Post by kaya on Feb 3, 2009 14:20:16 GMT -5
Human Feelings & Universal Truths: The Timelessness Of Bob Marley’s Exodus
By SHAUN MULLEN
GUEST VOICE
It had been at least a couple of years since I played Exodus, the seminal Bob Marley and The Wailers reggae album. There was about a foot of snow on the ground and it was a most un-tropical four below zero outside the mountain retreat, but the coal stove was chug chugging away and the DF&C and I were plenty cozy as the living room filled with the first notes of “Natural Mystic,” the album’s opening track.
A little under 40 minutes later, with the closing notes of “Punky Reggae Party” fading, I slowly climbed out of a trance-like state and understood for the first time all over again why Exodus is not just a masterpiece. It is the finest example of the genre, but more importantly one of a small handful of recordings that the term “concept album” does not do justice because of how it brilliantly distills the most mundane of human feelings with universal truths through words and music that are at once simple and deeply complex.
* * * * *
My introduction to reggae came on a sultry summer evening in 1973 when the soundtrack from The Harder They Come by reggae pioneer Jimmy Cliff was played through the house system at the Keystone Berkeley, a music club in Berkeley, California, between the sets of a Jerry Garcia Band show.
I had cut my teeth on Motown in my early teens and adored soul and R&B, but this was something else. I was knocked over by the swinging backbeat, Cliff’s mellifluous vocal stylings and the hypnotic minor chords that ran through most every song. The next day I bought my first two reggae LPs — The Harder They Come and, on the recommendation of the record store clerk, Catch a Fire, which happened to be debut American album of Marley and The Wailers.
By the time Exodus was released in 1977, reggae had moved beyond its cool ska and rocksteady roots.
But outside of Jamaica, where reggae was the antithesis of its slowed-down precursors, it had only really caught on in the U.K., where it was helped considerably by its enthusiastic endorsement by punk bands like The Clash. Marley was on his way to being a star in the U.S., but that had a lot to do with Eric Clapton’s 1974 hit cover of his “I Shot the Sheriff.”
As Chris Blackwell, who “discovered” original Wailer Peter Tosh and broke Marley internationally on his Island Records label, put it: “At that time, Eric was God, right? So people looked to see where God was going for his material, and it led back to Bob.”
* * * * *
Robert Nesta Marley, who would have celebrated his 64th birthday on Friday, was a transcendental figure, the global Rastafarian icon who was part revolutionary and part lover. But there was even more to the private man than our brief public glimpses of him.
As Vivien Goldman notes in The Book of Exodus, a fine 2006 book on the making and meaning of Exodus by one of the few non-Rastafarians and non-whites to truly have Marley’s measure, his reality was deeply enmeshed with prophecy.
The story of the Exodus led by Moses as told in the Torah and Old Testament was a natural theme for Marley the man and for his musical canon, writes Goldman:
“Its issues of power, betrayal, hope, disillusionments, and the search for serenity were all uppermost in his mind as he created the Exodus album with the Wailers. The Book of Exodus deals with leaving familiar oppression behind, braving the unknown, and letting faith guide you to a brighter future. ”
My one relatively minor complaint with The Book of Exodus is that Goldman overstates the Moses-Marley connections, which hardly matter beyond the obvious one — that like the Israelites, Marley’s people also escaped slavery to start life anew in freedom and determined in their worship of Jah, the shortened Rastafarian name for God.
Goldman focuses on a sixteen-month period of exile for Marley and The Wailers.
It began with a 1976 assassination attempt, a perhaps predictable result of him being the big prize in a violent tug of war between the two political parties two decades after Jamaican independence, the creative leap that resulted in the making of Exodus in London, and the 1978 Peace Concert back in Kingston, which promised but failed to deliver a new beginning for Marley’s downtrodden brothers and sisters.
* * * * *
In its original vinyl incarnation, the emotional extremes of Exodus are more evident than on the seamless compact disc versions, which include a fine remastered and expanded CD with alternate takes and live cuts from the Wailers U.K. tour that followed the release of Exodus.
Side A of the original flows from “Natural Mystic” to “So Much Things to Say,” picks up in intensity with “Guiltiness” and “The Heathen” and thunders to a climax with “Exodus.” Side B is a kind of love feast with “Waiting in Vain,” “Turn Your Lights Down Low,” “Three Little Birds” and “One Love,” which Marley combined with a riff on Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready.”
Selfishly, I found it somewhat galling that Time magazine in 1999 named Exodus the best album of the 20th century.
