{"id":5819,"date":"2023-04-07T13:44:48","date_gmt":"2023-04-07T13:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/?p=5819"},"modified":"2023-04-14T12:07:47","modified_gmt":"2023-04-14T12:07:47","slug":"bob-marley-and-the-wailers-catch-a-fire-turns-50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/?p=5819","title":{"rendered":"Bob Marley and the Wailers \u2018Catch a Fire\u2019 Turns 50"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018<\/strong><\/em>Catch a Fire\u2019<\/strong><\/em>, the album regarded as responsible for catapulting Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer to global stardom, has clawed its way back onto Billboard\u2019s Reggae Albums chart 50 years after its release.<\/p>\n

Along with\u00a0\u2018Exodus\u2019<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0\u2018Rastaman Vibration\u2019<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a0\u2018Catch a Fire\u2019<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0made its resurgence into the Top 10 of the chart, nestling at No. 6, with the other two albums re-enterurnsng at No. 9 and No. 10, respectively.<\/p>\n

A subject of contention for many years, the critically acclaimed\u00a0\u2018Catch A Fire\u2019<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>was released in April 1973 and distributed worldwide, a year after Bob Marley and his compatriots Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, (then The Wailers) signed a contract with Island Records.<\/p>\n

The album, which is regarded as the catalyst which also helped to put Reggae on the world map, was recorded mainly at Dynamic Sounds, Harry J and Randy\u2019s studios in Kingston. According to the official Bob Marley website, the album was \u201coriginally recorded by the Wailers in Jamaica and eventually released with overdubs and a mix overseen by island founder Chris Blackwell at the label\u2019s London headquarters.\u201d<\/p>\n

The website also says that \u201calthough Bob Marley may have been the main voice\u201d on the album, \u201cevery member of the Wailers made valuable contributions and they were never more united in their vision and sound.\u201d<\/p>\n

The album contains nine songs, two of which (\u2018400 Years\u2019<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0\u2018Stop That Train\u2019<\/strong><\/em>) were written and composed by Peter Tosh.\u00a0 The others,\u00a0\u2018Kinky Reggae\u2019<\/em><\/strong>, \u2018Baby We\u2019ve Got a Date\u2019<\/strong>, \u2018No More Trouble\u2019<\/strong>, \u2018Stir It Up\u2019<\/strong>, \u2018Midnight Ravers\u2019<\/strong>,<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0\u2018Slave Driver\u2019<\/em><\/strong>, were written by Bob, as well as\u00a0\u2018Concrete Jungle\u2019<\/em><\/strong>,<\/em>\u00a0on which the late Robbie Shakespeare, then 21 years old, played the bass guitar.\u00a0 \u00a0Upon release,\u00a0\u2018Catch A Fire\u2019<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0had peaked at No. 171 on Billboard\u2019s 200 Chart and reached No. 51 on the R&B chart.<\/p>\n

In February 2012, at the 15th Annual Bob Marley Lecture at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, Professor Mike Alleyne in discussing how the studio albums the Wailers released through Island Records during Bob Marley\u2019s lifetime were \u201crecorded, packaged, and critically received\u201d, noted that\u00a0\u2018Catch a Fire\u2019<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0was used by Island Records to create a reggae-marketing template.<\/p>\n

The professor highlighted the Rock influence, which he said was established by Island\u2019s Chris Blackwell from the start as the intention was \u201cto establish Marley as a black rock act.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that the original recording from Kingston was not only substantially remixed in England, \u201cde-emphasising the bass frequencies, but keyboard and guitar overdubs gave a distinctive rock tinge to the album.\u201d According to him, Tony Platt, the engineer for the mixing sessions, made it clear that Bob Marley was there from the very start and was very much a part of the process and \u201cquite aware of where it was going to take him\u201d even while cognizant that \u201cit was a message he wanted to get across.\u201d<\/p>\n

In September 2010, the BBC reported that an attempt by the Marley family to obtain the copyrights for\u00a0\u2018Catch A Fire\u2019<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and his best-known recordings\u00a0\u2018Natty Dread\u2019<\/em><\/strong>, \u2018Rastaman Vibrations\u2019<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0\u2018Exodus\u2019<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>had \u201cbeen thwarted\u201d in New York, by Judge Denise Cote, who ruled that Universal Music Group (UMG) owned the copyright to the five albums the Gong recorded between 1973 and 1977 for Island Records.<\/p>\n

Bob\u2019s widow Rita Marley and his children had sought millions in damages for Universal\u2019s alleged attempts to \u201cexploit\u201d his recordings, accusing the company of \u201cintentionally withholding royalties from their Fifty-Six Hope Road Music company\u201d, and among other things, failing to consult with them on key licensing decisions, among them the use of Marley\u2019s music on ringtones, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The judge had however, ruled that Marley\u2019s recordings were \u201cworks made for hire\u201d as defined under US copyright law and as a consequence, \u201centitled UMG to be designated the owner of those recordings as the parent company of Island Records\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2018Exodus\u2019<\/strong>, the second album which re-charted, was released in June 1977, six months after Bob Marley survived an assassination attempt in Jamaica on December 3, 1976, and later went into self-imposed exile in London.<\/p>\n

\u2018Exodus\u2019<\/strong><\/em>, which was named Time Magazine\u2019s Greatest Album Of The 20th Century, consisted of tracks such as\u00a0\u2018Natural Mystic\u2019<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a0\u2018So Much Things\u00a0to Say\u2019<\/strong>,\u00a0\u2018Guiltiness\u2019<\/strong>,\u00a0\u2018The Heathen\u2019<\/strong>,\u00a0\u2018Jamming\u2019<\/strong>,\u00a0\u2018Waiting In Vain\u2019<\/strong>,\u00a0\u2018Turn Your Lights Down Low\u2019<\/strong>,\u00a0\u2018Three Little Birds\u2019<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0\u2018One Love\u2019<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The third album \u2018Rastaman Vibration\u2019<\/em><\/strong> re-entered the chart for the second time in five months.\u00a0 The LP, which contains songs such as \u2018Who the Cap Fit\u2019<\/em><\/strong>, \u2018Crazy Baldhead\u2019<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a0and\u00a0\u2018War\u2019<\/em><\/strong>, had entered the\u00a0Billboard\u00a0Reggae\u00a0Albums\u00a0chart in November last year,\u00a0for the\u00a0first\u00a0time\u00a0ever,\u00a0and debuted at No. 4,\u00a0That occasion marked the first time\u00a0the\u00a0album\u00a0had\u00a0ever\u00a0appeared on\u00a0the Billboard Reggae Albums chart,\u00a0despite being released more\u00a0than\u00a0four decades ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Catch a Fire\u2019, the album regarded as responsible for catapulting Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer to global stardom, has clawed its way back onto Billboard\u2019s Reggae Albums chart 50 years after its release. Along with\u00a0\u2018Exodus\u2019\u00a0and\u00a0\u2018Rastaman Vibration\u2019,\u00a0\u2018Catch a Fire\u2019\u00a0made its resurgence into the Top 10 of the chart, nestling at No. 6, with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[260],"class_list":["post-5819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-breakingnews"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5819"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5820,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5819\/revisions\/5820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox.reggaenorthca.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}