This month: Bob Marley & the Wailers released Soul Rebels

Soul Rebels Bob Marley

Released: December 1970 Peak: -- Sales (in millions): -- Genre: reggae

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Soul Rebel (12/70, --) Try Me It’s Alright No Sympathy My Cup (1970, --) Soul Almighty Rebel’s Hop Corner Stone 400 Years No Water Reaction My Sympathy Total Running Time: 33:09

Rating: 3.237 out of 5.00 (average of 14 ratings)

About the Album: “Originally issued in 1970, Soul Rebels was the first album credited to Bob Marley & the Wailers, and it was also the band's first full-length collaboration with producer Lee "Scratch" Perry, for whom they had already recorded a string of fairly successful singles.” AZ “Working with the newly configured Upsetters band, Marley and crew delivered a strange and wonderful set of early reggae that at times plays fast and loose with the already established conventions of the genre — on My Cup the beat sounds inside out, while It's Alright sounds like a slightly Jamaicanized version of Motown soul. Other songs, such as the beautifully harmonized Try Me, show their deep roots in rocksteady.” AZ “One of the most arresting tracks on the album is the Bunny Wailer composition Four Hundred Years, on which Wailer unburdens himself of some of his typically dread pronouncements in his rich, chesty voice.” AZ Notes: Tracks 1-11 are all featured on Rasta Revolution as well. That collection also includes “Mr. Brown” and “Duppy Conqueror,” the latter of which is also on Burnin’. The Sanctuary/Trojan 2002 reissue adds 10 bonus tracks: “Dreamland” (2 versions), “Dracula,” “Zig Zag,” “Jah Is Mighty,” “Brand New Second Hand” (2 versions), “Downpresser” and alternate versions of “Soul Rebel” and “My Cup.”

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Bob Marley AZ All Music Guide review by Rick Anderson First posted 3/26/2008; updated 5/6/2021.