20 Essential Live Reggae Albums

The following is an excerpt from If You Like Bob Marley… by Dave Thompson.

As the album that spawned the original hit version of “No Woman, No Cry,” the song that remains Bob Marley’s best-loved (and most-covered) number, the Wailers’ 1975 Live album ignited a trend for in-concert recordings that persisted for much of the next decade, at least in western markets. More recently, the regular release of archived live recordings from the same period has done much to distill the importance of such documents—even the original “No Woman, No Cry” has been supplanted on certain Marley compilations by other live recordings.

Nevertheless, an hour or so spent in the company of a great live album is almost . . . almost . . . as good as being there; or, at least, know­ing somebody who was. And here are ten of the very greatest.

Trojan Reggae Party—various artists (1971)

Recorded live in London in 1971, and the soundtrack to many a period party, Trojan Reggae Party preserves punchy performances from the Cimarons, Bruce Ruffin, Nicky Thomas, the Pioneers, Dandy Living­stone, Greyhound, and more. (All had scored U.K. hits recently, with Thomas’s impassioned “Love of the Common People” and Ruffin’s loopy “Mad About You” especially outstanding.) Hard to find, and ex­pensive when it does turn up, but a seriously magnificent album.

Live—Burning Spear (1977)

Recorded on Burning Spear’s sensational visit to London in 1977, where he was accompanied by local reggae band Aswad, Live is an electrifying set that could easily be his best album ever.

Live—U-Roy (1978)

Not an album per se, Live was a twelve-inch EP capturing highlights of the DJ’s summer 1976 visit to the U.K. Recorded at the Lyceum Ballroom, with Sly and Robbie in thunderous attendance, it whets the appetite for more. Which, sadly, has still to be delivered.

Prisoner in the Street—Third World (1980)

Third World’s studio output often painted them as the soft and sweeter side of roots reggae. This set tears expectations to shreds, delivering wildfire eruptions through “96 in the Shade,” “African Woman,” and the title track, keeping it up so long that the vinyl has practically melted by the time you hit the end.

Live at the Music Machine—Dillinger (1981)

Recorded in London before a deliriously packed house, it is no surprise to find this album has since been repackaged as The Best of Live. Because that is what it is, as Dillinger travels through all his best-known numbers: “Natty Don’t Need Glasses,” “Roots Natty Congo,” “CB 200,” “Judgement Time,” and, of course, “Cocaine in My Brain,” a thumping celebration of white powder and its power, together with a lesson in literacy that the crowd that night knew by heart.

Live at Reggae Sunsplash—Big Youth (1983)

He opens with “I Pray Thee”/“Satta Massagana”; closes with “Hit the Road Jack”; and, in between, delivers a seething greatest-hits collection that is topped by what might be a career-best “Green Bay Killers.”

Live at the Controls at Jack Ruby Sound Ocho Rios J.A. —Brigadier Jerry (1983)

A blistering dancehall celebration, with the Brigadier joined by fellow stars Sammy Dread, Michael Prophet, and, sounding great in the midst of things, the veteran Dennis Brown.

Junjo Presents Two Big Sounds—various artists (1983)

The album that introduced the world to Beenie Man, a wild DJ collection that also features Dillinger, Michael Irie, Fathead, and Ringo, recorded live at 82 Chisholm Avenue, Kingston, in early 1983.

Prince Jammy and the Striker Lee Posse Presents Music Maker Live at the Halfway Tree Jamaica —various artists (1984)

Horace Andy, Chaka Demus, Don Carlos, Super Liki, and many more gather for a night of high-energy dancehall mania. Raw and unproduced to some ears, this album redefines excitement.

Live in Tokyo—Augustus Pablo (1991)

Pablo’s reluctance to tour is good reason why there are no live recordings from his earlier period; but this set, dating from his first-ever visit to Japan in 1991, catches him making up for lost time.

Vibes Alive—Israel Vibration (1992)

Recorded in California the previous year, the long-running saga of Israel Vibration hits the road with the ever-seething Roots Radics.

Live On—Wailing Souls (1994)

Another album that you wish could have been recorded a decade-and-a-half before, but it wasn’t, so you live with it. And that really isn’t that great a hardship.

