News

The Legend continues. The Marley Family, Tuff Gong, and UMe are set to commemorate the late, great Bob Marley’s 78th birthday with 12 limited-edition Bob Marley LPs, each of them numbered and pressed exclusively at Tuff Gong International headquarters in Kingston, Jamaica, and set for release on March 24.

This Jamaican Pressing series features nine original Bob Marley studio albums and two original live albums plus the world’s best-selling reggae album, Legend, all of them including the “highly desirable” (their words) Tuff Gong stamp. Additionally, April 1973’s Catch A Fire, initially recorded by The Wailers in Jamaica and eventually released with overdubs and a mix overseen by Island founder Chris Blackwell at the label’s London headquarters, will only be available in its original Jamaica-recorded version, with two extra tracks from the sessions along with some tracks with longer fades. Produced entirely by Bob Marley and The Wailers and mixed by longtime Marley associate Errol Brown, this Jamaican version will now be on vinyl for the first time.

Complete track listings for each of the 12 albums in this series follows at the end of the story. But first, you can watch the trailer for said Jamaican Pressings series below.

Each of these limited-edition Bob Marley LPs were pressed at Tuff Gong’s newly refurbished vinyl pressing plant in Kingston, which reopened in the summer of 2020 and currently has an annual capacity of 250,000 units.

UMe has confirmed the following pressing-related stats with me directly. Each album in this series was mastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters in Los Angeles. He worked from hi-res digital copies of the original album masters. The above-noted Catch A Fire was indeed newly created for vinyl from the original masters of the undubbed Jamaican recordings to include the extended fades, and then mastered by Cooley (as opposed to how the 2001 CD version of Fire was done). Cooley was specifically chosen by the Marley family to master all 12 of these albums for the Tuff Gong pressings. The vinyl lacquers were all cut by Phil Rodriguez, also at Elysian Masters.

As many of you already know, Analogue Productions has their own Bob Marley masters on the market — to wit, the Rastaman Vibration 200g 1LP UHQR box, and the Exodus 200g 1LP UHQR sets. We will be reviewing both of these important releases here on AP in the near future, so stay tuned for that. (Yes, I know both Marley UHQRs are currently sold out, but just in case additional copies become available, etc., etc.).

In the meantime, the Bob Marley/Tuff Gong Legend lives, and you can glean all the stats and track listings for all 12 of these Jamaican Pressing LPs below.

BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS
TUFF GONG / KINGSTON, JAMAICA PRESSING SERIES

CATCH A FIRE / BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS
Produced By Bob Marley & The Wailers
1973

Side 1
1. Concrete Jungle
2. Stir It Up
3. High Tide Or Low Tide
4. Stop That Train
5. 400 Years
6. Baby We’ve Got A Date

Side 2
1. Midnight Ravers
2. All Day All Night
3. Slave Driver
4. Kinky Reggae
5. No More Trouble

BURNIN’ / THE WAILERS
Produced By Bob Marley & Chris Blackwell
1973

Side 1
1. Get Up Stand Up
2. Hallelujah Time
3. I Shot The Sheriff
4. Burnin’ And Lootin’
5. Put It On

Side 2
1. Small Axe
2. Pass It On
3. Duppy Conqueror
4. One Foundation
5. Rasta Man Chant

NATTY DREAD
Produced By Chris Blackwell & The Wailers
1974

Side 1
1. Lively Up Yourself
2. No Woman, No Cry
3. Them Belly Full (But Them Hungry)
4. Rebel Music (3 O’clock Roadblock)

Side 2
1. So Jah Seh
2. Natty Dread
3. Bend Down Low
4. Talkin’ Blues
5. Revolution

LIVE!
Record Produced By Steve Smith & Chris Blackwell
Music Produced By Bob Marley & The Wailers
1975

Side 1
1. Trenchtown Rock
2. Burnin’ & Lootin’
3. Them Belly Full
4. Lively Up Yourself

Side 2
1. No Woman, No Cry
2. I Shot The Sheriff
3. Get Up, Stand Up

RASTAMAN VIBRATION
Produced By Bob Marley
All Songs Written By Bob Marley
1976

Side 1
1. Positive Vibration
2. Roots Rock Reggae
3. Johnny Was
4. Cry To Me
5. Want More

Side 2
1. Crazy Bald Head
2. Who The Cap Fit
3. Night Shift
4. War
5. Rat Race

EXODUS
Produced By Bob Marley And The Wailers
All Songs Written By Bob Marley Except *Bob Marley And Curtis Mayfield
1977

Side 1
1. Natural Mystic
2. So Much Things To Say
3. Guiltiness
4. The Heathen
5. Exodus

Side 2
1. Jamming
2. Waiting In Vain
3. Turn Your Lights Down Low
4. Three Little Birds
5. One Love /People Get Ready*

KAYA
Produced By Bob Marley & The Wailers
All Songs Written By Bob Marley
1978

Side 1
1. Easy Skanking
2. Kaya
3. Is This Love
4. Sun Is Shining
5. Satisfy My Soul

Side 2
1. She’s Gone
2. Misty Morning
3. Crisis
4. Running Away
5. Time Will Tell

BABYLON BY BUS
1978

Side 1
1. Positive Vibration
2. Punky Reggae Party
3. Exodus

Side 2
1. Stir It Up
2. Rat Race
3. Concrete Jungle
4. Kinky Reggae

Side 3
1. Lively Up Yourself
2. Rebel Music
3. War / No More Trouble

Side 4
1. Is This Love
2. The Heathen
3. Jamming

SURVIVAL
All Songs Written By Bob Marley
Produced By Bob Marley & The Wailers And Alex Sadkin
1979

1. So Much Trouble In The World
2. Zimbabwe
3. Top Rankin’
4. Babylon System
5. Survival

Side 2
1. Wake Up And Live
2. Africa Unite
3. One Drop
4. Ride Natty Ride
5. Ambush In The Nite

UPRISING
All Songs Written By Bob Marley
Produced By Bob Marley & The Wailers And Chris Blackwell
1980

Side 1
1. Coming In From The Cold
2. Real Situation
3. Bad Card
4. We And Them
5. Work

Side 2
1. Zion Train
2. Pimper’s Paradise
3. Could You Be Loved
4. Forever Loving Jah
5. Redemption Song

CONFRONTATION
All Songs Written By Bob Marley
Produced By: Bob Marley & The Wailers & Errol Brown
Executive Producer: Rita Marley
1983

Side 1
1. Chant Down Babylon
2. Buffalo Soldier
3. Jump Nyabinghi
4. Mix Up Mix Up
5. Give Thanks & Praises

Side 2
1. Blackman Redemption
2. Trench Town
3. Stiff Necked Fools
4. I Know
5. Rastaman Live Up!

LEGEND
1984

Side 1
1. Is This Love
2. No Woman No Cry (Live)
3. Could You Be Loved
4. Three Little Birds
5. Buffalo Soldier
6. Get Up Stand Up
7. Stir It Up

Tracks 1 & 4: Produced By Bob Marley & The Wailers Track 2: Produced By Steve Smith And Chris Blackwell Tracks 3, 6 & 7: Produced By Bob Marley And Chris Blackwell Track 5: Produced By Bob Marley & The Wailers And Errol Brown

Side 2
1. One Love/People Get Ready
2. I Shot The Sheriff
3. Waiting In Vain
4. Redemption Song
5. Satisfy My Soul
6. Exodus
7. Jamming

Produced By Bob Marley & The Wailers
Except Tracks 2 & 4: Bob Marley & The Wailers And Chris Blackwell