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Bob Marley and The Wailers 'One Love at Studio One' Heartbeat/Studio One  There are innumerable compilations kicking around with Bob Marley's name on the cover, but none capture the early period of The Wailers nearly as well as 'One Love.' Documenting the period from The Wailers' first ever recording session to Bob's departure for the United States (songwriting and singing duties were regularly rotated between him, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, so they simply continued without him), his return with an electric guitar and their first encounters with multi-track recording, this shows the development not just of the Wailers, but of Jamaican music as a whole in the mid-'60s. The first disc is dominated by the exuberant fast-paced ska numbers but also includes a number of beautifully harmonised spirituals, and originals are interspersed with straight covers like Dion's Teenager In Love as well as rhythm versions and riffs lifted from R&B and soul tracks heard over the radio from New Orleans. In all this, it is impossible to overstate the contribution of the Skatalites, the incredibly tight house band that played out of their skins for every minute of their short existence. One result of the proliferation of music from this period is that multiple versions exist of almost all of these tracks, and the staff at Heartbeat have done pretty well in the tough job of picking the best. One inspired move, however, was to include a rare rehearsal version of Wages Of Love in which the heart-achingly frail falsettos are augmented only by a sparse guitar part, while the rawness in Marley's voice cuts through them with abandon. By halfway through the second disc, the music transforms to the slower and more syncopated rocksteady beat that saw Bob's songwriting really flower and the last three tracks featured here after Bob's return foreshadow the later directions that he would take. For years, Trojan has faithfully remastered and released countless tracks recorded under Duke Reid at Treasure Isle, but while Soul Jazz has been slowly chipping away at the mass of material from Coxsone Dodd's Studio one the US-based Heartbeat are much quicker workers and it's a godsend that they finally have local distribution. Now, if only someone would delve into Prince Buster's back catalogue...  |
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