Customer Reviews

The Book of Exodus: The Making and Meaning of Bob Marley and the Wailers' Album of the Century

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It is convincingly argued that the pop album has become an effectively arcane form. But even in a digital age, certain albums continue to both define and transcend their creators. Sgt. Pepper, What's Going On, Astral Weeks, Blood On the Tracks... the list invites nerdish debate. But one title can never be excluded; Bob Marley and The Wailers' Exodus was the product of a specific time and place and remains the most extraordinary single work of the Third World's most extraordinary musical voice.

Vivien Goldman was one of the key writers during the Golden Age of British music journalism when the punk explosion inspired the intense gut-intellectual talents of the first post-sixties generation. Unlike many of her colleagues her love and understanding of black music has continually defined her work and The Book Of Exodus is perhaps the best thing she has done.

This is at once memoir, critical analysis and history. Vivien Goldman takes the reader into the studio as Exodus was created. A palpable sense of the immediacy of that process, the atmosphere (well fumigated with the herbsman's wares) and personalities involved come vividly to life through the eyes of the young fan-reporter. Most movingly, Goldman's own ability to connect her life as the North London-raised daughter of German-Jewish refugees from the Holocaust with the Trench Town experience that formed Bob Marley is at the heart of the book. This is no falsely crafted analogy. It is above all a spiritual link, the "Flash Of The Spirit" which has made the core African musical experience one of the world's most unifying cultural forces.

For anyone who wants to understand something of Marley's greatness and gentle charisma, Vivien Goldman shares her privileged experience of hanging with the man and his colleagues in both Jamaica and London. This was an artist whose words and music have inspired more people worldwide than maybe any other pop musician and yet the man who emerges here is a very real person living in a very real time. Goldman gives us a vivid sense of both.

Everyone with more than a passing interest in Marley and The Wailers should read this book. It will send you back to the music, reggae's shining hour, with renewed love and understanding.

this book is history but reads like a novel
it is a must read! it is a book that takes you deep into
the live of bob marley and far away to the exodus of people in general. very very cool.
adriana

I just finished reading this book and I thought the coverage of Marley's musical life and progression was excellent. Vivien Goldman's passion/love for Bob Marley & the Wailers and their music shone like a star. Heartfelt and moving, this was one of the best books I've read about this prophetic man and his life. So well done, thanks for writing it. To songs of freedom...

Vivien Goldman's detailed portrait of the man comes alive in this initimate book. Goldman takes you on a journey, not just of a making of a masterpiece (The Exodus album) but of the man himself. A Marley confidant, she often interviewed the Wailers and Marley and gives the reader an insider's view of the politics, spritiuality, and artisty of the legend. If you think you know much about Marley, you don't. Read and learn from "The Book of Exodus".

Having spent much time in Kingston in the mid 1970s, this book accurately reflects the politics and gestalt of the time . Ms. Goldman's attention to geographical detail is one of the strong points of the book. The book is right on in terms of its intellectual context, as well as its more anecdotal style.Relly, this is one of the better books on Marley, Reggae, and Jamaica.

Excellent. Very good book, his author had the only experience of having travelled part of Bob Marley's way and the Wailers.

I believe this is the same woman who wrote an article in Mojo magazine a few years back and didn't even know that Bob's father was a white man. So much for her being an expert on Bob Marley.

Vivien Goldman's unique history/memoir of Bob Marley is a beautiful thing.
It tells Bob Marley's story from the intimate perspective of somebody who was arguably the closest writer to him outside Jamaica for many years
Any fan of Marley should read this book for a more intimate view of his life and how he affected the world

He loves it. Said it had enough fresh-take or new info that it kept him interested and reading all the way through.

My added comment is he read it through a time of having to work 80-hr weeks, so it must be good.

I've read a lot on Bob Marley. This book was so disappointing. There are a few interesting moments at the end. But the overall tone was a bit irritating, and there is a subtle hint at one point, late in the book, that the author had some involvement at a certain point with Marley.