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REPEATING ISLANDS


NEWS AND COMMENTARY ON CARIBBEAN CULTURE, LITERATURE, AND THE ARTS

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November 25, 2011


VINYL DUST-OFF: BOB MARLEY’S CATCH A FIRE

Lliam Easterbrook rhapsodizes about Bob Marley’s Catch a Fire in this piece for
the runnermag.ca site. Follow link below for original report.

What can be said about such a classic reggae album? Well, if you’re sober,
nothing really. Ideally, you need to be in the right headspace to view an album
like Bob Marley and the Wailers’ roots reggae opus Catch a Fire. I suppose Bob
might suggest a toke or two—and that’s exactly what I did, entering that
rarefied space through the plant sacred to Rastafarians worldwide. I can’t enter
their space, of course, but I can enter the music’s, which I did, letting The
Wailers’ soft melodies wash over me like the Caribbean sun, if I can be
shamelessly cliché for a moment.

The Wailers’ debut album, Catch a Fire was released on 13 April, 1973 on Island
Records. Traditional reggae for the most part relies on a subsidiary beat, with
guitars typically emphasizing the off-beat also. This is called “skank,” and
thus the term ‘skanky reggae.’ Musically, Marley and the gang cut the grooves
deep on subsequent albums, some of the skankiest. But not on Catch a Fire,
unfortunately. Upon completion, the original tapes were flown to England where
the album was remixed and changed. American studio musicians were brought in,
and many dynamics were altered. Essentially, what was removed in those remixes
was the skanky flavour, which rendered the album an Anglicization of traditional
black music.

A political album if ever there was one, CAF was immediately successful,
establishing Bob Marley and his band — in particular fellow vocalist Peter Tosh
— as influential world-conscious songwriters. The album garnered acclaim for its
politically libertarian lyrics that many deemed controversial at the time (and
sadly many still do). What are essentially songs crafted as an amalgamation of
Jamaican rhythm/blues, ska, and calypso — a subsequent evolution of African
music — CAF’s nine tracks predominantly focus around the lyrical themes of love
over hate, freedom over oppression, and egalitarianism.

On “400 Years,” Marley comments on the importance of youth posterity (“400
years, 400 years/ of the same philosophy/ and the people, they still can’t see/
Why do they fight against the youth of today?/ and without youths, you would be
gone/ all gone astray”), criticizing the establishment for failing to recognize
the importance of listening to its youth. “Concrete Jungle” is a lament about
what Marley feels to be the dehumanizing aspect of urbanity: “no chains around
my feet/ but I’m not free/ I know I am bound here in captivity/ . . . in this
concrete jungle.” In an almost bittersweet way, unfortunately, these songs are
timeless — just look at Occupy.

Not just an album for the mind, though, Catch a Fire is an album for the body,
for movement and energy. “Baby, we’ve got a date” sways like Caribbean life,
slow and easy. “Stir it up,” their first successful song outside Jamaica, is a
classic love song—it does the same thing to the ladies as Marvin Gaye or Barry
White, and it’s actually (more than) listenable.

These relatively simple (and obvious?) concepts Bob Marley and the Wailers (and
many others) conveyed through their music, at that time, are struggles that many
are still fighting to overcome today. You just have to pick up a newspaper to
see that struggles for equality and protests to end flagrant social disparity
are catching fire all over the world. And he’s just talking about love, people,
love and freedom. This album is as important now as it was then.

Play it loud. Play it proud.

For the original report go to
http://runnermag.ca/2011/11/vinyl-dust-off-bob-marley%E2%80%99s-catch-a-fire/


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RELATED

45 YEARS AGO: BOB MARLEY BREAKS OUT WITH THE WAILERS’ ‘CATCH A FIRE’April 13,
2018In "News"

Bob Marley Lives On, On The Billboard Reggae ChartsNovember 7, 2020In "News"

Bob Marley & The Wailers New Footage: ‘The Capitol Session ‘73’ Makes It
DebutSeptember 12, 2021In "News"

Posted in MusicTagged Bob Marley and the Wailers, Catch a FireBy lisaparavisini1
Comment


ONE THOUGHT ON “VINYL DUST-OFF: BOB MARLEY’S CATCH A FIRE”

 1. Antigonum Cajan says:
    November 26, 2011 at 7:42 pm
    
    After Marley nothing much happened in general until that British wave in the
    eighties, Black Uhuru, The Selector and many others. then it was cool and
    expected from many rock bands to play regue/ska as a matter of fact..I miss
    those times.
    
    Nice post, since i keep my vinyl handy and ready to go when the mood
    strikes.
    
    LikeLike
    
    Reply
    


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