Here we go, starting off with 1970's Soul Rebels; I realize he's got a lot of earlier 60s singles so if you got them, post them up; I'm a complete novice with this artist and genre so I'm gathering the records as we go and following what's in the AllMusic guide. And let's try to keep the patois to one post per page.

Nice. I'll follow this one. I like his earlier stuff better than his latter stuff so this will be fun.

i have a few compilations of old 60s stuff.

I like the early Marley. Not every song hits here for me, but I've always been a fan of Rebels Hop, Soul Almighty, Its Alright, and Duppy Conqueror(listed as My Symapthy here). Duppy gets a nice later reworking on the Burnin, Island Records album, too. I am not sure what his reggae brothers sounded like in context of 1970, but this is raw. No defining moment of greatness here, but enjoyable. Despite Tosh having only 2 lead vox songs he stands out in style and force. Pretty understandable he'll be on his own at some point.

There is quite a bit of 60s stuff, most of it being pretty raw and many of the songs they re-recorded later. I think it'd be worth going through at least one decent compilation of early Wailers stuff.

Yeah, it really isn't easy with Marley to figure out where to start but I think this is the right choice.

I was a bit of a late comer to this album because for a long time the most commonly available Marley albums started with Burnin'. But, it has been good to see this one get out there more and more and I'm not sure if I just like this album more or if it has just not been over-played to death as much but for the last few years whenever I have felt the urge to hear something by him, I grab this one.

Frankly, it is hard to find a bad track on pretty much any albums by these guys and this one is no different in that regard. The title track, Try Me and the Peter Tosh sung 400 Years are personal favorites off this one. You can definitely hear the influence of Lee Perry on these tracks and the whole thing has that more ominous tone he often brings when compared to where this group went as time passed. I would say it is amazing for a debut, but since the group was around making singles and different thing for years before this was put together I think calling it a debut in the traditional sense is a bit of a misnomer.

I also just wanna say that I do get seriously tired of people who think reggae is only Bob Marley and do believe he is was disproportionately seen as the reggae music man. But, there is a reason for this. And, while I don't go back and listen to his stuff as much as I once did, I think this is a nice opportunity to take another listen to a true legend of world music.

If there is no consensus where to start, I am going to say that Charles made the right choice BY STARTING WIT DEM TITTIES.

This should be interesting. I don't know a lot of the earlier stuff.

I think since we generally start these off with a run of studio albums, starting with the first proper studio album is a natural choice. The comps can come later.

Looking forward to this. I'm hoping to figure out once and for all here if I've been missing out on something or not.

By the way, one stop shopping for all your Bob Marley musical needs...I think pretty much everything is here and all in 320.

http://ruinasdababilonia.blogspot.com/2 ... rafia.html

Are you missing anything? Well, that depends. Musically you may or may not like his stuff. If not, you're not missing anything. But, if you are more interested in hearing the output of one of the planets most significant musical artists over the last several decades, then yeah, you're missing out if you're not giving him a shot.

Awesome, I was just thinking the other day about what Bob Marley to get, other than his greatest hits.

I've given him a shot before, in that I've heard songs of his all over the place for as long as I can remember.

But this is my first time trying to sit through any of his albums start to finish by choice, let alone all of them.

Anyway, I just listened to Soul Rebels. At first, I honestly thought it was pretty tedious. About halfway through, I started to get a little more into it but more into the production than into the songs themselves, really. I should probably revisit this at some time, but I guess I'll wait until we've gone through all his studio albums. I'm hoping something is going to reach out and really grab me along the way.

For me this is the very definition of standard reggae fare. I realize that it's considered more the gold standard of reggae, but my attitude towards Marley (and even Peter Tosh by extension) has always been that I'd rather hear either the livelier, earlier reggae stuff (Toots, Desmond Dekkar) or later, more dub-heavy stuff (The Congos) than his kind of mellow traditionalism.

I just finished too, although I think I'd rank it higher than you, Drink. While it doesn't feel like a terribly important collection of songs but still I liked it nevertheless. There's quite a lot of hooks to be found here. But I'll definitely agree with you that I have a tendency to like the live records he's done much more. I have a great bootleg from '78 that I'll have to share too.

I think it is interesting that people have an issue with this just standing like "standard reggae." I mean the main reason this sounds like standard reggae is because when people talk about reggae they are most often specifically referring to Bob's catalog and the various spin off with Peter Tosh and Bunny and such.

