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When Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh and Bob Marley
formed their vocal harmony group The Wailing
Wailers and started recording for Sir Coxsone
Dodd's Studio One, it would mark the start of an
incredible story.
Not in the least, because the story of the (Bob
Marley and the) Wailers is synonymous with the
story of the world-wide popularization of Reggae
Music.
And "Catch a Fire" plays a crucial
role in this story!
When the album was produced, the Wailers were
still together and Reggae Music was still seen as
some local form of what is disdainfully called
"World Music", a term that yet to be
invented in the early 1970's.
Chris Blackwell, then owner of Island Records,
loved Reggae and came in contact with the Wailers.
He gave them money to record their album in
Jamaica, and then flew Bob Marley to the UK to
work on the recordings.
Chris Blackwell is interviewed, as is Bunny
Wailer. Peter and Bob enter in, and a whole host
of well-known names in Reggae and Rastafari donate
some information too. The musicians who worked on
the album in the UK enter into the video as well,
telling their part of the story.
The whole idea behind the album was to market
Reggae to a new audience.
Therefore, this video is much more than just
the story behind the making of the album. If only,
because the video reveals to great detail just how
the raw Jamaican Reggae was smoothed and changed
to make it acceptable for the Rock audiences of
Europe and the USA.
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