identify. It reminded me somewhat of newly-pressed shirts.

In these frightful days of Barry White, I love Bob Marley and the Wailers. It is not merely that theirs are the first and the best versions of ‘Stir it Up’, ‘I Shot the Sheriff’, ‘Guava Jelly’. The slow bass, the slow drum, the unrepentant idleness, the matronly figures stepping and gliding – all are visitations from a world which whites in the audience, bobbing ardently but fitfully, cannot hope to comprehend. Through them black music is, once more, triumphantly private.

The Times, 18-07-1975

Bob Marley: Wailin’

By Karl Dallas

You wouldn’t think he had just played a tough, almost continuous one hour set to a packed Lyceum, London, with no proper encore because it looked as if the crowd was about to pull him off stage in its blind enthusiasm, or that he was to meet the press at noon for a conference encompassing subjects like revolution, what he does with his money, how he felt when two members quit his band after their last British bummer of a tour, and what is his favourite piece of reggae music.

He parries them all, answers most of them with a mild urbanity which belies his reputation of being occasionally difficult, and confirms his own report that the vibration on this tour is decidedly different from the last.

If superstardom consists of being elusive, evasive, incoherent, unpunctual, enigmatic, all-round difficult, then Marley is no superstar. But if it has anything to do with that over-worked word, charisma, with knowing what you are doing and not being diverted from the main object in view, with a burning conviction and a dazzling talent united to communicate, then Marley is possibly the greatest superstar to visit these shores since the days when Dylan conquered the concert halls of Britain, never looking back.

At that Lyceum concert I found myself thinking of Dylan several times, first when he stabbed a pointing finger at the audience during ‘No Woman No Cry’, remembering Dylan’s reported dislike of “finger-pointing” songs, and I wished he could be here crammed into this neck of humanity to feel how effective they can be in the right hands.

And then, as the mass of Afro-topped black heads swept up over the ineffective crash barriers and became a snake-pit of reaching arms, grabbing at his ankles, his wrists, the belt round his pants, I thought of Phil Ochs’ comment that if Dylan ever walked through his audience they would kill him, literally tear him to pieces out of sheer love and adoration, and I understood straight away why there was no encore, a feeling which was confirmed, not dispelled, by the howl of booing when they put the house lights up to show the crowd that the show was indeed over.

The next day, after the press conference, I asked him if he had been scared by the crowd at the Lyceum. “No,” he said, “it no worry me so much. The only thing, I didn’t want them pull me off the stage or hurt me. Them guy held me too hard. Them too strong, real big guys.”

The excitement had started building long before 9.32pm, when he came on to the cries of Radio London DJ Steve Barnard: “Are you ready? Are you ready?” It had built through Third World’s excellent opening set, through the interlude of black music Barnard played to keep them happy as they waited. The crowd milled about, drank from beer cans and bottles, jigged a bit to the music. But as the music continued, as disc followed disc, the cries began to rise out of the crowd like startled birds. “Bob Marley,” called a voice. “Bob Marley,” repeated another.

The house lights go out, and though roadies are still prowling about the stage, all eyes are riveted on it. At one side, a large backdrop with Marcus Garvey, the father of the back-to-Africa movement, in ceremonial and civilian clothes, both European. On the back wall, a fairly small picture, ringed with the red, yellow and green colours of the Ethiopian flag: Halle Selassie, embattled Emperor of Ethiopia, Lion of Judah, considered by the Rastafarians to be the godhead, “Almighty God is a living man” as the song says.

The Wailers’ road manager, Tony Garrett, comes out to invite the sell-out crowd to participate in “a Trench-town Experience ” and the place goes wild as the opening words of ‘Trenchtown Rock’, “hit me with music,” literally hit everyone in the polar plexus. Aston “Family Man” Barrett on bass wears a bowler hat; his brother, Carlton on drums is in faded denim. Two of the old Soul-ettes, Rita Marley and Marcia Griffiths, working as I Three (three because every rasta includes Selassie with himself), are resplendent in long, poppy-emblazoned gowns. They move a little awkwardly, as if they are making up their stepping routines as they go along, as well they might, but their movements coincide perfectly, a blend of professional precision and spontaneous fun.

From where I stand, we can see neither Guitarist Al Anderson nor keyboard player Touter, but we can hear the first’s buoyant melody lines soaring gently up above the tune, the latter’s organ growling along a funky bass.