Party in Session Live—Michael Rose (1997)

Recorded at various halts on former Black Uhuru frontman’s Michael Rose’s 1997 U.S. tour, what could have been a wearying set of revivals instead morphs into a magical celebration of past and present.

Cultural Livity—Live 1998—Culture (1998)

Spanning the years with a crowd-pleasing set, Cultural Livity scarcely remedies the absence of a 1970s concert recording from this most powerful of live bands, but it’s still hot. Especially if you can ignore the keyboards.

Live at Reggae Sunsplash 1994—Garnett Silk (1999)

Garnett Silk was poised to become the biggest reggae star of his era when he was killed in a house fire in December 1994. Recorded at Sunsplash earlier that same year, this is thus the sound of Silk at his peak, neither beholden to the familiar versions of his greatest hits, nor particularly interested in them. If you own just one Silk album, make sure it is this one.

Live—Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers (2000)

A handful of his father’s songs could, but do not, overshadow Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers’ own material on an album that captures all the joy and excitement of a period Melody Makers gig.

Words of Truth—Sizzla (2000)

Two CDs for the price of one: a new studio collection and a savage Sizzla live set that is alone worth the price of admission.

Live—Luciano (2000)

The king of the 1990s roots-consciousness revival, Luciano is caught live at the end of the decade he dominated with a set that shows you how he accomplished such.

Live in Paris—Yami Bolo (2000)

Yami Bolo’s version of “Curly Locks,” which turns up at the end, is what clinches this as a fabulous album—but the entire performance is spot on.

Live in San Francisco—Capleton (2007)

Too many live albums are now delivered as DVDs these days, and the pros and cons of that approach are for you to decide. This stunning Capleton set, however, repeats the concert on an audio disc, and it’s definitely worth diving into.

If You Like Bob Marley… is the unique and utterly compulsive story of the King of Reggae, told not through the life and times of Marley himself, but through the music and magic of the musicians who grew up around and under the influence of Bob Marley and his band, the Wailers.

If You Like Led Zeppelin… then you’ll LOVE Rory Gallagher

The following is an excerpt from If You Like Led Zeppelin… by Dave Thompson, as posted on Shadowplays.com. Please visit their site to read the entire excerpt.

Blues guitarist Rory Gallagher moved to London from his native Ireland in late 1967 with Taste a band constructed firmly in the three-piece shape of the Experience and Cream. But it was Fleetwood Mac and, in particular, their guitarist Peter Green who gave Taste the confidence to follow their hearts, Gallagher later reflected — a debt he repaid shortly before his death in 1995, when he contributed a couple of tracks to the Rattlesnake Guitar Green tribute album.

“You cannot overestimate Fleetwood Mac’s importance at that time,” producer Mike Vernon agreed. “They brought the blues back into focus and rejuvenated the whole scene.” Vernon signed the infant Mac to his own Blue Horizon label, and admits it was the band’s immediate success that allowed the label to flourish as it did, becoming the primary staging ground for virtually every homegrown blues band of the era.

…And so back to Rory Gallagher, the man Jimi Hendrix once called the best guitarist in the world. Two studio albums attest to Taste’s brilliance, both released in the wake of Led Zeppelin I and both learning its lessons; Taste and On the Boards, two slabs of archetypal blues rock shot through with some astonishing detours. “some of the tracks,” affirmed Gallagher’s nephew and archivist, Daniel Gallagher, “could almost be very early metal, with that very deep, almost guttural bass. They tried to handle everything — tracks are country, the amazing jazz stuff they did on On the Boards — and that took a lot of attention away from that dark, brooding sound. It was brilliant. And if Rory had allowed ‘What’s Going On’ to be released as a single after [they played] the Isle of Wight Festival, when they were really flying, a lot could have changed.”

Keep reading this excerpt on Shadowplays.com!

If You Like Led Zeppelin… is the unique story of how Led Zeppelin came together not just as players, but as influences and ideas. It unearths the music that the musicians themselves were listening to, to open up an entire new world of experience and excitement for both casual and committed fans. It then travels beyond Led Zeppelin, to the bands and artists who in turn took their own lead from the Zep.