How could this mainstream rag appreciate the stories that Exodus told, let alone the humble man whose escape from death would drive him to write and record its nonpareil songs? But that’s silly, because a whole lot of people who read Time and may have been as cold as that night back at the shack in the mountains ended up being warmed to their very souls by listening to Exodus.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shaun Mullen is a former The Moderate Voice columnist. Over a long career with newspapers, this award-winning editor and reporter covered the Vietnam War, O.J. Simpson trials, Clinton impeachment circus and coming of Osama bin Laden, among many other big stories.
Mullen writes at Kiko’s House, a current and cultural affairs log, and writes often about music. Click here for an index with links to other musician appreciations, including Duane Allman, John Coltrane, Bruce thingyburn, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Jerry Garcia, Robert Johnson, Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro, among others.
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........
More than words: Bob Marley - a true soldier
1 comment January 30, 3:10 PM
by Sarah-Jayne Couhault, SF Rock Music Examiner
« Previous
Bob Marley (c: poponthepop.com)Have you ever loved a song to the point of ridiculousness but no matter how hard you try, you just can’t understand the lyrics? What was the artist thinking when writing your favorite tune? More Than Words, a weekly column, will help to delve a little deeper…
Buffalo Soldier, Bob Marley (Confrontation, 1983)
"People want to listen to a message, word from Jah. This could be passed through me or anybody. I am not a leader... The word of the songs, not the person, is what attracts people. I don't stand for the black man's side; I don’t stand for the white man's side. I stand for God's side. Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny.” Bob Marley.
Although the lyrics to Bob Marley’s most famous political anthem may seem fairly straight forward, the history associated with the song is not quite so clear-cut.
Co-written by Marley and Noel G. Williams (also known as ‘King Sporty’) in 1978, Buffalo Soldier was developed after Marley read an article about African-American soldiers in the 1800s. The name ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ was given to the troops of the all-black 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments by their adversaries in the Indian wars in 1866.
“In America, the red Indians used to say the black people resembled buffalos because of their dreadlocks - so 'Buffalo Soldier, dreadlock rasta' - and the song is about them being 'stolen from Africa, brought to America, fighting on arrival, fighting for survival' about 400 years ago.” Paul Kelly, Bob Marley Foundation, Jamaica.
The name ‘Buffalo Soldier’ is believed to have originated because the Indians thought the soldiers' hair resembled a buffalo's mane. However according to the Buffalo Soldier National Museum in Houston, the name originated with the Cheyenne warriors in 1867 - the actual Cheyenne translation being ‘Wild Buffalo’. The soldiers were respected for their courage and fearlessness, qualities they found in the buffalo.
Historians have also argued that the lyric ‘'stolen from Africa, brought to America’, is historically incorrect as the slave trade was abolished by Thomas Jefferson in 1808, long before the Indian wars.
“Importation of slaves to the United States was banned from 1808 onward, so that the youngest person stolen from Africa would have been 58 years old when the Buffalo Soldier regiments were first formed in 1866.” American University, Washington DC.
However, it is believed that Marley’s intention through writing the song was to highlight the irony of using minorities to fight other minorities who were posing a ‘threat’ to white-American society. It is understood that Marley was writing about a series of events that lead to a struggle for survival. “They (the Buffalo Soldiers) fought for the ones who captured and enslaved them simply to stay alive (because they had no choice),” Music Mama, Songfacts. “This is an incredibly poignant song, combining thoughts about slavery and war and colonial history”.
“This song was one of Bob Marley’s biggest posthumous hits. He took a keen interest in social issues and historical developments. The (fact that) Buffalo soldiers were being used to fight another racial minority and then treated with disdain after winning the war for America was very intriguing to him.” www.rasta-man-vibration.com.
More than 20 Buffalo Soldiers went on to receive the Medal of Honor, the military's highest award for valor. No other unit has won more. (Larry Shaughnessy, CNN.com)
Marley often referred to the point of his music as educating people about their history so they can take control of their future. “Music gonna teach dem a lesson...,” Bob Marley.
*More Than Words is a weekly column. If you liked this column, you may also enjoy – Return of the Giant Hogweed, Message In A Bottle, I am The Walrus, Riders on the Storm, White Room, Wear Your Love Like Heaven, Could Have Lied, Go Your Own Way, Sweetest Thing, Smells Like Teen Spirit.
www.examiner.com/x-1222-SF-Rock-Music-Examiner
........
Bob Marley Would Have Been At Obama's Inauguration!
By Scatty
Published Jan 31, 2009
Marley Was Missed! Bob Marley Would Have Been At Obama's
Inauguration!
