Zero to 180 – Three Minute Magic

Discoveries of a Pop Music Archaeologist

Early Wailers: Pre-Island Years

Thanks to the local public library, I am no longer the same person I once was after reading Roger Steffens‘ comprehensive and thoughtfully organized oral history of Bob Marley and, by extension, The Wailers, from their earliest days.  Halfway through the book I felt compelled to take notes about a number of the more obscure early Wailers tracks — as usual, click on boldfaced song titles for streaming audio.

What got me off the couch was the reminder that Johnny Nash, Arthur Jenkins, and Danny Sims (i.e., the JAD production team, featured late last December) brought in top NYC session players to “sweeten” the tracks for American ears – including Bernard Purdie (subject of a recent King history piece).  However, when you check the credits on disc one (1968) of the three-disc JAD box set, it says musicians “probably include” Eric Gale, Bernard Purdie, et al.  If not Purdie on tracks 1 through 14, asks Zero to 180, then what other drummer?   Check out “Love” – a surprisingly tender ballad from the Wailer with the most militant reputation – and decide whether Bernard Purdie provides the drum part on this JAD production from 1968:

“Love”

The Wailers (1968)

Speaking of Peter Tosh, Steffens notes that the original Studio One ska version of “Maga Dog” includes little-known female Wailer, Cherry Green:

“Maga Dog”

The Wailers (backed by The Skatalites)    1965

Cherry Green can also be heard on “Lonesome Feeling,” as well as “There She Goes” – The Wailers backed by The Mighty Vikingsa rare 45 from 1964.

Jamaica’s No. 1 Band
(Photo courtesy of Discogs)

It Hurts to Be Alone” features vocalist, Junior Braithwaite, another early member.  Check out the opening guitar line and instrumental solo break – who else could it be?  Answer:  Ernest Ranglin.

“It Hurts To Be Alone”

The Wailers (1964)

Bunny Wailer affirms that “It Hurts to Be Alone” — a “smash” when performed live in the early days – was a song directly inspired by Curtis Mayfield‘s “I’m So Proud,” as recorded by The Impressions:

“I’m So Proud”

The Impressions (1964)

Beverley Kelso, another member from the earliest days [who can be heard on early hit, “Simmer Down“], tells The Jamaica Observer in 2012 that she provided harmony on the original recording of “It Hurts To Be Alone“.  This song, notes Steffens – “the group’s first ballad to make a big impression” (get it?) – was written by “the teenaged Junior Braithwaite and recorded on August 28, 1964, the day before he left the island for Chicago” to join his family in the States.

Kelso sang on Wailers recordings sessions throughout 1964 and into the beginning of 1965 — including “Habits” from the group’s sixth recording session in mid-July 1964:

“Habits”

The Wailers (1965)

Dreamland” (Steffens points out) is not a Bunny Wailer original but rather an adaptation of a relatively obscure A-side – “My Dream Island” by El Tempos – that had been suggested to the group by Studio One owner, Coxson(e) Dodd:

As Discogs notes:

Originally (but never officially credited on Wailers-related records), it was an adaptation of a song “My Dream Island” by El Tempos on a Vee Jay Records 7-inch (VJ 580, 1963).  Composed by AlBunkJohnson, lead singer of El Tempos.

ConstantineDream” (a.k.a., ”Vision”) Walker – Rita (Anderson) Marley’s cousin – filled in for Bob when he was in Delaware and can be heard on “Sunday Morning”; “Let Him Go”; “Rock Sweet Rock”; “Dancing Shoes”; “I Need You”; “I Stand Predominate” (←fast forward to 24:51); and “I’m the Toughest:

“I’m the Toughest”

The Wailers (1966)

Wailers in the JA Pop Charts:

What Constitutes aHit

Steffens states (on pgs. 56-7) that in 1965, “the Wailers had the number one [“Simmer Down”], two [“It Hurts To Be Alone“], three [“Rude Boy“], five [“Jailhouse“], and seven [“Put It On“] songs in the Top Ten at once.”  Earlier in the book, Dodd helps give some context as to what constitutes a “hit”:

When ‘Simmer Down’ come out, in those days, anything from five thousand was a hit.  I would say twenty thousand would be a strong hit.”  Steffens adds, “At the height of the success of ‘Simmer Down’ it kept four pressing plants going and sold a reported eighty thousand copies on an island with only about two million inhabitants.

