The Grammy Awards are scheduled for January 26 at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. Five nominees (Beres Hammond, Ziggy Marley, Sizzla, Snoop Lion, and Sly and Robbie) are up for Best Reggae Album. Leading up to the big event, the Jamaica Observer presents a daily reflection on the reggae category. Today, we highlight No Nuclear War by Peter Tosh.

ONE year after he was murdered, fiery singer-songwriter Peter Tosh won the Grammy Award for Best Reggae album in 1988 with No Nuclear War.

Distributed by Capitol Records, No Nuclear War is considered among the weaker works in the impressive Tosh catalogue.

It was nominated along with Black Uhuru’s Brutal Dub; Burning Spear’s People of The World; Third World’s Hold on To Love; and UB40’s UB40 CCCP: Live in Moscow.

Tosh was attempting to revive his career at the time of his death at age 42. Three persons were killed in the incident which took place at his St Andrew home, including disc jockey Jeff ‘Free I’ Dixon.

No Nuclear War was Tosh’s second Grammy nomination. The first came in 1985 for Captured Live.

It included the songs Fight Apartheid and Vampire.

Drummer Carlton ‘Santa’ Davis, who was shot and injured in the tragedy at Tosh’s home, was among the musicians who worked on No Nuclear War.

Bass player George ‘Fully’ Fullwood, saxophonist Dean Fraser, trumpeter Chico Chin, trombonist Nambo Robinson, keyboardists Tyrone Downie and Keith Sterling, and percussionist Uziah ‘Sticky’ Thompson also played on

the set.

Tosh, Bob Marley and Bunny ‘Wailer’ Livingston were original members of the Wailers, a harmony group that formed in 1963.

They recorded two albums (Catch a Fire and Burnin’) for Island Records in 1973 before Tosh and Wailer left for solo careers the following year.

Legalize It and Equal Rights, released by Columbia Records in 1976 and 1977, respectively, were two of Tosh’s finest albums.

Both were reissued in 1997 and 2011 by Legacy Recordings.