Marley would have been there! I KNOW Marley would have been there!
Those words were stuck in my head as I watched "We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial" Sunday, January 18 as televised on HBO from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. I know Bob would have been invited and how thrilled he would have been to perform with a host of other top international stars.
Marley's One Love melody rung pure and true from the Three Little Birds of Herbie Hanthingy, Sheryl Crow and Will I am. But could you not envision Marley rocking that stage in true Buffalo Solidier reggae royalty by the King of Reggae himself? Yes, I Can!
It's a natural fit to not only celebrate Marley's birthday in February, but February is also the official celebration of Black History month in the
U.S.A. We celebrate the birthday of The Honourable Robert Nesta Marley, O.M., on Friday, February 6. Marley would have been 64 years of age.
With the ushering in of a new era in America's political landscape of the first African America President, Barack Hussein Obama this celebration becomes even more poignant as was seen by the tremendous outpouring of emotions by Americans and people worldwide regarding such an achievement.
Marley's music like Obama's politics of - change we can believe in - and "Yes I Can" has the natural respect of the international community. The timeless reggae rhythms and inspiring lyrics of One Love resounded across the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Mall where the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke and a Marian Anderson held a concert after being denied to sing during a previous Inauguration because of race and told to us that evening by Queen Latifah.
I reflected on this awe-inspiring time in history as voiced by Jamaica’s first National Hero, The Rt. Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey where he preached racial equality to the African American people in decades past and the entire diaspora of African ancestry.
At the We Are One Concert, the panoramic lens of the camera provided us with wide and medium shots of the stage, the Biden and Obama families, then zooming into close ups of Barack Obama and his wife, Michele Obama. At one point they were seen jamming to the One Love riddims as their heads bobbed from side to side in reggae joy and my high octane Jamaican pride welled up inside. Our wonderful musical gift of reggae given to us by The Most High was there in its rightful place.
Watching the likes of a Bono from U2 who has praised Bob and in his speech given at the induction of Marley in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame he expounded, “He wanted everything at the same time and he was everything at the same time ..prophet, soul rebel, rastaman, herbsman….wildman, a natural mystic man….shaman, human, JAMAICAN.”
www.jamaicans.com/articles/primearticles/stageshow2007-2.shtml
By SHAUN MULLEN
GUEST VOICE
It had been at least a couple of years since I played Exodus, the seminal Bob Marley and The Wailers reggae album. There was about a foot of snow on the ground and it was a most un-tropical four below zero outside the mountain retreat, but the coal stove was chug chugging away and the DF&C and I were plenty cozy as the living room filled with the first notes of “Natural Mystic,” the album’s opening track.
A little under 40 minutes later, with the closing notes of “Punky Reggae Party” fading, I slowly climbed out of a trance-like state and understood for the first time all over again why Exodus is not just a masterpiece. It is the finest example of the genre, but more importantly one of a small handful of recordings that the term “concept album” does not do justice because of how it brilliantly distills the most mundane of human feelings with universal truths through words and music that are at once simple and deeply complex.
* * * * *
My introduction to reggae came on a sultry summer evening in 1973 when the soundtrack from The Harder They Come by reggae pioneer Jimmy Cliff was played through the house system at the Keystone Berkeley, a music club in Berkeley, California, between the sets of a Jerry Garcia Band show.
I had cut my teeth on Motown in my early teens and adored soul and R&B, but this was something else. I was knocked over by the swinging backbeat, Cliff’s mellifluous vocal stylings and the hypnotic minor chords that ran through most every song. The next day I bought my first two reggae LPs — The Harder They Come and, on the recommendation of the record store clerk, Catch a Fire, which happened to be debut American album of Marley and The Wailers.
By the time Exodus was released in 1977, reggae had moved beyond its cool ska and rocksteady roots.
But outside of Jamaica, where reggae was the antithesis of its slowed-down precursors, it had only really caught on in the U.K., where it was helped considerably by its enthusiastic endorsement by punk bands like The Clash. Marley was on his way to being a star in the U.S., but that had a lot to do with Eric Clapton’s 1974 hit cover of his “I Shot the Sheriff.”
As Chris Blackwell, who “discovered” original Wailer Peter Tosh and broke Marley internationally on his Island Records label, put it: “At that time, Eric was God, right? So people looked to see where God was going for his material, and it led back to Bob.”
* * * * *
Robert Nesta Marley, who would have celebrated his 64th birthday on Friday, was a transcendental figure, the global Rastafarian icon who was part revolutionary and part lover. But there was even more to the private man than our brief public glimpses of him.