Marley, he is everywhere, never still, bending his knees sharply on the third beat of every bar. Turning his back on the audience and retreating to stage rear to signify the end a song.

The band goes straight into ‘Burnin” and thence into ‘Rebel Music’ and Marley clearly feels confident enough in his control to relax a bit. He breaks his guitar rhythm to sip from a paper cup. The music is tighter than it used to be, though still fairly loose. So far there have been no solos, until the band swings into ‘Stir It Up’, first of Marley’s songs to become a world-wide hit (for Johnny Nash) and Touter takes a brief keyboard excursion.

“What we need is some positive vibration,” Marley cries at the end of the song, although he’s had little reason to complain at the response so far.

He is working with the crowd, keeping his introductions brief, his movements economical, but all the time he is driving along not only the band, but also the crowd.

He begins ‘No Woman No Cry’ with his arm over his face, forsaking his lilting offbeat guitar to give his hands the opportunity for full expression. He makes the lyrics live, and, incidentally, acquits the rasta of all charges of male chauvinism in this sensitive paean to black womanhood. And when he gets to the words “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” his finger splits the air like a searchlight.

And so it goes, building and building. They open up the roof. Back in the balcony a hundred 20p programmes are waving back and forth in a vain effort to cool the temperature, but what is causing the sweat here is something more than physical heat.

At the end of the song, Marley cries “Jah – Rasta far-I,” the only time we hear the old rasta slogan in the whole evening. ‘Natty Dread’ brings out all the street urchin cheek of its argot, mockery turned back upon the mockers, with love instead of hate. This ought to be the single, not its B-side.

A new intro foxes the crowd for a while until he sings out the words of ‘I Shot The Sheriff’ and if you thought the crowd was wild already, the roar of response at the opening words shows that we haven’t reached the high point.

Looking down at the crowd, I notice a strange thing. Earlier, it had been a fairly even mix of black and white, but now all the heads I can see at the front are Afro-topped (virtually no dreadlocks, by the way). And I see that they have invaded the barely protected photographers’ area and they are bidding fair to invade the stage itself.

There have, of course, been a crowd of anonymous black faces round the sides of the stage all the way through, and at the end of the song Marley and the band disappear into them. It is 10.21 and the band has played for less than an hour.

Clearly this is a rehearsed encore, as the band comes out again and strikes up ‘Get Up, Stand Up’. I Three are punching the sky with power fists and the kids in front are grabbing at Marley. One guy pulls off his jacket and throws it on the stage, it is not clear why.

It is almost as if we have been invaded by a Bay City Rollers crowd, though there is no screaming.

Marley is repeating the words “Don’t give up the fight” so that it becomes a hypnotic litany: “Don’t give up the fight…don’t give up the fight…don’t give up the fight…” He does it ten times, then the guitar takes up the five-note phrase and turns it into a riff, in which it is joined by the organ.

Each time a fist grabs at Marley he smiles slightly, as if to himself, and tries to shake himself free. He never actually looks at any of the guys (they are all males), who do it. By now roadies, DJs, anyone, has been pressed into service as a steward, arguing with the one or two kids who actually make it on to the stage, persuading them to get back down.

The song ends and Marley leaves the stage. There is no way he can come back for more. He has played for almost exactly an hour. The crowd stays for almost half that time again, clapping and stamping in unison, shouting more, but in vain.

No one could have followed that, not even the man who did it.

Melody Maker, 26-07-1975

Review: Bob Marley And The Wailers, London

By Charles Shaar Murray

“Hey, mon… what are all these whites doin’ here? They not here last time the Wailers play…”

What this whitey is doing is dancing. It ain’t something I do particularly often or particularly well, but if you’re listening to the Wailers standing up, you really don’t have much choice. There’s some fine dancing going on, which is just about inevitable when good dancers get together with great dance music in the world’s most resistably rococo sauna bath.

Scenario: Friday night at London’s Lyceum. Ray McVay has been given the night off and a prime clutch of Her Majesty’s Finest are hovering uneasily around the entrance waiting, just waiting, for one of these uppitty niggers in the wool hats and bebop pegged pants to start something.

Inside, a 50-50 blend of white hippies and street bruthas’n’sistas are scouting each other out and grooving on a band called Third World who are (a) a New Band (b) from King-ston Jamai-ca and (c) very good indeed.