It's kind of like calling Chuck Berry "standard rock 'n' roll." Sure, there's an element of truth to it, but it is only because he created the standard.

That said, that thing where it sounds like just your basic kinda reggae is what got me branching out and wanting to hear other reggae artists and explore the diversity of sounds there. Just saying, if this sounds like run-of-the-mill stuff, it is only because it so strongly defines its genre, not for any lack of originality.

OH, and if you're more digging the production style than the songs, go grab one of the Lee Perry compilations out there and start digging into his stuff.

I understand all of this, but historical importance does not enhance my enjoyment. I can appreciate what he did, and I don't mean to downplay that. Maybe calling it "mellow traditionalism" kind of downplays his innovation (which I clearly don't have the ears to hear), and I should have known that could probably get me into trouble. All I'm really trying to do is describe my honest, basic reaction to this music.

And I said in my post that I like The Congos, and I'm fully aware that this stuff is produced by Lee Perry. I'll get around to those comps one day.

Oh yeah, if you don't like it, you don't like it. No big deal. I probably was taking issue with the "traditionalism" bit because reggae only sounds like this, which is indeed to "traditional" sound until these guys created this style. Go listen to some Jamaican music in the early/mid 60s (even the early stuff the Wailers were doing, which was all based in the ska tradition) and it does not sound like where Bob & the Wailers took it. It's not really a subtle difference either, although Soul Rebels does serve as a bit of a transition until they start putting stuff out on Island.

Lots of good Lee Perry stuff out there. I probably actually am more of a Lee Perry fan anymore than a Bob Marley fan, really. I'm much more likely to play Roast Fish, Collie Weed And Corn Bread or Super Ape than any of the Wailers albums most days. I just give Marley a lot of credit for defining this music all over the planet and even though I've heard all his stuff so much that I rarely play it anymore, I still have a soft spot for the guy.

I have a feeling I'd like all that early Jamaican music a lot more than this. I like all the stuff on the expanded The Harder They Come soundtrack a whole lot, and I've always been meaning to look further into that kind of stuff. Although that doesn't seem to be so terribly far away from what the Wailers were doing. To me it just has a lot more life to it.

I suppose I could probably blame Marley for pioneering the kind of reggae that I typically find really boring, though. If I found rock 'n roll to generally be really boring, I'd probably feel the same way about Chuck Berry, too.

But I'm not going to write off Bob just yet. I'm particularly interested in hearing some of the later albums like Survivor, but I think it might be kind of rough going for me to get there.

Yeah, if you like The Harder they Come, you'd probably like some of the earlier stuff better. I like a lot of that sort of thing too. Desmond Dekker is a personal favorite. Alton Ellis too.

hearing early Marley was a revelation for me, I was so burned out on the Legend era stuff that I didn't even realize that he was once a vibrant kid making awesome soul music.

The link above is to Soul Revolution II, if you want the full double disc version, nobody's link has the extended cut, which just seems to offer differing versions.

Here's an interesting article talking about the confusion between Soul Revolution and Soul Revolution II, and which should have vocals and which is just the rhythm tracks.

http://blogs.okayplayer.com/blogarhythm ... n-part-ii/

This and African Herbsman, which is pretty much all the same songs with a couple exceptions, are also controversial for Scratch selling them without the band's knowledge for Trojan to release.

And this one is real similar in style to Soul Rebels. I do think you can hear Lee Perry's production sounds even more so on this one, which I like. But, I think the songs are simply better on Soul Rebels so it is a bit give and take. I don't think you really are hearing much if any progression from the group yet.

I appreciate you doing this thread because it made me realize that I only own the Tuff Gong/Island releases and an early comp. I don't think these first two were available in the U.S. when I was buying up all the Marley records 20 years ago. Never even heard either of these. I'll have to dl them and give them a listen at some point.

I enjoyed this one more than Soul Rebels. Could be that I was more in the mood for it, that the production is better, or just that it doesn't start out with slower songs. Or all of those, I guess.

To the surprise of no one, I'm on the other side of fence . I enjoyed Soul Rebels quite a bit more. Didn't dislike Soul Revolution II by any mean, but by and large I'd definitely see reaching for yesterday's album more than todays.

Either do it for me. These last 2 albums are interesting in comparison to the earlier ska/rock steady sound. Unless someone knows otherwise I guess earlier songs like Soul Shakedown Party(a great one btw) never made for a good transition to reggae.