Personnel includes: Bob Marley, Peter Tosh (vocals, guitar); Neville "Bunny" Livingston, Junior Braithwaite (vocals); Jah Jerry, Ernest Ranglin, Lyn Taitt (guitar); Roy Richards (harmonica); Lester Sterling, Headley Bennett (alto saxophone); Roland Alphonso, Tony Wilson (tenor saxophone); "Ska" Campbell (baritone saxophone); Bobby Ellis, Trummie Miles (trumpet); Vin Gordon (trombone); Richard Ace, Danny McFarlane (keyboards); Desi Miles, "Bassie" Bryan Atkinson (bass); Carl McCloud, Lloyd Robinson (drums); Beverly Kelso, Rita Marley, Cherry Green, Marlene Gifford (background vocals).
Recorded at Studio One Recording Studio, Kingston, Jamaica from 1963 to 1966. Includes liner notes by Roger Steffens and Leroy Jodie Pierson.
Digitally remastered by Toby Mountain (Northeastern Digital Recording).
Casual Bob Marley & the Wailers fans can be forgiven for assuming that the band began its career with the rise of reggae at the end of the '60s. Certainly a search through the reggae racks will not dissuade them from this view, so prevalent are the compilations that draw exclusively from this era. American fans are at a particular disadvantage, for at least in Britain the group's earlier singles can sometimes be spotted at rummage sales or in Grandma's cupboard. And so Heartbeat now begins to seriously redress the balance with this superb compilation that resurrects the glory of the Wailers' early canon, all cut for Studio One in the mid-'60s. With collectors in mind, Simmer Down at Studio One includes one unreleased number, "This Train," as well as three alternate takes seeing the light of day for the first time. "Train," recorded in 1966, kicks off the album, but the rest of the set proceeds in chronological order, beginning with the group's debut 1963 single and first Jamaican hit, "Simmer Down," and ending with 1965's sweet-as-honey "Love and Affection." This is a far different group from that which began to emerge into international stardom in the reggae age; for starters the Wailers weren't a trio, but a quintet, and occasionally a sextet, with the lead shared around Marley, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer, and band baby Junior Braithwaite, whose piping tones gave the group its distinctive sound. A number of the songs here were recut to greater or lesser effect in later years, including "Mr. Talkative" (aka "Mr. Chatterbox"), "Lonesome Feeling," "Love and Affection," and, of course, the mighty "One Love." This music has been too long neglected by archivists, and now fans can hear where it really all began for this iconoclastic band. ~ Jo-Ann Greene
This set is remarkable for the glimpse it provides of a musical visionary finding his voice. Bob Marley emerged as the preeminent voice of reggae when the Wailers dissolved in the '70s. These 1963-66 recordings show Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer excitedly pursuing numerous different musical paths, well before the spotlight (and the money) found them and limited their creative mobility.
These recordings were all made at Coxsonne Dodd's influential Studio One in Kingston, Jamaica. Besides including some stunning unreleased gems, SIMMER DOWN presents all the tracks in their original form, without any of the overdubs which were added well after the fact. A second volume, THE WAILING WAILERS AT STUDIO ONE, is also available, and it completes the full issue of this historic, but still fresh and vital music. minimize