They play alternating layers of reggae and Kooled-out U.S. funk, and got the first rise of the night out of the small but exuberant Rasta delegation in the audience with the musical question; “Do you remember the days of slavery?”

I noted with some concern that Mr. Philip Norman, reviewing the previous night’s concert in Saturday’s edition of The Times, noticed (and I paraphrase) that small groups of people were seated cross-legged on the floor having what looked like a card game while the “foetid air” was sweetened by “an odour resembling that of freshly-pressed shirts”.

Though a taste for impromptu hands of poker and laundry-ironing sessions at rock or soul concerts is still an essentially minority pursuit, it is not inconceivable that Mr. Norman had seen exactly what he described. However, on the Friday night what the seated groups of people were doing was smoking prodigious quantities of what made Kingston famous. Not a laundry press in sight.

Despite the 50-50 black/white ratio, the blacks definitely had the edge. Even though there probably hadn’t been a show since Sly that’d made them want to go to the Lyceum, and even though the white kids probably went there pretty regularly, it was still black turf, a fact which showed in everyone of those little who-shot-John confrontations about who steps back for whom.

Don’t get me wrong; it definitely wasn’t a case of anybody getting uptight. It was just that the roles were more or less implicit from the moment you got in.

“Ras…”

Nearly every one of the records played during the intermission included a variant on the phrase “Natty Dread” in the lyrics.

“…ta…”

The compere reminds everyone to watch their handbags as there was a bit of trouble last night.

“…far…”

Down front it’s real stand-on-Zanzibar shoulder-to-shoulder stuff. By some strange natural law, all the tallest people in the building seem to have made their way directly to the front, right up against the barriers. The compere asks everyone to move back a little because “some little kids are getting crushed at the front”. There is no perceptible reaction. He doesn’t repeat the message.

“…iiiiii!”

Even though they filtered onto the stage fairly slowly, it seems more and more as if the Wailers just exploded out from nowhere with their opening salvo, the sublime ‘Trenchtown Rock’ (an old song, I’m told, from their pre-Island days which is due to be triumphantly resurrected on their next album).

It opened the set with an incandescent burst of pure energy, at once quintessentially laid-back and vibrating with intensity, a rhythm that holds you tight while still allowing room to move. White rock lays its beat on you; the Wailers music allows you to find your own rhythm within it.

Bob Marley is small and agile, bobbing and weaving. He seems to be both abstracted and possessed, which is a logical way to be if you’ve been stoned solidly for the last 15 or 20 years.

He’s continually scratching out that loping ka-cha-ka rhythm out of his Les Paul, and the whole thing pivots around that and Aston ‘Family Man’ Barrett’s bass. ‘Family Man’ is the one who keeps the wheels turning, applying Fender bass grease to all the cogs and fly-wheels, movin’ it on and rolling.

The band are solid and unified, gliding more than steamrollering, and they keep coming; never more so than on ‘Lively Up Yourself’, which was so powerful that it made the recorded version seem positively Mickey Mouse by comparison.

At the back of the hall people danced and waited for their own particular favourite Wailers song to come up. All around me, people were singing along to the beatific ‘Kinky Reggae’, and outbursts of Rasta cheers greeted the line “Burnin’ and lootin’ tonight.”

Predictably, ‘Natty Dread’ itself was the hit of the night, and whenever Marley shook his hair he got a round of applause. It’s been a very long time since anyone’s seen an audience applaud an artist’s hair, but then it’s been a very long time since hair has represented anything specific to any part of the subculture.

Nowadays any bozo can have his hair long and it doesn’t mean a damn thing, but dreadlocks are a whole different ball game. Significantly, hardly anybody in the audience had them, but there were a few who’d have locks to rival Marley’s if they worked at ‘em for a couple of years.

From the opening ‘Trenchtown Rock’ through to the finale of ‘I Shot The Sheriff’, the quality of the show was nothing less than overwhelming. Music of this intensity comes along but rarely, since there s very little music being produced in the rock field that relates to any specific living culture.

The Wailers’ music is simultaneously a genuine folk music, and as technically and lyrically sophisticated, despite its superficial simplicity, as most of the produce of their contemporaries, which qualities combine to give it both its intoxicating spirituality and its riveting funk.

It done bin said before but perhaps it needs to be said again: the Wailers are not simply the most outstanding band in reggae; but one of the premier bands of the moment. Full Stop.

