Bob Marley & The Wailers - Confrontation Demos (1981)
The death of Bob Marley in 1981 robbed the world of a giant of reggae music. In the two years before his death he recorded the first two albums of a proposed trilogy, with 'Survival' coming out in 1979, followed by 'Uprising' in 1980, and 'Confrontation' would have followed a year or so later. Marley had recorded more songs than were needed for 'Survival' and 'Uprising', and so by adding in a few single releases Island Records had enough material to complete Marley's trilogy, and spent the next two years overdubbing and adding to the raw tracks. A few years ago I saw a comment on another blog suggesting a re-imagined version of the album using the raw demos, and recalling how much better the Jamaican mix of 'Catch A Fire' sounded before the rock overdubs were added, I've sought out those original demos and singles to hear the album in it's raw state, had it come out in 1981.
Track listing
01 Burn Down Babylon02 Buffalo Soldier03 Jump Nyabinghi04 Mix Up Mix Up05 Give Thanks And Praises06 Blackman Redemption07 Trench Town08 Stiff Necked Fools09 I Know10 Rastaman Live Up (Don't Give Up)
Bonus tracks
11 Burn Down Babylon (Slow Version)12 Give Thanks And Praises (Slow Version)
Not all the recordings are top quality, but there's enough raw energy in them to make up for that.
I want to thank you for your job. In later years i've been more and more into the "albums reconstructing" thing! i'm an old rocker, raised on later sixties/early seventies music (mainly psych/prog things but I love ALL Rock Music from Robert johnson to Radiohead and beryond) Therefore I think our beloved music is much more vthan a corporate/commercial affair and we have the right to play with it and, if it's the case, to improve it. So keep on this way PJ
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. The number of times that I've had to write 'the record company didn't want to release the album as it was.....' shows the influence that they had back then over how an artists was allowed to showcase their talent.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this. I am looking forward to comparing with the original release.
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