Dave Thompson, an interview

Onstage and Backstage podcast from Hal Leonard is available on iTunes and Libsyn. Each episode authors and their guests have a chat about the topics of their books. Today, author Dave Thompson chats with Patrick Phillips, host of the Patrick Phillips Show, about Dave’s new book If You Like Led Zeppelin… and to talk about the band’s influence and the bands who were influenced by the mighty Zep. Not to mention really odd things about band nicknames, where the name of the band came from, and playing records backward.

>>>Listen Here<<<

If You Like Led Zeppelin… is the unique story of how Led Zeppelin came together not just as players, but as influences and ideas. It unearths the music that the musicians themselves were listening to, to open up an entire new world of experience and excitement for both casual and committed fans. It then travels beyond Led Zeppelin, to the bands and artists who in turn took their own lead from the Zep.

The Taking of Pelham 123

The following is an excerpt from If You Like Quentin Tarantino… by Katherine Rife (Limelight Editions), as posted on Bookgasm. Visit Bookgasm to read the entire excerpt.

Released in 1974, The Taking of Pelham 123 is also one of the best heist movies ever made. Like The Killing, it’s wound tighter than Jim Cramer after four espressos, and it doesn’t waste a moment of its economical but highly suspenseful plot, helped along by smart writing and great editing. (Editing is absolutely essential to a good action movie. If you’ve ever sat through a scene where cars are exploding, bad guys are shooting, and our hero just jumped a semi on a motorcycle, but you’re still bored senseless, that’s at least partially the editor’s fault.)

Anyway, The Taking of Pelham 123 is caked with the gritty realism that was so popular in the ’70s, shot on location in New York City. And my god, the New Yorkiness of it all . . . it’s not every day you get a room full of overweight, loudmouthed MTA employees screaming at each other to “wait a coupla two tree minutes” in a movie. (The overwhelming ’70s-ness of it all is similarly fantastic—just check out some of the fashions on the passengers of Pelham 123!)

Three men dressed in matching tweed coats, hats, glasses, and mustaches get onto a subway train (the 6, if you’re interested) with large matching packages (that contain guns, duh). They are Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw), the leader and hardened professional mercenary whose last gig was leading militias in Africa; his loyal comrade-in-arms, Mr. Brown (Earl Hindman); Mr. Green (Martin Balsam), a disgraced former subway driver; and Mr. Grey (Hector Elizondo), a wild card who got kicked out of the Mob for being too sadistic. There is no Mr. Pink though. Tarantino added that one.

Our color-coded criminals hijack the train, Pelham 123, and demand a ransom for the passengers on board: “We are going to kill one passenger a minute until New York City pays us one million dollars,” Mr. Blue tells the hapless employee on the other end of the radio. That hapless employee is Lieutenant Zachary Garber (Walter Matthau), head subway cop, who must figure out a way to cut through the red tape of city bureaucracy and save the passengers of Pelham 123 without letting the killers escape. Opposing him are not only the kidnappers but also his fellow transit employees, who are more concerned with making sure the trains run on time than saving the hostages. But have you ever been on a subway platform when the train is running thirty minutes late? It’s not a pretty sight.

Read more from this chapter on Bookgasm.

If You Like Quentin Tarantino… draws on over 60 years of cinema history to crack the Tarantino code and teach readers to be confidently conversant in the language of the grindhouse and the drive-in. What fans love about director Quentin Tarantino is the infectious enthusiasm that’s infused into every frame of his films. And Tarantino films lend themselves exceptionally well to reference and recommendation, because each, itself, is a dense collage of references and recommendations.

Mike McPadden, an interview

 

 

Onstage and Backstage podcast from Hal Leonard is available on iTunes and Libsyn. Each episode authors and their guests have a chat about the topics of their books. Today, Mike McPadden (author of If You Like Metallica...) talks all things heavy metal, including Metallica and different genres of metal, on Off the Meter with Jimmy Failla. This episode has been edited and reposted on Onstage and Backstage podcast with permission of Off the Meter.

