Dawn of the Dread: Bob Marley 80

Bob Marley & The Wailers - Running Away/Crazy Baldheads

I know I've done this guy a good few times -- as recently as his 75th b'day 5 years ago, and several before that -- but I'mma make like Steely Dan and do it again anyway, just to more widely circulate the best version of a super legendary and popular ROIO I know well deserves what I feel is a substantial auditory upgrade.

Well, to start off with, it isn't exactly of Indeterminate Origin, so there's that.

Up to now, the ROIOverse has been pretty clear that impresario of distinction Bill "Wolfgang" Graham taped this show on his snazzy black-n-white video recorder as it all went down in The Town.

That VHS master audio has circulated for about 6 years as the definitive version of it, but I think there's more to the story.

I say this because Wolfgang's Vault has it up and streaming, with a few seconds less of the spoken introduction than is on the videotape.

What may have happened was that BG rolled the videotape deck and then immediately rolled a reel-to-reel or cassette audio recorder simultaneously. Maybe he was that into Reggae.

Whatever the truth is, the VHS audio is really flat sounding and does not go above 15 kHz -- standard for video of that time as well as FM broadcasts. The version on Bill's Vault Of Surreptitiously Captured Concerts -- with about 1.5 seconds less of Bob Marley exalting Jah and Haile Selassie I at the start -- goes tastily up to the full preFM 20 kHz standard... even when coming down from a technically lossy 320/48k stream.

This might not seem at all significant, and I realize that for most folks it isn't, but for this show in particular -- it's been my all time favorite BMW recording for awhile, by the way -- that extra 5 kHz up top makes a huuuuuuuuge difference in the listening experience, which I always seek to optimize into a territory where it isn't entirely evident that what you're hips are shaking to like ice cubes in a cocktail glass is actually a bootleg.

This is especially operative in this case, because this is one of a passel of BMW performances enhanced by the presence of dub effects, which whoever was doing it live as the music went on did to great effect, with tremendous taste and maximal drama.

The dubby element is what makes this my personal all-time go-to tape of these guys... it isn't just that it's in Oakland. Although that helps, as we know.

There's even a show-stopping closer of the anthemic Get Up, Stand Up, where the dub scientist goes totally hog wild and The Rolling Stones show up, ensuring that the East Bay peeps really got more than their money's worth that evening.

So that's why I'm repeating myself like this, because this version of this show (yes it's iconic, performed by an icon's icon iconically) really does sound head and dreadlocks above all the currently circulating versions, all of which I was sure to listen to and spectrally analyze before doing it. And there were/are a few, trust me.

Bob Marley & the Wailers

Oakland Auditorium

Oakland, California USA

11.30.1979

01 Positive Vibration

02 Wake Up and Live

03 Concrete Jungle

04 Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)

05 I Shot the Sheriff

06 Running Away/Crazy Baldheads

07 Ambush In the Night

08 The Heathen

09 War/No More Trouble

10 No Woman, No Cry

11 Lively Up Yourself

12 Africa Unite

13 One Drop

14 Exodus

15 Is This Love? 

16 Jammin'

17 Ride Natty Ride

18 Roots, Rock, Reggae

19 Natty Dread

20 Get Up, Stand Up

Total time: 1:46:54

disc break goes after Track 10

Bob Marley - vocals & guitar

Aston "Family Man" Barrett - bass

Carlton Barrett - drums

Al Anderson - guitar

Junior Marvin - guitar & occasional crowd exhortations

Earl "Wire" Lindo - organ, clavinet

Tyrone Downie - keyboards

Alvin "Seeco" Patterson - percussion

Devon Evans - percussion

David Madden - trumpet

Glen DaCosta - saxophone

Rita Marley - vocals

Judy Mowatt - vocals

Donald Kinsey - guitar on Track 20

Ron Wood - guitar on Track 20

with dub effects throughout by an unidentified dub scientist

320/48k audio streamed from Wolfgang's Vault

spectral analysis is lossless to 20 kHz, making this equivalent to a preFM source

beginning of Lively Up Yourself is patched & tempo adjusted from an HD YouTube file 

of a documentary depicting BMW in and around Western Springs, Auckland NZ 4.16.1979
1st few seconds of the spoken intro to the show is patched from the master VHS audio of this event

converted to 16/44 CD Audio, edited, tracked, repaired & slightly remastered -- with tape flip in Ambush In the Night somewhat smoothed -- by EN, February 2025

635 MB FLAC/direct link

Another important note: in the VHS master audio iteration of this one, two songs are patched with what sounds like a 477th generation cassette that doesn't go much above 8,000k. So just for fun, I patched one with the only song footage in a documentary I found.

This was a short film made about Bob Marley in New Zealand in the Spring of 1979 -- because I felt that that version was the best sonic match for this tune, crappy as it still is. But that song was seldom performed on the Wailers' 1979 world tour, so I picked the only one I felt suitable.

As for the other song, I didn't try to patch it, but instead tried to smooth the tape flip in it to make it flow in a musically semi-reasonable way. Again, it is what it is!

Either way, neither of these instances of sonic compromise really detract much from the overall blazing, incantatory vibe of these 107 minutes of redemption songs.

I have one more post that I am working on, that I will time to hit automatically after the move next Friday, if all goes well. But I wanted to make sure I got this up here, not just for the sonic upgrade quotient but to honor someone whose unforgettable music only gains resonance as the decades fly by like three little birds.--J.

2.6.1945 - 5.11.1981