LPCDreissues: Looking forward to the past

This triple album collection of Bob Marley & the Wailers’ pre-Island years (late sixties & early seventies) includes many of the songs that they recorded for producer Lee “Scratch” Perry’s fledgling Upsetter label. It was their collaboration with Perry that would lead to the string of hits that would cause the Wailers to launch Tuff Gong and eventually bring them to the attention of Island’s Chris Blackwell. Many of these songs, widely acknowledged as the group’s best material, were later re-recorded by Marley, but these later recordings often failed to capture the raw energy of the originals featured here.