>>>LISTEN HERE<<<

From garage rock to the avant-garde, indie pop to hardcore punk and, of course, all shades of metal, If You Like Metallica… illuminates the sounds and styles that influenced and have been influenced by this band, in addition to nonmusical elements such movies, books, and cultural iconoclasts. Just as Metallica expanded heavy metal to new meanings and new possibilities, If You Like Metallica… expands being a fan of the band to an education and a treasure hunt that, put as bluntly as a devil-fingered salute to the face, rocks.

When The Beatles Met Elvis

Guest Blogger: Bruce Pollock is the author of, If You Like The Beatles. Below is an excerpt from his blog.

By the fast and loose standards of rockabilly, Elvis Presley’s ride from fame to fortune has to beconsidered nearly exemplary, if not virtually domesticated. Long since revealed in his many biographies as a simple good old boy trapped in a Graceland not entirely of his own making, Elvis was nonetheless extremely sensitive, insecure, and competitive about his place in the rock and roll scheme of things.

While Carl Perkins lay in a near coma in a New York City hospital, Scotty Moore, Bill Black, and DJ Fontana, in town for a gig with Elvis, came to call, bearing Elvis’s good wishes. But no Elvis. Weeks later he sent a telegram wishing Perkins a speedy recovery. Did he harbor a grudge that Carl’s version of “Blue Suede Shoes” outpaced his own on the charts? Or that Carl released it at all? Who knows? But is it a coincidence that Elvis never recorded another Carl Perkins song (while the Beatles recorded more than half a dozen)?

When the Beatles finally met The King in the summer of 1965, when they were both ensconsed in separate huge mansions in Los Angeles, it was like two pop cultural ships in the night, circling each other, the one bound for glory, the other heading for a reef in the middle of the North Atlantic. It had to be a tense, stilted afternoon. Whereas a year earlier, Bob Dylan had famously turned them on to pot, Elvis apparently didn’t offer them so much as a peanut butter and banana sandwich. On the other hand, the lads were probably already stoned when they arrived. And Elvis may have been loaded on a cocktail of barbiturates. The Memphis Mafia was there, all of Elvis’ childhood pals. The color TV was on with the sound off. Muddy Waters was on the stereo. The Beatles played pool with El’s bodyguards. Elvis played some bass and the fellows eventually jammed and talked gear. Priscilla stopped by to curtsey like a proper housefrau. Elvis had met her when he was 25 and she was 14. They didn’t marry until she turned 21, in 1967. On their way out, Elvis gave the Beatles souvenir holsters.

For more please visit Bruce Pollock’s blog.

If You Like The Beatles

The Beatles came up in the rock and-and-roll era, when Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Elvis Presley defined cool. Their early shows were big beat bacchanals, the Brit interpretation of that crazy American sound. But it wasn’t long before they were absorbing and creating more and more music – from folk to experimental, to psychedelia and hard rock, quite literally changing music forever and influencing hundreds of great bands in the process.

Leonard Pierce, an interview

Onstage and Backstage podcast from Hal Leonard is available on iTunes and Libsyn. Each episode authors and their guests have a chat about the topics of their books. Today, to celebrate the birthday of James Gandolfini, who plays Tony Soprano, we’re highlighting our podcast episode with Leonard Pierce, author of If You Like the Sopranos…, chatting with Scott Von Doviak, author of If You Like The Terminator…

>>>LISTEN HERE<<<

If You Like the Sopranos… by Leonard Pierce is the first book that starts with Tony and the gang in their humble homes in the Garden State and explores the astonishing amount of great films, TV shows, and other pop-culture wonders that any fan of the Sopranos will love. From The Godfather andBonnie and Clyde to The Wire, to lesser-known noirs, Jimmy Cagney classics, contemporary HBO dramas, Martin Scorsese’s best work, and even the rock’n'roll that inspired the classicSopranos soundtrack, this is the one book that every fan needs if he or she ever has to go on the lam.

Candy Store Rock

Happy birthday, Robert Plant!

The following is an excerpt of If You Like Led Zeppelin… by Dave Thompson (Backbeat Books), which will be on sale Sept. 2012.

