Description

Bob Marley & The Wailers Rastaman Vibration
Hybrid Stereo SACD release from Analogue Productions
Mastered Direct To DSD by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound from the original master tape
Plays in all CD and SACD players

When Rastaman Vibration was first released in America in 1976 it did what some in the music industry considered nearly impossible at the time. It took Bob Marley into the Top Ten alongside disco records and corporate rock, points out Rolling Stone, which rates the album 4 stars.

Despite the good cheer of the title track and the upbeat Roots, Rock, Reggae, Rastaman Vibration contains some of Marleys most intense images of oppression, paranoia and despair. Tracks such as Who the Cap Fit, Crazy Baldhead and War are offered by the Wailers with dire urgency as Marleys brutal visions are echoed by his own church choir, the I-Threes. More than four decades later, neither Marleys music nor his message has lost its sting.

For Bob Marley, 1975 was a triumphant year. The singers Natty Dread album featured one of his strongest batches of original material (the first compiled after the departure of Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer) and delivered Top 40 hit No Woman No Cry. The follow-up Live set, a document of Marleys appearance at Londons Lyceum, found the singer conquering England as well. Upon completing the tour, Marley and his band returned to Jamaica, laying down the tracks for Rastaman Vibration (1976) at legendary studios run by Harry Johnson and Joe Gibbs. At the mixing board for the sessions were Sylvan Morris and Errol Thompson, Jamaican engineers of the highest caliber.

Of the material on Rastaman Vibration, War, for one, remains one of the most stunning statements of the singers career. Though it is essentially a straight reading of one of Haile Selassies speeches, Marley phrases the text exquisitely to fit a musical setting, a quiet intensity lying just below the surface. Equally strong are the likes of Rat Race,Crazy Baldhead, and Want More. These songs are tempered by buoyant, lighthearted material like Cry to Me, Night Shift, and Positive Vibration. Not quite as strong as some of the love songs Marley would score hits with on subsequent albums, Cry to Me seems like an obvious choice for a single and remains underrated.

Rastaman Vibration now a landmark production on Analogue Productions Hybrid Stereo SACD!