Original Wailers with Lee Perry Soul Rebel

August - December 1970

In the late summer of 1970, a momentous but short-lived partnership was undertaken between the Wailers and the bizarre, innovative producer/performer Lee Perry. All were alumni of Coxson Dodd's Studio One, having departed to seek their fortunes by controlling their own products. While at Studio One the Wailers had developed a good working relationship with Perry, who had routinely supervised their recording sessions and occasionally used them as harmonists on his own vocal efforts, like his big hit Pussy Galore. As the summer of 1970 wound down, the Wailers were coming off a major disappointment. They had produced an extraordinary collection of songs, arguably the first real concept album in reggae's history, for Chinese-Jamaican producer Leslie Kong. A week after the release of their collaboration called The Best of the Wailers, Kong dropped dead in his home, and the album was, at least for the moment, stillborn. The Wailers had watched with envy as Perry, a tiny sprite whom everyone called "Scratch," had begun to make himself rich, mainly through his link-up with British-based labels. He had recently enjoyed a major British chart smash with his studio band, known as the Upsetters (just as Scratch, and his chief record label, would also be called Upsetter). The song was called "Return of Django," and the Wailers wanted in on similar action.

Since Scratch seemed to be the hottest producer in the wake of Kong's demise, and since the Wailers believed themselves to be the best vocal group in Jamaica, what was to stop them, they wondered, from conquering the world, if only they could join forces. Thus, on a handshake agreement to split everything 50-50, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer began working almost immediately in Dynamic Sounds Studio in Kingston, with the ever ebullient Perry bouncing at the board, creating more of his trademark "bumpity riddims" to complement some of the most important music made in the second half of the twentieth century. If this seems an overstatement, consider the countless covers of many of the songs that would emerge from these sessions over the next eight months, remakes that continue unabated right through the present time, a quarter century later. Consider, too, that these tracks have been the object of hundreds of bootlegged albums in scores of countries around the world. It has been reported that Bob and the Wailers are the most bootlegged artists in history with the exception of the Beatles. At the core of those illegal projects is the music that they made with Scratch, the first sessions of which appear on this album. Each of these songs utilized the Upsetters band, a lean and sparse lineup that produced hollow-sounding mixes that changed the face of Jamaican music forever. In the timeless tunes one hears echoes of dub and rockers and even DJ styles, animated by the thrill of discovery. Perhaps an apt comparison would be to call these "the Sun sessions of reggae," because of their ground-breaking, "never heard that before!" nature. Anchored by the granite-hard rhythms of brother Carlton and Aston "Family Man" Barrett on drum and bass, along with innovative keyboardist Glen Adams (who was, interestingly enough, also the first Augustus Pablo, having invented the name and adopted the toy melodica as Pablo's instrument of choice), and guitarist Alva "Reggie" Lewis, whose filigreed lines caused the music to snap and sparkle, the Wailers were now making swift and radical progress. But, like Yeats' center which was so preternaturally forceful that it couldn't hold, the partnership would be doomed to a quick and acrimoniously explosive demise.

Leroy Jodie Pierson & Roger Steffens

Explore Soul Revolution and the More Axe portions of this boxset

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