By the time Bob Marley died-- in 1981, of cancer-- he was one of the world's first global superstars, famous and lauded from Europe through Africa and the Americas. Some even saw him as not just a reggae singer but as a folk hero, a sort of freedom fighter, and to this day his enduring image feels greater than the music he made. Yet it's that music that drives Bob Marley, Inc., which has extended Marley's legacy one step beyond mere icon: In the 21st century, Bob Marley's a bona fide brand, a veritable back-to-school staple every bit as important as more practical dorm-room accoutrements, a mildly rebellious signifier for those not quite ready to wade into the slightly muddier waters of the Che Guevara poster.
Marley isn't the best reggae singer Jamaica ever produced, but he's certainly the best-known and best-selling. Indeed, nary a music listener goes a lifetime without picking up Marley's best-of Legend, a disc that stresses the singer's mastery of pop music in general as much as reggae specifically. Ironically, those millions of copies of Legend shipped and sold each year as totem, talisman, or token have obscured Marley's place as an album artist, but the singer's catalog shouldn't be an afterthought.
1977's Exodus-- recorded in London exile after a failed attempt on his life-- turned out to be Marley's biggest-selling studio album. Recently, Time magazine tapped it as the greatest LP of the 20th century. Other Marley discs had bigger hits and still others had better album tracks, but the balance Marley strikes between politics, religion, and romance on Exodus-- compare and contrast the urgent title track and the laid-back "Jamming"-- shows a pop star at the peak of his powers.
For better or worse, it's Marley's mellower side that sets the tone of Exodus. It may have come off nuts at the time, but Robert Christgau's comparison of late era Bob Marley to Steely Dan isn't totally off base. Songs like "Waiting in Vain" and "Turn Your Lights Down Low" are first and foremost smoooooooth, and if chants like "The Heathen" and "Guiltiness" hint at a certain call to action, the presentation trumps the message. "Exodus" may make you want to rise up and fight on the side of Jah, but the message you take from the album as a whole is the one delivered in "One Love" and "Three Little Birds": "Don't worry about a thing/ Cause every little thing gonna be all right," goes the latter; "Let's get together and feel all right," Marley says in the former.
It was on stage rather than in the studio where Marley's revolutionary powers were at their greatest. He was a charismatic force, and celebratory tales of his fiery performances are legend among those who witnessed them. A previous deluxe edition of Exodus included among its bonus tracks several songs from Marley's famed June 4, 1977 performance at London's Rainbow club in support of the album. This specially packaged set (like a small hardback book, akin to the recent repackaging of Culture's Two Sevens Clash) drops the album-related bonus tracks in favor of a DVD featuring Marley's Rainbow performance in its entirety.
The show's been released before, so this edition really offers nothing new, save a reminder that, yes, he was every bit as good as people say. As the performance, the final in a four-night stand (all supposedly recorded at the time for a live album), proceeds, Marley's mantras grow more urgent. His rendition of "War" is steeped in conviction, "No Woman No Cry" plays like the standard it's since become, "Get Up, Stand Up" starts off staid before quickly shifting into high gear, and "Exodus" ends the night on an enviable high note.
Alas, Marley never made it to America on the Exodus tour. He injured his toe playing soccer and cancelled the U.S. tour, and while he did eventually return to the road, by then the damage had been done: Through a combination of bad luck and religious disdain for medical treatment, that same toe injury led to the spread of cancer throughout his body. Given weeks to live, Marley played his final show in Pittsburgh, of all places, perhaps an ignominious place to end such a storied career but as good a start as any to the places his legacy has stretched since.
