The Complete Wailers: 1967-1972, Part 1;

While the Wailers catalog is littered with bootlegs, cheap one-offs, and a bucketful of "unofficial" releases, a comprehensive document of the band in its early years has yet to surface. The Complete Wailers--bugs and all--may be as close as we ever get to that elusive portrait of the world's greatest reggae band. Though hampered by clumsy packaging and hard-to-follow liner notes, these recordings sound light-years better than most of the scratchy, poorly recorded early Wailers material previously available. What we discover is a band reaching to find its own voice. The Wailers attempt doo-wop, soul, R&B, and rock steady and only begin to hint at the soul power they would find in reggae. Despite the tentative feel on many of these songs, the undeniable talent of the "proto" Wailers is unmistakable. Rita Marley appears as the rock solid force supporting the platform from which Peter Tosh and Bob Marley sprung. Tosh, for his part, is the real surprise here, already showing the jaunty, take-no-prisoners delivery that made him so unique. Marley is all over the stylistic map--trying on pop, love songs, standards, anything to try to capture the sense of urgency that would later become the band's hallmark. An interesting historical marker. --S. Duda