As Vivien Goldman notes in The Book of Exodus, a fine 2006 book on the making and meaning of Exodus by one of the few non-Rastafarians and non-whites to truly have Marley’s measure, his reality was deeply enmeshed with prophecy.
The story of the Exodus led by Moses as told in the Torah and Old Testament was a natural theme for Marley the man and for his musical canon, writes Goldman:
“Its issues of power, betrayal, hope, disillusionments, and the search for serenity were all uppermost in his mind as he created the Exodus album with the Wailers. The Book of Exodus deals with leaving familiar oppression behind, braving the unknown, and letting faith guide you to a brighter future. ”
My one relatively minor complaint with The Book of Exodus is that Goldman overstates the Moses-Marley connections, which hardly matter beyond the obvious one — that like the Israelites, Marley’s people also escaped slavery to start life anew in freedom and determined in their worship of Jah, the shortened Rastafarian name for God.
Goldman focuses on a sixteen-month period of exile for Marley and The Wailers.
It began with a 1976 assassination attempt, a perhaps predictable result of him being the big prize in a violent tug of war between the two political parties two decades after Jamaican independence, the creative leap that resulted in the making of Exodus in London, and the 1978 Peace Concert back in Kingston, which promised but failed to deliver a new beginning for Marley’s downtrodden brothers and sisters.
* * * * *
In its original vinyl incarnation, the emotional extremes of Exodus are more evident than on the seamless compact disc versions, which include a fine remastered and expanded CD with alternate takes and live cuts from the Wailers U.K. tour that followed the release of Exodus.
Side A of the original flows from “Natural Mystic” to “So Much Things to Say,” picks up in intensity with “Guiltiness” and “The Heathen” and thunders to a climax with “Exodus.” Side B is a kind of love feast with “Waiting in Vain,” “Turn Your Lights Down Low,” “Three Little Birds” and “One Love,” which Marley combined with a riff on Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready.”
Selfishly, I found it somewhat galling that Time magazine in 1999 named Exodus the best album of the 20th century.
How could this mainstream rag appreciate the stories that Exodus told, let alone the humble man whose escape from death would drive him to write and record its nonpareil songs? But that’s silly, because a whole lot of people who read Time and may have been as cold as that night back at the shack in the mountains ended up being warmed to their very souls by listening to Exodus.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shaun Mullen is a former The Moderate Voice columnist. Over a long career with newspapers, this award-winning editor and reporter covered the Vietnam War, O.J. Simpson trials, Clinton impeachment circus and coming of Osama bin Laden, among many other big stories.
Mullen writes at Kiko’s House, a current and cultural affairs log, and writes often about music. Click here for an index with links to other musician appreciations, including Duane Allman, John Coltrane, Bruce thingyburn, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Jerry Garcia, Robert Johnson, Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro, among others.
ShareThis
themoderatevoice.com/26154/human-feelings-universal-truths-the-timelessness-of-bob-marleys-exodus/
........
More than words: Bob Marley - a true soldier
1 comment January 30, 3:10 PM
by Sarah-Jayne Couhault, SF Rock Music Examiner
« Previous
Bob Marley (c: poponthepop.com)Have you ever loved a song to the point of ridiculousness but no matter how hard you try, you just can’t understand the lyrics? What was the artist thinking when writing your favorite tune? More Than Words, a weekly column, will help to delve a little deeper…
Buffalo Soldier, Bob Marley (Confrontation, 1983)
"People want to listen to a message, word from Jah. This could be passed through me or anybody. I am not a leader... The word of the songs, not the person, is what attracts people. I don't stand for the black man's side; I don’t stand for the white man's side. I stand for God's side. Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny.” Bob Marley.
Although the lyrics to Bob Marley’s most famous political anthem may seem fairly straight forward, the history associated with the song is not quite so clear-cut.
Co-written by Marley and Noel G. Williams (also known as ‘King Sporty’) in 1978, Buffalo Soldier was developed after Marley read an article about African-American soldiers in the 1800s. The name ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ was given to the troops of the all-black 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments by their adversaries in the Indian wars in 1866.
“In America, the red Indians used to say the black people resembled buffalos because of their dreadlocks - so 'Buffalo Soldier, dreadlock rasta' - and the song is about them being 'stolen from Africa, brought to America, fighting on arrival, fighting for survival' about 400 years ago.” Paul Kelly, Bob Marley Foundation, Jamaica.
