Catch A Fire set reggae ablaze
The Jamaica Observer’s Entertainment Desk continues with the 12th of its biweekly feature looking at seminal moments that have helped shape Jamaica over the past 60 years.
IN 1963, three youngsters from Jamaican urban inner city formed the singing group The Wailers, and would go on to conquer the world.
Peter Tosh, Bunny [Livingston] Wailer and Bob Marley would go on to take Jamaica’s musical sound to the world. They started off with ska, but it was reggae, influenced by the teachings of Marcus Garvey and the philosophy of Rastafari, that they would use to stamp them name on global musical history.
Although others joined and left the group, namely Junior Brathwaite, Beverly Kelso, and Cherry Smith, it was the triumvirate of Tosh, Wailer and Marley who would become the standard-bearers.
The Wailers had notable successes both locally and internationally, but all this would change with the 1973 release of Catch A Fire.
Following a tour in the UK, the group was introduced to Chris Blackwell of Island Records who agreed to pay them in advance, said to be in the region of £8,000, for an album even though he did not have a contract with the Jamaican trio. The bandmates returned to Jamaica, recorded the tracks and within months Catch A Fire was born.
The album has nine songs, two of which were written and composed by Peter Tosh, the remaining seven were by Bob Marley. The album had a limited original release under the name The Wailers in a sleeve depicting a Zippo lighter, designed by graphic artists Rod Dyer and Bob Weiner; subsequent releases had an alternative cover designed by John Bonis featuring an Esther Anderson portrait of Marley smoking a “spliff”, and used the name Bob Marley and the Wailers.
The tracks on the original release of Catch A Fire are: Concrete Jungle, Slave Driver, 400 Years, Stop That Train, Baby We’Ve Got A Date, Stir It Up, Kinky Reggae, No More Trouble, and Midnight Ravers.
So impressed, the team from Island Records organised a tour of the album for markets in England and the United States to help generate interest.
Catch A Fire peaked at number 171 on the Billboard 200 and 51 on the Billboard Black Albums charts. Critical acclaim has included the album being listed at number 126 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, second only to Legend among five Bob Marley albums on the list. It is regarded as one of the top reggae albums of all time.