And I left feeling so good that I didn’t even care when some dude tried to pick my pocket on the way out.

NME, 26-07-1975

Bob Marley And The Wailers – Live!

Live!

Op 5 december 1975 wordt het live album Live! van Bob Marley And The Wailers uitgebracht. Het is een weergave van de beide concerten in Londen, waarvan zes nummers afkomstig zijn van 17 juli en één nummer (Lively Up Yourself, dat niet werd gespeeld op de 17e) van het 18 juli 1975 concert.

De nummers zijn niet bewerkt. Foutjes, zoals de feedback in de microfoon tijdens No Woman, No Cry zijn niet weggepoetst, wat alleen maar bijdraagt aan de algehele beleving. Wel zijn Lively Up Yourself en Get Up, Stand Up ingekort (zoals de ‘fade-out’ tijdens Get Up, Stand Up).

One good thing about music
When it hits you feel no pain

© Bob Marley – Trenchtown Rock

De eerste woorden die Bob Marley zingt op Live! zijn de bovenstaande woorden. Dus “Hit me with music” en zelfs “Brutalize me with music”. Trenchtown Rock zet de toon voor een onweerstaanbaar album dat de tand des tijds niet alleen prima heeft overleefd, maar telkens weer het idee geeft dat dit concert gisteren had kunnen plaatsvinden. De politieke boodschappen zijn nog steeds actueel en inspireren tot op de dag van vandaag.

Bob Marley And The Wailers London 1975 (bobmarley.com)

Bob Marley And The Wailers Londen 1975

This morning I woke up in a curfew
O God, I was a prisoner, too – yeah
Could not recognize the faces standing over me
They were all dressed in uniforms of brutality

© Bob Marley – Burnin’ And Lootin’

Het tweede nummer gaat over mishandeling en onrecht dat de bevolking (van Jamaica) wordt aangedaan door de autoriteiten. De boodschap is echter universeel. Zoals 2020 overduidelijk heeft aangetoond is het helaas nog steeds actueel. Marley is in staat sociaal economische onderwerpen te combineren met ecologisch idealisme en pakkende ritmes en teksten.

Cost of livin’ gets so high
Rich and poor they start to cry
Now the weak must get strong
They say oh, what a tribulation
Them belly full but we hungry
A hungry mob is an angry mob

© Bob Marley – Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)

Destijds was Jamaica verzeild geraakt in een halve burgeroorlog, waar bendes in de armere delen van Kingston de baas waren en een grote aantrekkingkracht hadden op de jeugd die in uitzichtloze omstandigheden leefden. Armoede en honger waren aan de orde van de dag. “A hungry mob is an angry mob” kan dan ook als een waarschuwing aan de Jamaicaanse machthebbers worden gezien. De oplossing is er ook: “We’re gonna dance to Jah music”, vergeet je (dagelijkse) problemen en dans, want dansen is een wijze van meditatie en het vieren van God.

Bob Marley And The Wailers Londen 1975

Lively up yourself and don’t be no drag
Lively up yourself, oh, Reggae is another bag
Lively up yourself and don’t say no
Lively up yourself, ‘cause I said so

© Bob Marley – Lively Up Yourself

Marley heeft ook een oplossing: reggae. Natuurlijk met alles wat daar verder bij komt kijken, zoals de Rastafari levensbeschouwing. Rasta’s geloven dat de Ehtiopische keizer Haile Selassie de reïncarnatie van Christus was, waarmee de voorspelling van Marcus Garvey uit 1914 werd ingevuld. Ethiopië is het beloofde land (Zion). De westerse wereld (Babylon) zal ooit ten onder gaan. Vele rasta’s zijn vegetarisch/veganistisch. Een van de uiterlijke kenmerken is het dragen van dreadlocks. Het roken van marihuana (ganja) wordt gezien als een manier om dichter bij de oorsprong te komen en te helpen bij meditatie. De Bijbel en het geloof in (de Christelijke) God (Jah) zijn onlosmakelijk verbonden aan de Rastafari levensbeschouwing.

