Richard Haslop
4 September 2007
Johannesburg — Two members of the Wailers vocal trio, Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, cast such a huge shadow over the rest of the style that the third, Bunny Wailer, is often in danger of being overlooked when talk gets round to the best reggae singers, at least among listeners who prefer their reggae to contain as much rock as roots and righteousness.
Yet there's a compelling case to be made that Bunny Wailer's solo debut, BLACKHEART MAN, was as good as any album released by either of his former cohorts, or anyone else for that matter.
Quitting the group just as the world seemed to be opening up to it, Wailer released no more than a handful of songs in the few years before that first Island label long player finally appeared in 1976, with Tosh - whose own debut, Legalize It, came out the same year - ubiquitous among the backing musicians and especially effective on the simple melodica, and Marley completing the vocal trio for a gorgeous reworking of Wailer's fantastic repatriation song, Dreamland, which had appeared on a Wailers record.
Blackheart Man reflects, passionately and steadfastly, Wailer's devotion to the Rastafarian faith, starting with a title track that describes how his own adherence to it has caused him to become just like the outcast his mother always warned him about. By the end of the song, though, the Blackheart Man has become "the wonder of the city".
Wailer's lissome tenor, once redolent, like many others who plied their vocal trade in reggae trios, of Curtis Mayfield, had gained steel with the years, but was still capable of heartbreaking fragility. In the short intro to Rastaman, though, his declaration that "them kill Lumumba for his own rights, but they can't kill the Rastaman at all" is so soulfully sated with the certainty of his convictions it's almost as if he wasn't able to keep it up, as the song immediately lightens its tread and turns into a heartfelt guide to Rasta living.
Wailer produced the album. If his liberal use of Skatalite veteran Tommy McCook's flute as instrumental colour lends it a suggestion of airy jazziness, the slightly lazy, even marginally out-of-tune countryman horns that practically defined reggae's roots consciousness at the time keep bringing it back to earth, where Wailers drummer Carlton Barrett's wonderful touch ensures that the earthiness never becomes earthbound.
Fighting Against Conviction, which Wailer also recorded as Battering Down Sentence, refers to his spell in prison some years earlier on marijuana charges and records, with a combination of anger, resignation and a nevertheless indefatigable spirit, and to one of reggae's most irresistible tunes and rhythms, the difficulty of growing up in a large broken family in the ghetto where "hustling's the only education I know".
It's an indication of Wailer's class and skill that Amagideon, introduced by a portentous call and response between keyboards and horns, tackles the far more universal topic of Judgment Day without trivialising it, yet in a way that almost has you looking forward to the drama of it. The wake-up-before-it's-too-late cock crow vocalisations suggest that Wailer had learned a few tricks from the great one time Wailers producer Lee Perry.
Bide Up, which follows, restates reggae's debt to American soul music but brings it up to date by adopting the more sophisticated feel of '70s Philly soul, though without ever losing its reggae heart, before Blackheart Man closes with an eight-minute version of This Train. The song not only roots the album in the musical past, but broadens its spiritual, cultural and political scope as the gospel standard is ecumenicised by combining specifically Rastafarian lyrics and the ancient, mystical nyabinghi drumming that provides its raggedly insistent pulse with wailing blues harmonica and backing vocals torn straight from the belly of the Baptist church or some other similar place of African American worship at the southern end of the US.
If Wailer's subsequent releases never quite attained Blackheart Man's stature as a classic of its kind -- few albums do -- records like Struggle and Protest continued to chip away at the status quo, while the rather prosaic title of Bunny Wailer Sings The Wailers explains exactly what it does without giving any indication of the quality to be found within.
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