Introduction

To rock fans of a certain age, there are certain intros that need no further introduction.

Der-neh-der-neh-NEH (der-der-dum der-der-dum)

Ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner—DEH-DEH-DEH

De-de-de de-dii-de-de …

Okay, that last one’s trickier. But if you got even one out of the three, chances are you could attempt to phoneticize a whole bunch more, and gaze in pitying astonishment at anyone who wasn’t as instantly au fait as you are.

Aaaaah-ehhhh-aaaaaaaaaaa—UH!

Across a lifetime that spanned thirteen years, nine LPs, one double live set, and a posthumous compilation, and which has only sporadically been added to since then, Led Zeppelin recorded and released just eighty-five songs. Yet those eighty-five not only set the bar for every rock band of their generation, they became the benchmark for every band that followed.

Between the fall of 1968, when they arose from the ashes of the Yardbirds and taped their first album in a matter of days, and September 1980, when the death of drummer John Bonham rang down the curtain on their career, Led Zeppelin did not simply establish themselves as the biggest rock band in the world. They grasped that throne for all time, because, no matter how successful the groups of the past three decades have been—no matter how readily the financial, attendance, and sales records Zeppelin once set might be smashed—not one of those record-breakers has even threatened to match the sheer weight of influence that Bonham, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones exerted on their surroundings.

No, Bono, not even you.

This is not the place to ponder the reasons why; to analyze the fortuitous confluence of musical streams and strains that Zeppelin, alone of the massive pack plowing the fertile valleys of late-sixties rock, was able to seize upon; to consider the sheer bravado with which manager Peter Grant set about building the legend of a band that wasn’t simply untried, but completely unknown; or to pick apart the monstrous marketing machine that allowed Zeppelin to crush all opposition and reinvent rock in their own image.

The fact is, they achieved it and, even more remarkably, they did so by eschewing almost every one of the shortcuts other bands have relied upon. For as long as there had been rock ’n’ roll, a hit single was the way to break into the mainstream, and even those late- sixties rockers who claimed to despise the things were not immune to the advantages a smash 45 could bring. Vanilla Fudge, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Yes, Hawkwind, Argent, bands whose very raison d’être was built around the long- playing statement—they all scored hit singles, and their profiles rose accordingly.

Not Led Zeppelin. Throughout most of the world, they did not even issue singles and, while their American label, Atlantic, did insist on sneaking the 45s out (and scored hits with them), they did so in the knowledge that the band would not be promoting them.

Because that was the other shortcut Led Zeppelin avoided. They would not appear on television, not after a handful of performances early on in their career left the musicians bored and frustrated with the demands of the medium. Led Zeppelin was a live band; therefore, Led Zeppelin would play live. And if you wanted to see them, you had to catch them live as well.

And there’s more. Throughout the sixties and seventies, the primary conduit between artist and fan was the music press, a printed medium that devoured several rain forests’ worth of trees every month to fill the average fan’s appetite for hot news and info. In Zeppelin’s British homeland through much of that period, there were no fewer than five music papers appearing every week (Melody Maker, New Musical Express, Sounds, and Record Mirror, plus shorter- lived enterprises like Disc and the appallingly titled National Rock Star). There was the biweekly Street Life and a slew of monthlies too. Plus an ever-changing roster of magazines dedicated to the teenybop market.

The United States had less to choose from, but the best of the bunch remain legends to this day—Creem, Circus, Rolling Stone (in the days when its music coverage came first and was generally better than anyone else’s). All sold by the bucket-load, all were savagely independent, and all were essential reading. A front-page story in any one of those was worth a gold disc before the new album was even released.

Led Zeppelin ignored them. Not completely, and certainly not exclusively. But interviews with the band were nevertheless at a premium, as manager Peter Grant laid out an unspoken dictate that flew in the face of all commercial common sense. Yes, you could talk about the band as much as you liked. But you’d be very, very lucky if you got to talk to them.

Any one of these dictates could easily have backfired. The press could have turned against the band, the record buyers could have shrugged with disinterest, the couch potatoes could have remained on the couch.