Said I remember when we used to sit
In the government yard in Trenchtown, yeah
And then Georgie would make the fire light
A log wood burnin’ through the night
Then we would cook corn meal porridge
Of which I’ll share with you, yeah
My feet is my only carriage
And so I’ve got to push on through
But while I’m gone

Everything’s gonna be alright

So No woman, no cry
No woman, no cry
Oh little, oh little darling, don’t shed no tears

© Bob Marley – No Woman, No Cry

Het prijsnummer van het Live! album en de eerste hit van Bob Marley in het Westen. Het nummer gaat over saamhorigheid, delen, trots en vertrouwen. De frase “no woman, no cry” is gericht aan de vrouw in Bob’s leven (Rita Marley?) met de bedoeling haar positief te laten zijn en zich niet te concentreren op slechte tijden, maar juist op de schoonheid van het leven, zelfs als de omstandigheden zwaar zijn.

Geheel in de geest van het nummer, heeft Marley Vincent Ford als componist benoemd. Ford was een vriend die een soep keuken had, waarmee de armen werden gevoed. Met de opbrengsten van het nummer kon Ford zijn keuken voortzetten.

Freedom came my way one day
And I started out of town, yeah
All of a sudden I saw Sheriff John Brown
Aiming to shoot me down
So I shot, I shot, I shot him down and I say
If I am guilty I will pay

I shot the sheriff
But I say, but I didn’t shoot no deputy

© Bob Marley – I Shot The Sheriff

Het nummer vertelt het verhaal van een man die, uit zelfverdediging, de sheriff doodschiet. Hij is op de vlucht en ziet dat hij ook wordt beschuldigd van het neerschieten van de hulp van de sheriff. Dat is echter onwaar, deze was niet bij de schietpartij aanwezig. Marley: “I want to say ‘I shot the police’ but the government would have made a fuss so I said ‘I shot the sheriff’ instead… but it’s the same idea: justice”.

Het origineel staat op het tweede Wailers album voor Island Records, het Burnin’ album uit 1973. In 1974 al maakte Eric Clapton een cover van het nummer, dat een grote hit werd, zowel in de VS als in Europa. Het hielp Marley aan naamsbekendheid in het Westen.

Bob Marley And The Wailers Londen 1975

Most people think great God will come from the sky
Take away everything, and make everybody feel high
But if you know what life is worth
You would look for yours on earth
And now you see the light
You stand up for your right, yeah

Get Up, Stand Up
Stand up for your right

© Bob Marley – Get Up, Stand Up

Het ultieme protestnummer. De titel zegt eigenlijk alles al. Kom in opstand. In opstand tegen onderdrukking, tegen (georganiseerde) religies of -ismen, die verdeeldheid zaaien. Richt je niet op het leven na de dood, met als gevolg dat je in apathie vervalt, maar kom in optand, nu. Tot op de dag van vandaag geldt Get Up, Stand Up als een lijflied voor de onderdrukten.

Bob Marley And The Wailers – Live! – Reclame

Recensie

Wat valt er nog te zeggen over Live!? Het is een van de beste (zo niet het allerbeste) live albums aller tijden. Het betekende de doorbraak van Bob Marley And The Wailers in Europa. Na Engeland volgde het vasteland van Europa al snel. Een jaar later viel ook de VS voor de muziek, het charisma en de boodschap van Bob Marley.

De algehele sfeer op het album, het enthousiasme van het publiek, de sublieme ritmesectie en het fantastische ‘riddim’ zorgde voor opwinding en een nieuwe beleving. Ook muziek niet afkomstig uit de VS en Engeland kon prachtig zijn. Als 10 jarige jongen was dat voor mij een openbaring. De zonnige muziek met de serieuze ondertoon sprak enorm aan.

Ik weet niet precies meer hoe het album in mijn leven kwam, maar het was ver voordat de live single Stir It Up in het voorjaar van 1979 een hit werd in Nederland. Later, inmiddels op de middelbare school, en na het overlijden van Marley, leerde ik het (tweede live) album Babylon By Bus kennen via jeugdvriend Jimmy, die een groot bewonderaar was van Marley. Mijn liefde voor alles wat Marley was begon toen pas echt. Eeuwig dankbaar ben ik dan ook voor de echte initiatie in de muziek van Bob Marley And The Wailers.

Live! was echt live en bleek een eeuwigdurend monument van Bob Marley’s aanzienlijke uitstraling op het podium, die door de groeven heen hoorbaar was. Als Bob Marley in No Woman, No Cry de woorden “Everything’s gonna be alright” zingt, geloof je hem van harte, hij overtuigt de meest sceptische luisteraar. Live! is niet alleen een aanrader, het is een verplicht en essentieel onderdeel van elke muziekverzameling!

