Customer Reviews

1970-1971: Upsetter Years

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These 1970-71 tracks were some of purest, rootsiest reggae the Wailers (or anyone for that matter)had ever recorded. Lee Perry's uncharacteristically laissez-faire production underscores the music's raw, uncompromising power. Although the Wailers went on to achieve worlrdwide commercial success(sans Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer), they were never better than in their pre-Island days, and this CD proves it. One quibble: CD needs better packaging, with liner photos and recording date info.

The original Wailers' most endearing recordings occurred with Lee Perry in the late 60's and early 70's, and are considered by most reggae aficionados to be their best.

Perry was not the studio wizard that he became in the 70's, and even had an almost completely laissez-faire approach to recording. This allowed the Wailers to record their very raw, bare bones, songs with complete ease. Of interest will be hearing Bunny actually sing lead vocals, (he possesses a beautiful tenor voice) and Peter Tosh's amazing "400 Years," which sounds better here than on "Burnin'"

While essential recordings for any Wailers' completist or fan, the quality of this cd is quite subpar; thankfully, there are 3 Wailers box sets out covering just the Lee Perry and Leslie kong era exclusively on which you will find these, and many other, tracks- complete with booklets, excellent photos, and wonderful post-production mastering. This will prove much more satisfactory for completists.

One of many Perry/Marley/Wailers combination cds out there, this one is nice, but there are much better to be had.

Great collection of the early Wailers stuff, but the sound is horrid--very heavy bass. I realize these are old tunes, but I'm wondering if there's not a version somewhere that's better mixed.

The naysayers who complain about the sound quality may be missing the point. Do these same people go buy old blues albums, by say, Robert Johnson, and then complain about the scratchy sound? I doubt it.

Yes, you have to turn these up to hear them better, and the songs are not high fidelity recordings, nor are the mixes something you would compare to the mixes of Marley and the Wailers later studio albums--when they had better equipment. However, the music and emotion is strong enough to carry through. To hypnotize you with a young band coming into its own with conviction, power, emotion. No bloat in this collection, just lean, mean, loving reggae songs. "Mr. Brown" alone is a must for any serious Marley fan. Check out also the sounds Scratch adds to these tracks. In some cases, very sparingly, in other cases you can feel the green smoke coming off of the tracks.

Check the dates, for crying out loud, and read up on the history of how good recording equipment was difficult to come by in those early years.

Yes, it is raw. Yes, it isn't polished, and you should get Bob's more polished and produced records. No denying any of that. But to deny the power of these tunes, and their ability to get into your soul is perhaps to deny yourself a joy that I can't imagine.

This so for since I bought it has been my favorite Marley CD to listen to and I am a huge Marley fan you get to hear the Wailers in their early years (with this Lee Scratch Perry guy some dub master)before they were signed to island records and before Peter Tosh left this cd sounds very raw I imagine this is how reagge music(and the wailers) souned in its earliest years.A must have