Bob speaks!
Like cataract surgery, suddenly the veil has been lifted from my eyes. I'm all about Bob Marley and Martha Velez.
And because I'm a man who's open to the other side of the coin, here's a really nasty review of the album -- the one that's featured on the MOG website ...
So right on so many levels, yet in the end, so very, very, wrong, Escape From Babylon is one of the oddest albums to come out of the reggae era. The album was Bob Marley's first outside production assignment, and he was ably assisted by Lee Perry and Craig Leon, while the recording sessions were split between Harry J's studio in Kingston and Plaza Sound in New York. The backing band is the Wailers' own, the Barrett Brothers (Earl "Chinna" Smith et al.), with Zap Pow horns and the I-Threes providing harmonies. Of the album's eight tracks, three are Marley's own, a fourth is a Marley/Tosh classic, and a fifth is co-written by the Wailers and Velez. All in all, this should be one hell of a reggae album, with fabulous versions of such masterpieces as "Stand Alone" (retitled "There You Are"), "Bend Down Low," "Hurting Inside" (aka "Happiness"), and "Get up, Stand Up." The music is wonderful, with laid-back, softly percolating rhythms; superb musicianship; and a warm, almost gentle production. And then Velez starts to sing, and it all falls to bits. Not only was Velez not Jamaican, she wasn't even a reggae singer; in fact she was a white American rocker. And as was typical of the time, her voice was unexceptional -- pleasantly generic with just a hint of grittiness. She was also a one-trick pony. She was put into a Kingston studio with one of Jamaica's leading lights, given a clutch of reggae classics, accompanied by one of the best reggae bands around, and she let loose with a mediocre rock performance, totally oblivious to the music being created around her. It's a telling moment. Jamaica had thrived on taking American sounds and making them their own. Velez was the first to show that it would inevitably always be a one-way street.
Dog! What a buzz-kill. Never in the history of the world has one person (in this case, someone called Jo-Ann Greene) been more wrong about anything.
Bob? Bob, his self, say dis ...
"Goin' to Jamaica
Doin' an album there with a girl
A girl called Martha Velez
She wan' do all reggae `
(laughs)
She might do 'bout three four my songs
She `ave some good songs
Really dig `er
Strong, she `ave it you know"
Pre-Twitter, mind you. And I'm going with Bob. She have it, you know?
Brief personal aside: My dead, sainted Mother had cataract surgery and she later told me "it was the most extraordinary thing, to be able to see like that again."
Hiya Ma.
And because I'm a man who's open to the other side of the coin, here's a really nasty review of the album -- the one that's featured on the MOG website ...
So right on so many levels, yet in the end, so very, very, wrong, Escape From Babylon is one of the oddest albums to come out of the reggae era. The album was Bob Marley's first outside production assignment, and he was ably assisted by Lee Perry and Craig Leon, while the recording sessions were split between Harry J's studio in Kingston and Plaza Sound in New York. The backing band is the Wailers' own, the Barrett Brothers (Earl "Chinna" Smith et al.), with Zap Pow horns and the I-Threes providing harmonies. Of the album's eight tracks, three are Marley's own, a fourth is a Marley/Tosh classic, and a fifth is co-written by the Wailers and Velez. All in all, this should be one hell of a reggae album, with fabulous versions of such masterpieces as "Stand Alone" (retitled "There You Are"), "Bend Down Low," "Hurting Inside" (aka "Happiness"), and "Get up, Stand Up." The music is wonderful, with laid-back, softly percolating rhythms; superb musicianship; and a warm, almost gentle production. And then Velez starts to sing, and it all falls to bits. Not only was Velez not Jamaican, she wasn't even a reggae singer; in fact she was a white American rocker. And as was typical of the time, her voice was unexceptional -- pleasantly generic with just a hint of grittiness. She was also a one-trick pony. She was put into a Kingston studio with one of Jamaica's leading lights, given a clutch of reggae classics, accompanied by one of the best reggae bands around, and she let loose with a mediocre rock performance, totally oblivious to the music being created around her. It's a telling moment. Jamaica had thrived on taking American sounds and making them their own. Velez was the first to show that it would inevitably always be a one-way street.
Dog! What a buzz-kill. Never in the history of the world has one person (in this case, someone called Jo-Ann Greene) been more wrong about anything.
Bob? Bob, his self, say dis ...
"Goin' to Jamaica
Doin' an album there with a girl
A girl called Martha Velez
She wan' do all reggae `
(laughs)
She might do 'bout three four my songs
She `ave some good songs
Really dig `er
Strong, she `ave it you know"
Pre-Twitter, mind you. And I'm going with Bob. She have it, you know?
Brief personal aside: My dead, sainted Mother had cataract surgery and she later told me "it was the most extraordinary thing, to be able to see like that again."
Hiya Ma.
posted by Geoffrey at 9:41 AM
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