Bob Marley And The Wailers – Live! – Ad NME 06-12-1975

Pers

Zoals hierboven al vermeld was Bob Marley in Engeland al redelijk groot. De recensie in Sounds sprak boekdelen:

Bob Marley And The Wailers: Live!

By Vivien Goldman

In these troubled times of ours there’s very few things you can be sure of.

One thing I’d have been prepared to stake my autographed copy of Burnin’ on is that the Wailers’ live album, probably the most eagerly-awaited album of the year, would be a truly wonderful and genuinely five-star experience with bells on. Well, it doesn’t take a clairvoyant to tell you that I was 100 per cent accurate in my estimation.

Live At The Lyceum swells the ranks of my favourite live albums to three (others: Beach Boys Live and Live At Max’s by the Velvets) as in general live albums tend to be flaccid compared to studio takes. For any Wailers fan, the mere fact of reliving the gigs with better sound than you got there is enough to induce paroxysms of bliss. As a bonus, Steve Smith and Chris (God) Blackwell have done an amazingly good job with the sound quality, enabling Bob’s wailing of ‘How Many Rivers…’ on ‘Burnin’ And Lootin” to hit you right in the solar plexus.

The I Three (Judy Mowatt and Rita Marley, the back-up singers) suddenly gain a stature of their own, their incantatory voices winding round and about in glorious texture contrast to Bob’s soulful notes. The Barrett Brothers are a joy throughout; in fact that’s exactly what this album is, a joy throughout.

If I sound uncriticial that’s because there are few enough albums that have Live At The Lyceum’s freshness, authority and out and out music. It would be wise of you to grab hold of it at once, and listen long and hard. Hit me with music!

Sounds, 29-11-1975

Maar ook in de VS werd Bob Marley opgemerkt. Rolling Stone schreef:

Bob Marley And The Wailers – Live!

By Ed Ward

Island is moving back into reggae […] The only question is, who in America knows enough to really appreciate it? Whom does Island expect to buy records like this?

[…]

Still, as little sense as releasing [Burning Spear’s] Marcus Garvey in America seems to make, not releasing Live! makes less. Ostensibly, the reasons are that Live! is not a top-notch Wailers set and that the album would hurt sales of the rest of the group’s catalog. The two lines of thinking are obviously contradictory. While Live! may not be as good as the set I saw at the 30,000-seat National Stadium in Kingston, it’s a tossup whether this record or Natty Dread is better. The audience response is electrifying and both the Wailers and the I Threes vocalists are in top form. All of these songs are available elsewhere but Live! is essential listening for the growing Wailers cult. As one of the best live albums ever, it should at least have been released on the Antilles budget series.

Samenvatting uit Rolling Stone, 09-04-1980 (volgens website, waarschijnlijk begin 1976)

De pers was over het algemeen laaiend enthousiast. Binnen een jaar zou Marley op de voorpagina van het, destijds nog toonaangevende, Rolling Stone magazine worden afgebeeld. Het volgende album Rastaman Vibration betekende de definitieve doorbraak in de VS.

Bob Marley And The Wailers – No Woman, No Cry – Single

Singles

Er werd slechts één single van het album uitgebracht: No Woman, No Cry. Het werd de eerste echte hit voor Bob Marley. Het B-kantje bevatte een live opname van Kinky Reggae, dat later op de cd heruitgave van 2001 aan het originele album werd toegevoegd.

Nummers

Alle nummers geschreven door Bob Marley, tenzij anders aangegeven.

Trenchtown Rock
Burnin’ And Lootin’
Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)
Lively Up Yourself
No Woman, No Cry
I Shot the Sheriff
Get Up, Stand Up (Bob Marley, Peter Tosh)

In 1974 had Bob Marley een contractueel dispuut met zijn voormalige uitgave maatschappij. Gecombineerd met de wens zijn naasten te helpen gaf hij credits op door hem geschreven nummers aan anderen, waardoor Them Belly Full (But We Hungry) aan Leon Cogill en Carlton Barrett is toegeschreven en No Woman, No Cry aan Vincent Ford.