During their early years, The Wailers were a pretty volatile live act, you might be surprised to know, as Bunny Wailer makes clear:

Our first appearance was at the Palace.  Wailers were hot.  When we hit the stage it was just fire … When we came on, half the people left their seats and were down almost to the edge of the stage, ’cause Wailers were like gymnastics.  Flickings and splits and snap falls.  All Wailers split.  We did stuff where Bob would take me and throw me in the air and we’d split.  Bob would kneel down, I would go over his back — splits.  Peter would come there and bounce us like rubber balls, just comin’ up and goin’ down like that.  I would run to him, he catches me, and as my belly cross his arm he just flicks and split.

Bunny says that at the last show before Bob left for Delaware, it was a first-ever concert in the National Stadium, and the moment that made the crowd lose control happened during one particular Bob ballad, “I’m Still Waiting:

We had a little plan for “I’m Still Waiting” where when Bob said ‘my feet’, his feet just feel from under him, and we caught him before him hit the ground and just bring him back on mic.

“I’m Still Waiting”

The Wailers & Soul Brothers Orchestra (1965)

Steffens also notes that “Rasta Shook Them Up” — a Peter Tosh song recorded just a few days after Haile Selassie’s historic 1966 visit to Jamaica — is “the Wailers’ first record specifically mentioning Selassie” (and a 45 that does well at auction):

“Rasta Shook Them Up”

The Wailers (1966)

Freedom Time” — song of liberation from Marley and “the Wailing Wailers,” despite being recorded at Studio One with The Soul Brothers — is among the first Wail‘n’ Soul’m 45s, backed with “This Train” (Bunny says it sold something like 50,000 copies):

“Freedom Time”

Bob Marley & The Wailing Wailers (1966)

Check out the loping rocksteady version of “Stepping Razor” from 1967 — augmented by heavy hand drumming (note the flubbed chord by the band just seconds before fading):

“Stepping Razor”

The Wailers (1967)

More Nyabinghi hand drum work on Tosh/Wailers “Burial (below) the flip side to “Pound Get a Blow,” almost certainly recorded during the time Bob was in Delaware (where part of his time was spent sweeping floors at the opulent Hotel Du Pont in Wilmington).

Hotel Du Pont:

Where Jeff Nold once imbibed

Great piano on this killer rocksteady Wail’n Soul’m 45 release from 1968:

Musical blooper

Bassist accidentally plays opening note too early (or does he?)

Wail’n Soul’m 45s

(Discogs link)

Other Wailers Rarities

Jamaica 45 — 2003

Pre-release — 1969

Glad to be reminded that the ill-named Best of the Wailers album that was recorded at Leslie Kong’s studio (and released August, 1971) was intended as reggae’s first “concept” album — a “thematically structured collection of songs,” explain the liner notes to JAD’s 3-disc box set, “geared to the idea of giving themselves a pep talk:  we’re back in the business, we’re not afraid, and we’re moving forward to new heights, and the past be damned.”

  • A more appropriate album title, asserts Bunny Wailer, would’ve been “Cheer Up:

“Cheer Up”

The Wailers (1970)

Carlton + Family Man = “Hippy Boys”: 

JA Trivia

Bunny Lee produced the first recording session to feature Carlton and Family Man on a song — 1968’s “Bangarang” by Stranger Cole & Lester Sterling — “that marked the transition from rocksteady to reggae” = see earlier sidebar re:  “first reggae recording:

“Bangarang”

Lester Sterling & Stranger Cole (1968)

Two songs recorded for Catch a Fire that got reissued in recent years as bonus tracks:

Three recorded for the Burnin album similarly released as bonus tracks on reissues:

Netherlands 45 — 1973

Pre-release — 1971

‘Sangie’ Davis Gets a Co-Write

According to Roger Steffens:

Survival featured a song written by [Anthony] Sangie Davis called ‘Wake Up and Live‘ … Sangie was given credit on the original Survival cover for co-writing ‘Wake Up and Live.’  He received a small payment upon the album’s release in 1979, but nothing since.  His name has been removed from the credits on all subsequent pressings.”

