New Wax Wednesday

We be jammin’ now — 50 years on, that is. Fifty years ago this week, Bob Marley & The Wailers headlined a four-night residency at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, England, spanning June 15-18, 1976, a series of shows that kicked off the second leg of their Rastaman Vibration tour.

Finally, all these years later, audiences can experience the inherent magic of those seminal, long sought-after shows officially for the first time with the upcoming release of the Roots, Rock, Reggae: Live at the Hammersmith Odeon 180g 2LP set via Tuff Gong/Island/UMe on August 14, 2026.

This previously unreleased 18-track double album, which has been newly mixed from the original multitracks, will arrive in multiple configurations. Besides the 180g 2LP black-vinyl edition, there will also be a limited-edition 2LP color-vinyl version, a 2CD set, a digital download, and streaming options, plus an Atmos mix to boot.

Offering an early aural glimpse of what to expect, you can check out “Roots, Rock, Reggae (Live at the Hammersmith Odeon)” on Marley’s official YouTube channel below.

The 2LP packaging features a cover design that appears “sideways” but actually folds out to show a full-body photo of Marley in his performance trance, as well as custom labels on each disc, printed sleeves, scores of photos from most if not all of the shows, and a new essay by longtime Marley confidant and associate Don Letts, a.k.a. “The Rebel Dread,” who shares his own in-person recollections of the residency.

The180g 2LP black vinyl edition of Roots, Rock, Reggae: Live at the Hammersmith Odeon sports an SRP of $37.99, and it can be preordered here. The limited-edition color vinyl edition — shown below, with one LP described as “molten lava red,” and the other “peridot swirl green” — boasts the same $37.99 SRP and can be preordered here. (If you’re a Marley completist, the 2CD edition runs $19.98.)

The color-vinyl release also includes an exclusive mini-poster of the original Island Records ad promoting both the then-new Rastaman Vibration album and the European leg of Marley’s tour, which launched with this four-night stand at the Hammersmith Odeon.

While I of course cannot give a Sound rating to Roots, Rock, Reggae: Live at the Hammersmith Odeon until the two LPs are in hand to spin on my turntable, the Music gets a 10.5 rating right out of the box, as I have heard the balance of it by way of, shall we say, other sources. This carefully curated collection is prime smokin’ hot live Marley, to be sure.

Some more info now per the official press release, with the usual MM additives spliffed, er, sprinkled in. This June ’76 Hammersmith Odeon booking was, at the time, considered to be a risky move, with a ticket count pushing five times that of a typical Wailers show. Didn’t matter, though — the shows sold out, and the group seized the moment with (as the PR put it) “utter fire and precision, leaving reviewers grasping for words to describe what they’d witnessed. Bob’s time had come.” (On that latter point, I can wholly agree.)

Ultimately, the 1976 Hammersmith Odeon residency proved to be a watershed moment for Bob Marley & The Wailers. Two years earlier — within months of Eric Clapton taking his version of Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff” to No. 1 in the U.S. (the song also resides on his July 1974 RSO LP 461 Ocean Boulevard) — Marley had answered with October 1974’s Natty Dread, his first major statement for a widening international audience.

Live!, which was recorded at London’s Lyceum Theatre on July 17-18, 1975, delivered the breakthrough in December 1975, aided by the concert version of “No Woman, No Cry,” which reached No. 22 on the U.K. Top 20. This growing momentum carried Marley into his celebrated June ’76 run at London’s Hammersmith Odeon. In the weeks that followed, April 1976’s aforementioned Rastaman Vibration became his first U.S. Top 10 album (peaking at No. 8).

Except for an incomplete bootleg that a good number of us have heard/owned, the question as to whether official recordings of the Hammersmith Odeon run existed remained unanswered — until now. Remote tapes from the Island archives, which had been separated into different storage facilities over the years, were said to be “only recently connected into the full experience,” ultimately leading to this release.

And thus, the 18 tracks chosen for Roots, Rock, Reggae: Live at the Hammersmith Odeon are said to have been curated from (using those PR words again) “the best performance of each song across four shows recorded June 15-18, 1976.” While I absolutely love the audio legwork the Marley team has done to get this 2LP edition up to snuff, I’d also love to get a multidisc box set with all four complete-as-possible shows at some point — but I’ll gladly take what I can get at this point!

Among the double album’s many highlights are: 1) the rarity “Bend Down Low” (LP1, Side B, Track 2), which was performed only on the final night of this Hammersmith Odeon run; 2) an extended, new-to-the-set “Crazy Baldhead” (LP1, Side B, Track 1); 3) an improvisatory, deep bass rendition of “Lively Up Yourself” (LP2, Side C, Track 1); and 4) naturally, the finale — a revelatory encore punctuated by a chilling “War” (LP2, Side D, Track 1) and an intense, 12-minute “Get Up, Stand Up” (LP2, Side D, Track 3), during which Marley weaves a call to dance into a plea for unity.

In the Roots, Rock, Reggae: Live at the Hammersmith Odeon liner notes, Don Letts perhaps described the feel during those Hammersmith Odeon gigs as follows: “a theatre full of people suddenly sharing the same heartbeat.”

And to that I say: One love, everybody. One love.

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Author bio: Mike Mettler is the editor of Analog Planet in addition to being the Sound Chaser columnist and contributing music editor to one of our other sister sites, Stereophile, in addition to being the regular Vinyl Icons column scribe (and occasional Opinion columnist) for Hi-Fi News, recently reinstated editor of Sound & Vision, and author of numerous box set liner notes. Plus, he’s quite partial to vintage 1967 Mustang fastbacks, but that’s yet another story for a different time.

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Want more Marley? Go here for Mark Smotroff and Mike Mettler’s joint review of the recent Vinylphyle 180g 1LP edition of June 1977’s Exodus, which posted on AP on February 20, 2026.

For more about the Tuff Gong International-pressed limited-edition versions of 12 key Marley LPs — a number of which are still available — go here for Mike Mettler’s detailed report, which posted on AP on February 15, 2023.

BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS
ROOTS, ROCK, REGGAE: LIVE AT THE HAMMERSMITH ODEON
180g 2LP (Tuff Gong/Island/UMe)

LP1, Side A
1. Introduction
2. Trenchtown Rock
3. Burnin’ And Lootin’
4. Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)
5. Rebel Music (3 O’Clock Roadblock)
6. I Shot The Sheriff

LP1, Side B
1. Crazy Baldhead
2. Bend Down Low
3. Want More
4. No Woman, No Cry

LP2, Side C
1. Lively Up Yourself
2. Roots, Rock, Reggae
3. Encore Introduction
4. Positive Vibration
5. Rat Race

LP2, Side D
1. War /
2. No More Trouble
3. Get Up, Stand Up