But they didn’t, because Led Zeppelin had one thing no other band of the age could come close to possessing. It was called mystique, and that is so unquantifiable that, again, we will not even try. Put simply, however, people trusted Led Zeppelin.

Trusted them to make a great album without wanting to hear a three-minute snippet before they laid down their cash.

Trusted them to put on a great show, without needing to catch a sanitized highlight on American Bandstand.

And trusted them to have something to say, without having to wade through three thousand words of edited conversation in search of John Bonham’s thoughts on the Nixon administration.

But there was something else that made Led Zeppelin special, that raised them above the hue and cry of the rest of the rock pack, and established them on a musical plateau that—again—has never been scaled by anyone else. And that was their openness to influence, their willingness to listen, and their ability to seamlessly assimilate so many personal fascinations into what became a very public whole.

If You Like Led Zeppelin… is the unique story of how Led Zeppelin came together not as players, but as influences and ideas. It unearths the music that the musicians themselves were listening to, to open up an entire new world of experience and excitement for both casual and committed fans. It then travels beyond Led Zeppelin, to the bands and artists who in turn took their own lead from the Zep.

You may also like…

Zack Handlen, an interview

Onstage and Backstage podcast from Hal Leonard is available on iTunes and Libsyn. Each episode authors and their guests have a chat about the topics of their books. Today, Zack Handlen chats with Off the Meter host Jimmy Failla about Zack’s book If You Like Monty Python… (Limelight Editions).

>>> LISTEN HERE <<<

This is the first book to look at everything influenced by the Pythons, but also at those who came before them – from the classic British comedies to the Marx Brothers, and everything in the Python universe, from Fawlty Towers and A Fish Called Wanda to Spamalot and Brazil. If You Like Monty Python… by Zack Handlen is a book for any fan who has graduated from the Ministry of Silly Walks and wants more.

Q&A with Mike McPadden

Mike McPadden

The following is an excerpt of the interview with Mike McPadden, author of If You Like Metallica…, on Rocktopia.co.uk. Please visit their site for the full interview.

When did you get into rock and metal?

That goes back as far as I can remember. The first rock song I really loved and would wait to hear on the radio so I could sing along was ‘Little Willy’ by Sweet. That was in 1972. I was four. I still love that song. And Sweet.

Which artists have you interviewed in your time?

In 1994, Hustler magazine sent me to Lollapalooza to see who’d talk to us. Green Day ran away, Jennifer Finch from L7 told me off, James Iha of the Smashing Pumpkins pretended he had somewhere to be. Nick Cave was really gracious, however, and gave me a great sit-down one-on-one. Perry Farrel was very cool, too.

Who are your favourite bands?

I have tattoos in honour of the Butthole Surfers, the Melvins, King Crimson, and Meat Loaf. So that’s a good roster to start with. I’m also planning some Alice Cooper ink.
Beyond that, it’s not a surprising line-up. Metallica, KISS, Black Sabbath, Frank Zappa, the Sex Pistols, and Ted Nugent form the base. Most of what I like arises from that swirling pool. Right now, my favourite band in the world is The Devil’s Blood, from the Netherlands.

Tell me about your Metallica book… how long did it take you to write and research?

If You Like Metallica… is a reference book that connects more than 200 bands, movies, books, artists and other cultural elements to Metallica. It spans from the dawn of rock to what’s going on right now and topic-wise, it’s all over the place. Entertainingly so, I hope. Backbeat Books gave me the opportunity to write the book in June 2011 and I turned it in just before December. It was a lot of work!

Keep reading this interview on Rocktopia.co.uk!

 

If You Like Metallica… by Mike McPadden (Backbeat Books)

From garage rock to the avant-garde, indie pop to hardcore punk and, of course, all shades of metal, If You Like Metallica… illuminates the sounds and styles that influenced and have been influenced by this band, in addition to nonmusical elements such movies, books, and cultural iconoclasts. Just as Metallica expanded heavy metal to new meanings and new possibilities, If You Like Metallica… expands being a fan of the band to an education and a treasure hunt that, put as bluntly as a devil-fingered salute to the face, rocks.