Exodus Missouri

Exodus

Bob Marley & The Wailers

Tuff Gong / Island Records, 1977

REVIEW BY: Christopher Thelen

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 08/25/1997

The time is 1977. Imagine you're Bob Marley: you narrowlysurvived an assassination attempt in your Jamaican home a yearbefore, and you've had to leave your homeland and go to London. Youeither bottle up your emotions and put out a happy reggae record,or you unleash your furor and create a pissed-off one. Which do youchoose?

Time's up. The answer: you do both. The end result of Marley'sjourney is appropriately titled Exodus, and contains some of Marley's best work to thispoint.

The sides could almost be divided into two separate albums. Thesecond side (of which 80 percent has been re-released on the 1984best-of Legend) contains some of Marley's most poppy music, and hasproven to have withstood the test of time. "Three Little Birds" isa pretty love song, featuring some killer keyboard work by TyroneDownie. Marley's backup vocalists I Threes (featuring his wifeRita), who always were a high point of any Wailers release,especially are given a chance to show off on this side. Alsofeatured on this release was "One Love / People Get Ready," whichshares writing credit with Curtis Mayfield (but damned if I canhear the "People Get Ready" reference). This song became the themefor tourism ads for Jamaica - ironic, seeing that Marley's musicwasn't widely embraced in the upper circles of Jamaica until afterhis death in 1981.

If another song sounds like something you've heard on TV, you'rethinking of "Jamming," which deserved a better fate than to bethrown onto the end of a Budweiser commercial. There is one "down"moment on the second side with "Waiting In Vain," a song about lostlove. Marley's vocals are especially noteworthy here - I've neverconsidered him a strong lead vocalist (albeit a good one), but thistrack begins to show his maturing in the role.