Bob Marley & I-Threes

Muzikanten

Bob Marley And The Wailers

Bob Marley – zang, ritmegitaar
Carlton Barrett – drums
Aston “Family Man” Barrett – bas
Tyrone Downie – keyboards
Al Anderson – gitaar
Alvin “Seeco” Patterson – percussie

I Threes

Rita Marley, Judy Mowatt – achtergrondzang
(Marcia Griffiths ontbrak vanwege zwangerschap)

Verdere uitgaven

Er zijn nog drie extra nummers van de concerten uitgegeven:

Kinky Reggae
Opname van 17 juli 1975, origineel als B-kantje van de single No Woman, No Cry, later ook op de heruitgaven van Live! (zie hieronder)
Rebel Music (3 O’Clock Roadblock)
Opname van 18 juli 1975, uitgegeven op Babylon By Bus in 1978
I Shot The Sheriff
Opname van 18 juli 1975, uitgegeven op Talkin’ Blues in 1991

Luisterend naar de Live! Deluxe Edition (zie onder) vermoed ik dat de 17 juli 1975 opname van Stir It Up dezelfde versie is die op Babylon By Bus is uitgebracht.

Bob Marley And The Wailers – Live! Deluxe Edition

Heruitgaven

In 2001 werden alle (Bob Marley And) The Wailers albums opnieuw uitgebracht, vaak in expanded editions. Live! kwam er destijds bekaaid af met maar één extra nummer: Kinky Reggae, origineel uitgebracht als B-kantje op het de No Woman, No Cry single.

Op 13 oktober 2017 verscheen Live! Deluxe Edition, dat de complete opnamen van de beide Londense concerten van 17 en 18 juli 1975 bevatten. Een prachtig document.

Bob Marley – The Phonograph oktober 1975 – The King Of Reggae

Na Live!

In 1976 volgde Bob Marley het Live! album op met Rastaman Vibration, dat de doorbraak in de VS betekende (ook al verscheen in oktober 1975 ook al een artikel in het Amerikaanse blad Phonograph onder de titel King Of Reggae, zie boven). Na een moordaanslag vertrok Marley naar Londen en nam het klassieke Exodus op (zie het verhaal over Exodus). Kaya, Babylon By Bus, Survival en Uprising zouden allemaal nog volgen. Bob Marley bleek geen eendagsvlieg, zijn muziek en aantrekkingskracht bleven fenomenaal.

Helaas werd in 1977 een agressief huidmelanoom ontdekt, waar hij op 11 mei 1981 aan overleed. Na zijn dood werd in 1984 het verzamelalbum Legend uitgebracht, dat op de dag van vandaag het best verkochte reggae album aller tijden is. In 1994 werd hij opgenomen in de Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

Ter afsluiting

Er zullen ongetwijfeld nog meer Bob Marley verhalen gaan volgen op dit blog. Voor nu: wat vind jij van Bob Marley en van Live! in het bijzonder?

Video/Spotify
Bij dit verhaal is een video opgenomen. Klik op de volgende link om deze te zien: Video: Bob Marley And The Wailers Live!, het beste live album aller tijden?. De A Pop Life afspeellijst op Spotify is ook aangepast.

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Bob Marley And The Wailers Live!, het beste live album aller tijden?

Inleiding

The Wailers

Natty Dread Tour

17 en 18 juli 1975, Londen, Lyceum Theatre

Review: Bob Marley And The Wailers, London

Bob Marley: Wailin’

Review: Bob Marley And The Wailers, London

Live!

Recensie

Pers

Bob Marley And The Wailers: Live!

Bob Marley And The Wailers – Live!

Singles

Nummers

Muzikanten

Verdere uitgaven

Heruitgaven

Na Live!

Ter afsluiting

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Bob Marley And The Wailers Live!, het beste live album aller tijden?

Inleiding

The Wailers

Natty Dread Tour

17 en 18 juli 1975, Londen, Lyceum Theatre

Review: Bob Marley And The Wailers, London

Bob Marley: Wailin’

Review: Bob Marley And The Wailers, London

Live!

Recensie

Pers

Bob Marley And The Wailers: Live!

Bob Marley And The Wailers – Live!

Singles

Nummers

Muzikanten

Verdere uitgaven

Heruitgaven

Na Live!

Ter afsluiting

Vind je dit artikel leuk en wil je het delen? Graag!

4 reacties

Complimenten/opmerkingen? Graag!Reactie annuleren

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