Tag Archives: Bob Marley

Song of the Week – Hand of Fate, Rolling Stones; Concrete Jungle, Bob Marley; Car on a Hill, Joni Mitchell

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Ignored             Obscured              Restored

In rock and roll history, the name Wayne Perkins isn’t instantly recognizable.  Unless, that is, you carefully read the credits in the liner notes of your albums.

Perkins recorded with high-profile artists, including the Rolling Stones, Bob Marley, and Joni Mitchell.  He was almost invited to replace Mick Taylor when Taylor left the Stones but was ultimately passed over for their old friend Ron Wood.  Yet, before that decision, he laid down remarkable tracks on the Stones’ Black and Blue (1976) album.  His playing on “Hand of Fate” is epic!

For Marley, he overdubbed guitar on three tracks on the Catch a Fire (1973) album.  (For those who collect vinyl, you may remember this album with the cover that depicted a Zippo lighter that opened at the top!) Perkins’ best contribution is the solo on “Concrete Jungle.”

Joni Mitchell’s breakthrough commercial success Court and Spark (1974) includes some fine guitar playing by Perkins on “Car on a Hill.”  It has been said that the song is about an incident where Joni was waiting in vain for her then-boyfriend Jackson Browne to show up because he was out with his new partner Phyllis Majors – who he eventually married.  Perkins’ crying guitar adds to the feeling of anxiety that Mitchell’s song conveys.

After discovering Perkins’ role in this set of songs, I’m confident you will agree he deserves recognition not just as a footnote in rock history, but as a pivotal figure in its development.

Enjoy… until next week.

Song of the Week – Positive Vibration, Bob Marley & the Wailers

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IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

Today’s post comes to you from sunny Jamaica. So I feel compelled to go with the obvious and feature some reggae music from Bob Marley. But beyond the Jamaica connection, the other reason to pick Marley for today’s SotW is because today is New Year’s Eve. As we put 2016 and the ugly presidential election campaign behind us, we need to focus hard on positive messages for 2017.

Bob Marley offers that to us with the lead off track, “Positive Vibration” from the 40 year old album, Rastaman Vibration.

Rastaman Vibration was the first Marley album that I really paid a lot of attention to, so it is one of my favorites. When it was released in the first half of 1976, it went all the way to #8 on the Billboard album charts. That was Marley’s best showing in the US.

Interestingly, Rastaman Vibration included some of Marley’s most political songs such as “Crazy Baldhead” (racial themes), “War” (adapted from a speech by Haile Salassie to the UN) and “Rat Race” (Jamaica’s role in the cold war). One wouldn’t think this would be the music embraced in the US at the height of the disco boom but I guess they were totally different audiences.

Another peculiar thing about Rastaman Vibration is that not a single song from this popular album was included in Marley’s massively successful “best of” album, Legend; not even the popular “Root, Rock, Reggae.”

If you check out the writing credits for the compositions on Rastaman Vibration, most of them are by friends and relatives of Marley. However there’s no question about it the Bob Marley wrote the songs. Apparently he did this due to a contractual dispute he was having with his publishing company at the time.

So let’s get back to “Positive Vibration.”

Rastaman vibration, yeah, positive
Live if you want to live
I’n’I vibration yeah, positive
Got to have a good vibe
I a man Iration, yeah, Irie ites
Positive vibration, yeah, positive
If you get down and you quarrel everyday
You’re saying prayers to the devils, I say, wooh
Why not help one another on the way?
Make it much easier (just a little bit easier)

Say you just can’t live that negative way
You know what I mean
Make way for the positive day
‘Cause it’s a new day
And it’s a new time
Yes, it’s a new feelin’
Said it’s a new sign
Oh, what a new day

Happy New Year, and enjoy… until next week.