Update No.
34
Volume 5: Issue 2: Summer 2005
DISTANT DRUMS No. 12
Issue 12 of the essential Wailers rootszine Distant Drums is available now, featuring the Kaya tour 1978, Island Records re-masters, Al Anderson and Junior Braithwaite interviews and all the usual news, reviews and
listings.
Available from www.distantdrums.org or Ernie B in the US.
PETER TOSH PRESSURISED
The next release on re-issue specialist label Pressure Sounds is a Peter Tosh double CD. Talking Revolution brings together Peter's stunning performance at the 1978 One Love Peace Concert and the acoustic set I Am That I Am, both previously released by JAD Records.
Release Date12/9/05
Track list as provided by Pressure Sounds:
CD One:
Live At The One Love Peace Concert 1978
1. Igziabeher (Let Jah Be Praised)
2. Four Hundred Years
3. Stepping Razor
4. Speech
5. Burial/Speech
6. Equal Rights
7. Speech
8. Legalise It/Get Up, Stand Up
CD Two:
Acoustic Set:
Fools Die (Wisdom)
Jah Guide
I Am That I Am
Fire Fire (Babylon Burning)
Pick Myself Up
Stop That Train
Handsome Johnny
Don’t Wanna To Get Busted*
Peter speaks about the Half Way Tree incident
Legalise It
Get Up, Stand Up
Although the track list for disc two appears truncated from the original JAD release, I believe that this set is exactly as previously issued.
The Peace Concert CD was reviewed on the Django site, which can be found HERE.
I Am That I Am was reviewed on this site in September 2001, check the page HERE (scroll down to the review).
DREADLOCK HOLIDAY DOWN ON DEESIDE
25 years ago on the 12trh of July, Bob Marley and the Wailers performed to 4, 500 people at the Deeside Leisure Centre. The Deeside concert wasn’t actually in Chester, it was just across the border in Wales in a small town called Connah’s Quay. The Deeside Leisure centre which was used mainly as an ice rink.
Archive review from the Chester Chronicle
If there's one thing that stands out about a Bob Marley concert, it's the vast repertoire of top material that he and his band can produce.
Although there were a couple of songs that failed to raise the roof at the Deeside Leisure Centre during Marley's recent performance, the audience were kept cheering, clapping and chanting for 90 per cent of the time as one Marley standard after another boomed from the stage.
The concert which drew a vast crowd of around 4, 500 people, opened with Marley's band Tuff Gong Uprising backing the I Three's, Marley's own backing singers. Though they received loud applause, it was nothing to compare with the roar that greeted the man himself, dreadlocks flying, pinned by a white spotlight.
The set opened with Natural Mystic, instantly recognisable, before Marley went on to play some of his lesser-known stuff. For the first hour or so, things went well enough, but then came the opening chords of Jammin', and the whole place nearly took off. The concert simply lifted to a different plane. And that was followed by Exodus.
At this point, rather aptly, the band and Marley simply got up and walked off-stage. No had the slightest intention of letting them go, and 4, 500 voices shouting for more put the message across (as if Marley wasn't intending to come back anyway).
The second part of the set included classics like Natty Dread, No Woman No Cry, I Shot The Sheriff, all played with little or no chat in between.
The music was tight without being strictly bound to the album originals, proving if nothing else that Marley is a professional and that his musicians are men of imagination and flexibility, unlike some bands who use tours simple to put across, note for note, the stuff they put on the albums they want to promote.
Last number was a loose version of Get Up Stand Up with the obligatory singalong in the middle of it. Then it was spots off, house light on.
Rating? Outstanding.
A.F. Chester Chronicle, July 1980.
ROGER STEFFENS DISCOGRAPHY BOOK
October 25 2005 is the date Wailers fans have been waiting for for several years, as it sees the publication of Roger Steffens much anticipated discography of all things Wailers.
For the first time ever, all the recordings made by Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, and Peter Tosh have been compiled into a definitive discography which details each track-singers, musicians, engineers, producers, studios, master tape information, matrix numbers, and recording dates of each song.
The 208 page book is published by Rounder Books (ISBN: 1579401201 ), and can be pre-order from Amazon on the following link:
MARLEY EXHIBITION
Natural Mystic - Images of Bob Marley from the archives of Dennis Morris
At Snap Galleries in The Custard Factory,Birmingham
5 August 2005 to 20 September 2005.
We are proud to announce an important exhibition for Summer 2005. Dennis Morris’ photographs of Bob Marley are legendary and are the subject of this wonderful show.