“In late summer of 2006, Sangie and reggae great JosephCultureHill visited the Reggae Archives.  Davis, who had been a staff producer at [Bob Marley’s studio] Tuff Gong, revealed that he was the composer of the unreleased gems “Babylon Feel This One,” a dub-plate commissioned for the Twelve Tribes Sound System, and “She Used to Call Me Dada.”

“She Used to Call Me Dada”

Bob Marley & the Wailers

“Babylon Feel This One”

Bob Marley & the Wailers

Joe Higgs & the Wailers Legacy

Excerpt — Reggae Bloodlines: In Search of the Music and Culture of Jamaica (1977) by Stephen Davis and Peter Simon:

The unsung Joe Higgs is often ranked with Bob Marley as one of the greatest singers Jamaica has produced, and clearly is reggae’s major theoretician.  Describing himself usually as a protest singer, Higgs has an unadorned style not unlike that of the old Jamaican country singers.  His hits include “The World Is Upside Down” (1971), “Burning Fire” (1971), “Don’t Mind Me” (Higgs & Wilson – 1969), and “Wave of War” (1971).  In the early ’60s, Higgs teamed with his Trench Town neighbor Delroy Wilson to form a successful duo recording Jamaican “blues” for West Indian Records, an old-line label then owned by Edward Seaga, currently the leader of the opposition Jamaica Labor Party.  Seaga left the record business to go into politics (a completely logical shift) during the height of Higgs & Wilson‘s fame, and the pair went through several more producers before splitting in 1964.

It’s well known in Jamaica that Joe Higgs was the musical force behind the early Wailers, having organized the band, taught them timing, tactics, harmony, breathing, duende, and sound precision.  But Higgs has usually been and continues to be a shadow figure for the younger reggae stars.  His disdain of commerciality has kept him out of the spotlight and relegated him to a supporting role, where perhaps he does his best work.  Higgs toured America with the Wailers in 1974, replacing Bunny Livingston on hand drums and high harmony.

Record World

March 3, 1973

*

Roger Steffens Weighs In on the King Records Legacy!

Zero to 180 is delighted to report that Roger Steffens himself was kind enough to check out this history piece on the early Wailers recordings and respond to my query about Bernard Purdie and the King Records legacy:

“As far as Mr. Purdie’s contributions to the catalog, I don’t think there’s anything I could add to what is in Leroy Pierson and my Bob Marley and the Wailers:  The Definitive Discography.  (If you don’t have this book, it’s indispensable to your work, and still available on Amazon.)  I wouldn’t trust Danny [Sims]’s memory on any specific tracks, but Purdie himself has acknowledged being on several.  We acknowledge specifically “Nice Time”; “Soul Almighty” & “Bend Down Low,” and you can check the discog book for many others too.

In 1956, after my graduation from grade school in suburban NJ, my dad was transferred to Cincinnati.  We lived in North Norwood and I started high school at Purcell, working six afternoons a week delivering 356 copies of the Post and Times-Star.  I went back to Cincy many times in the ’60s and ’70s while reading poetry in the schools.  Saw REO Speedwagon in ’70 at the Ludlow Garage.  Have very fond memories of the city.

I have dinner every Tuesday night with a bunch of aging musos, and a frequent guest of late has been Seymour Stein.  He also moved from NY to Cincy in 1956, and we were born in the same hospital in Brooklyn, three months apart (he’s older).  Stein’s autobiography, Siren Song, is a great read, with much about his time as a youth mentored by the King Records head.”

Categories in this Post

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

All Categories
Archives