The name ‘Buffalo Soldier’ is believed to have originated because the Indians thought the soldiers' hair resembled a buffalo's mane. However according to the Buffalo Soldier National Museum in Houston, the name originated with the Cheyenne warriors in 1867 - the actual Cheyenne translation being ‘Wild Buffalo’. The soldiers were respected for their courage and fearlessness, qualities they found in the buffalo.
Historians have also argued that the lyric ‘'stolen from Africa, brought to America’, is historically incorrect as the slave trade was abolished by Thomas Jefferson in 1808, long before the Indian wars.
“Importation of slaves to the United States was banned from 1808 onward, so that the youngest person stolen from Africa would have been 58 years old when the Buffalo Soldier regiments were first formed in 1866.” American University, Washington DC.
However, it is believed that Marley’s intention through writing the song was to highlight the irony of using minorities to fight other minorities who were posing a ‘threat’ to white-American society. It is understood that Marley was writing about a series of events that lead to a struggle for survival. “They (the Buffalo Soldiers) fought for the ones who captured and enslaved them simply to stay alive (because they had no choice),” Music Mama, Songfacts. “This is an incredibly poignant song, combining thoughts about slavery and war and colonial history”.
“This song was one of Bob Marley’s biggest posthumous hits. He took a keen interest in social issues and historical developments. The (fact that) Buffalo soldiers were being used to fight another racial minority and then treated with disdain after winning the war for America was very intriguing to him.” www.rasta-man-vibration.com.
More than 20 Buffalo Soldiers went on to receive the Medal of Honor, the military's highest award for valor. No other unit has won more. (Larry Shaughnessy, CNN.com)
Marley often referred to the point of his music as educating people about their history so they can take control of their future. “Music gonna teach dem a lesson...,” Bob Marley.
*More Than Words is a weekly column. If you liked this column, you may also enjoy – Return of the Giant Hogweed, Message In A Bottle, I am The Walrus, Riders on the Storm, White Room, Wear Your Love Like Heaven, Could Have Lied, Go Your Own Way, Sweetest Thing, Smells Like Teen Spirit.
www.examiner.com/x-1222-SF-Rock-Music-Examiner
........
Bob Marley Would Have Been At Obama's Inauguration!
By Scatty
Published Jan 31, 2009
Marley Was Missed! Bob Marley Would Have Been At Obama's
Inauguration!
Marley would have been there! I KNOW Marley would have been there!
Those words were stuck in my head as I watched "We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial" Sunday, January 18 as televised on HBO from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. I know Bob would have been invited and how thrilled he would have been to perform with a host of other top international stars.
Marley's One Love melody rung pure and true from the Three Little Birds of Herbie Hanthingy, Sheryl Crow and Will I am. But could you not envision Marley rocking that stage in true Buffalo Solidier reggae royalty by the King of Reggae himself? Yes, I Can!
It's a natural fit to not only celebrate Marley's birthday in February, but February is also the official celebration of Black History month in the
U.S.A. We celebrate the birthday of The Honourable Robert Nesta Marley, O.M., on Friday, February 6. Marley would have been 64 years of age.
With the ushering in of a new era in America's political landscape of the first African America President, Barack Hussein Obama this celebration becomes even more poignant as was seen by the tremendous outpouring of emotions by Americans and people worldwide regarding such an achievement.
Marley's music like Obama's politics of - change we can believe in - and "Yes I Can" has the natural respect of the international community. The timeless reggae rhythms and inspiring lyrics of One Love resounded across the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Mall where the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke and a Marian Anderson held a concert after being denied to sing during a previous Inauguration because of race and told to us that evening by Queen Latifah.
I reflected on this awe-inspiring time in history as voiced by Jamaica’s first National Hero, The Rt. Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey where he preached racial equality to the African American people in decades past and the entire diaspora of African ancestry.
At the We Are One Concert, the panoramic lens of the camera provided us with wide and medium shots of the stage, the Biden and Obama families, then zooming into close ups of Barack Obama and his wife, Michele Obama. At one point they were seen jamming to the One Love riddims as their heads bobbed from side to side in reggae joy and my high octane Jamaican pride welled up inside. Our wonderful musical gift of reggae given to us by The Most High was there in its rightful place.
Watching the likes of a Bono from U2 who has praised Bob and in his speech given at the induction of Marley in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame he expounded, “He wanted everything at the same time and he was everything at the same time ..prophet, soul rebel, rastaman, herbsman….wildman, a natural mystic man….shaman, human, JAMAICAN.”
www.jamaicans.com/articles/primearticles/stageshow2007-2.shtml