It’s a great story. A fourteen year old black kid sitting with his camera outside London’s Speakeasy Club in 1973 waiting for one of his musical heroes to turn up. Dennis had bunked off school and was determined to photograph Bob Marley - the camera was his passion. He knew that a career in photography lay ahead. Hell, it was all he wanted to do. Dennis tells it : “My careers officer asked me what I wanted to do. I told him I wanted to be a photographer, “Don’t be silly”, he replied, there’s no such thing as a black photographer.” “Oh yes, there is” I answered, “Don’t you know the work of Gordon Parks?”
“So I met with Bob. I was waiting with my camera outside the Speakeasy. He was in England for his first tour of Babylon. He arrived with the Wailers. “Can I take a picture?”, I asked, “Yeah Man”, he replied, “Come in!”. On that first meeting, my life was to change. “Do you know who Gordon Parks is?”, I asked. “Do you know who Marcus Garvey is?”, he asked. He told me “Don’t let them tell you you can’t do anything Dennis, you can be anything you want”. For me I know that meeting in 1973 was vital, he gave me confidence, he gave me hope, he gave me identity, he made my dream possible. “
That same day, Bob asked Dennis to go on tour with them. He packed a bag and disappeared. He rang his mum from Brighton and told her he was with Bob Marley. She said “ Yeah yeah, you wait til you come home, your backside it a gwan buuurn!”
Dennis has exhibited his work all around the world - Sydney Opera House, Laforet Museum in Tokyo, and galleries in London, New York,Paris, San Francisco and Stuttgart to name a few. Well now Birmingham is going to be added to the list. This work is very very special and it is an honour for us to host this important exhibition - the first time that Dennis has held a UK show outside the capital. The roots of reggae run deep in Birmingham, and we think it’s the perfect venue. The exhibition is part of Birmingham’s International festival of the image, Rhubarb Rhubarb, renowned for its extraordinary portfolio review, accompanied by vibrant exhibitions at a host of venues around the city from 20 July to 13 August. You can find out more about Rhubarb Rhubarb at their website, www.rhubarb-rhubarb.net.
Dennis' Bob Marley photographs in the exhibition are all very large format - 30 inches x 40 inches - a spectacular size. The show combines regular photographs with two other presentational techniques - photo-collages and multi image pieces, both very different visually, but with a common theme of combining a number of images together together behind a single frame.
Dennis will be at the show all day on Saturday, 6 August and would be delighted to meet everyone who can make it . Admission is free.
The exhibition runs from 10.30am on Friday 5 August to 20 September 2005 at Snap Galleries, 12-13 Gibb Square, The Custard Factory, Birmingham B9 4AA. Opening hours 10.30am to 6.00pm Tuesday to Saturday,late nights on Thursday until 7.00 pm. Admission is free. website : www.snapgalleries.com, email : info@snapgalleries.com.
All enquiries - Guy White, Gallery Director - telephone 0121 224 7345 / email : info@snapgalleries.com - Images are available for publicity purposes with appropriate credit to the photographer. Dennis Morris is available for interview if required.
About the gallery : Snap is one of the only galleries in the world to specialise in rare and exclusive rock and roll photography. We showcase the very best work by the cream of the photographers operating in the music genre from the fifties to the present day. Our mission is to bring you the things you always wanted but never knew you could get. We have a new exhibition approximately every eight weeks. Our next exhibition is a one man show for Daniel Kramer, showcasing photographs of Bob Dylan he made in 1964 and 65. Daniel was responsible for the cover photography on Dylan’s groundbreaking mid sixties albums, Bringing it All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited.
Site compiled by Andy Clayden. Thanks to Andrew Lee & Guy White.
Previous Updates:
Number 33, January/March2005 Number 32, October/December 2004
Number 31, August/September 2004 Number 30, May 2004
Number 29, April 2004 Number 28, January 2004
Number 27, October/November 2003 Number 26, August/September 2003
Number 25, July 2003 Number 24, June 2003
Number 23, May 2003 Number 22, April 2003
Number 21, March 2003 Number 20, February 2003
See side links for full on-line www.wailers.co.uk archive.
Please visit these Wailers/reggae sites:
The OFFICIAL Wailers website: www.wailers.com
www.bobmarley.freeserve.co.uk Django! Ska, Rocksteady & Reggae
http://robertnestamarley.free.fr http://intelligentdiplomat.free.fr
www.melodymakers.de bobmarleyshop.com
www.caceinternational.com The Wailers News
Bob Marley Magazine http://go.to/bobmarleyshows
www.mentomusic.com http://membres.lycos.fr/semayat
Contact: jahlight@wailers.co.uk