AMG Review of Anthology [Cleopatra]

Steve Leggett
All Music Guide

There are countless Bob Marley collections issued every year, some legal and some not, most of them continuously recycling the Wailers' pre-Island Records Jamaican recordings. These compilations can vary in sound quality as well as internal coherence, and they frequently come with little or no track annotation, making buying one a complete crap shoot. This two-disc set from Cleopatra Records at least has liner notes, although the notes are more general than specific, and the tracks presented, since they draw on Marley & the Wailers' work with producer Lee "Scratch" Perry in 1970, 1971 and later in 1977, cohere well, making this a decent anthology, if not exactly the end all and be all of Marley sets. Included are gems like "Sun Is Shining," "Kaya" (plus a "Kaya" scat version with a truly annoying bell added), Curtis Mayfield's "Long Long Winter," the odd and ominous "Mr. Brown," the proud and defiant "Soul Rebel" and the ever graceful "African Herbsman," all from 1970 and 1971, and the late season Marley/Perry collaborations "I Know a Place" and "Who Colt the Game" from 1977. It's hard to argue with the music presented here, which is perhaps Marley's best, eclipsing anything he did for Island, but while this is an undeniably decent set, it duplicates countless other Marley collections out there, and most fans will (or should) already have all of this stuff.