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Rating: Dead for twenty-five years now, Bob Marley still resonates from stereos, car radios, and iPods of millions of fans around the world: I don't know if the vitality of his music depends on the typical reggae mood, its recovery of ancient tribalisms, its mixture of tradition and modernity, its hypnotic rhythm, or from the overuse of the Marley persona and the values he represented: pulled by the scruff by third-world supporters, syncretists, libertarians, the petty bourgeois who crowded his concerts in late '70s Europe, nostalgics, advertisers, spoiled kids, and a thousand others. So be it.
I personally discovered him because, listening to Police, Clash, Rush, Steely Dan, 10CC, Led Zeppelin, Ivano Fossati, Loredana Bertè, Antonello Venditti, and many others, I was encouraged to discover the roots of that reggae which had left its traces in thousands of recordings of bands and artists not attributable to the Jamaican area about three decades ago. The reasons for Bob Marley's strength—and that of the Wailers who significantly contributed to enriching his insights—are well expressed in his masterpiece "Natty Dread" ('75), an album that best defines the transition from the raw and visceral sound of the origins to the more refined productions of the following years, those of commercial, political, and whatever other turning points.
"Natty Dread" is the album by Marley & the Wailers that best describes the group's feeling, thanks to expanded compositions where the offbeat rhythms of reggae expand into continuous sonic journeys, where Bob's lead voice and the female backing vocals that accompany him alternate in swirling melodies, where bass and drums invigorate every single piece with their syncopated gait.
It would be pointless to describe the album track by track, as it is an insoluble unicum of which I recommend listening without unnecessary interruptions: it is enough to mention, in this context, the opening "Lively Up Yourself", with the continuous exchanges between voice and rhythms, the incisive "Rebel Music", the exhilarating "So Jah Seh"… even though no track pales compared to the others. "No Woman No Cry", Marley's most famous song, perhaps stands out for emotional emphasis, but it is not, in this context, the typical killer track that overshadows the others.
Bob Marley's music does not lend itself well to hasty and speculative anthologies. Listen to it well, starting from here.
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