Wailers Recording Session Timeline, 1962 - 1974

Robert Nesta (Bob) Marley records his first singles at Federal studios for Leslie Kong's Beverly's label. Neville O'Riley Livingston (Bunny Livingston, Bunny Wailer) is supposed to record a track (Pass It On) at the April session, but was delayed at school and running errands for his father. His tardiness angers Kong who refuses to let Bunny sing during the session.

Bob's mother Cedella moves to America to marry a man named Edward Booker.

Bob, Bunny, Winston Hubert McIntosh (Peter Tosh), Franklin (Junior) Braithwaite, and Ermine Ortense Bramwell (Cherry Green, Cherry Smith) get together and call their group The Teenagers.

Joe Higgs teaches the young group the basics of singing such as breath control and harmony in his kitchen and in the Trench Town yard of Cherry's neighbor Skipper Lako. The group rehearses for almost two years before going into the studio. In Skipper's yard someone suggests the name The Wailers, which the group adopts a week or two before their first recording session.

The Wailers first recording session is at Clement "Coxsone" Dodd's Studio One. [July 6] They will record 88 songs for Coxsone over the next two years. Coxsone pays the Wailers £20 per song (to split between the group).

Bob asks singer Beverly Kelso to join the Wailers the day before their first Studio One sessions. [July 5]

The Wailers play their first live show at the Sombrero Club in Kingston. Lineup is Bob, Peter, Bunny, Junior, Cherry, and Beverly. [July/August]

Junior Braithwaite leaves Jamaica the day after recording It Hurts To Be Alone, to join his family who had recently moved to America. [August]

Though Beverly and Cherry are still in the group, in September other female vocalists begin appearing on Wailers recordings. Most notably, Marcia Griffiths and Rita Anderson, who, along with Judy Mowatt, would later make up the I Threes. The members of Rita's group The Soulettes (Rita, Rita's cousin Constantine "Dream" Walker, and Marlene "Precious" Gifford) also sing on many Wailers recordings.

After the group has some success, Coxsone starts paying Bob, Bunny, and Peter a "salary" of £2 or £3 a week. The most money they will see at one time from Coxsone is when he pays Bob £100 two years later in 1966. The Wailers never receive any royalties from the Studio One recordings.

Cedella Marley and Thaddeus Livingston (Bunny's Father) have a daughter together, Pearl. Giving Bob and Bunny a shared sister.

Cherry Green sings on several recordings, but her participation isn't consistent. Beverly Kelso, a more active participant, appears on many more recordings. But for both singers, their last session with the Wailers is recording Let The Lord Be Seen In You (the record label lists the performers as "Bob Marley & The Spiritual Sisters") [October]

While the Wailers will always incorporate female voices, after Beverly and Cherry leave, the backup vocalists who replace them are not considered "Wailers." Only Bob, Peter, and Bunny are Wailers (for now).

Bob Marries Rita Anderson. [February 10] He does not tell the other Wailers that he and Rita are getting married. The only people who know are Coxsone and Beverly Kelso.

A week or so after marrying Rita, Bob moves to Delaware to find work and earn money to start the Wailers record label. [February 12] He stays with his mother on Tatnall Street in Wilmington and works as a janitor at the Hotel DuPont, and in the Chrysler auto plant doing inventory in the parts department (Bunny's brother Carl works at the plant and recommends Bob to his boss). He is away from Jamaica for nine months.

Before leaving for America, Bob is known as Nesta, Lester, Robbie, and a couple of other names as well. It is a Jamaican passport official (insisting Nesta is a girl's name) who puts the name Robert Marley on his passport.

Constantine Walker (now called "Vision") fills in for Bob on Wailers recordings while Bob is in Delaware.

Peter Tosh begins playing guitar on some recording sessions.

H.I.M. Haile Selassie I visits Jamaica. [April 21] Rita is moved by seeing Selassie and writes to Bob in Delaware saying, "Something is happening here." Bob replies, "You must be getting crazy, Rita!" The Wailers are aware of Rastas in Kingston, but Rita's brother, who attends to the University of the West Indies, begins reasoning about Rasta tenets and philosophies with the Wailers in earnest. That, combined with the impact of Selassie's visit, causes the Wailers to become serious about Rastafari.

Bob returns to Jamaica. [November] Shortly after returning, Coxsone tries to convince Bob to carry on without Peter and Bunny. Instead, the Wailers leave Coxsone and start their own record label, Wail 'N Soul 'M. Their first recording is Freedom Time, made with money Bob brought back from Delaware. They record twenty new songs for Wail 'N Soul 'M, and release a number of singles over the next three years.

Bob feels uninspired and is having trouble writing songs so he and the other Wailers (as well as Bunny's partner Jean Watt, Rita, and Vision) move to Bob's grandfather's farm in Nine Mile. Peter only lasts a week in the country, but the others stay and plant yams, cocoa, beans, corn, cabbage and other crops. At night they play and sing, and eventually Bob finds his inspiration again, and he and Bunny write a number of songs that the Wailers will go on to record.

Shirley Livingston, Bunny's younger sister, gives birth to Peter Tosh's first child, Andrew. [June 19]

Bunny is sent to prison on herb charges. He spends two months in Kingston's General Penitentiary (built in 1845), then does one year of hard labor at the Richmond Farm Prison. [July] Years later, when applying for a visa to travel to America for the first Wailers foreign shows, Bunny discovers that the 1967 charges against him were actually dropped, but the authorities did not notify him of the fact, and kept him in prison to finish the sentence.

During Bunny's time in prison, Johnny Nash "discovers" Bob Marley and he and his partner Danny Sims proceed to do a number of demos and studio recordings with Bob, Peter, and Rita (with Bob being their focus). [January]

Bob, Peter, and Rita record live demos at Danny Sims' rental house in Kingston. Fallin' In And Out Of Love, Stranger On The Shore, Splish For My Splash, Wings Of A Dove, and Want Love True Love. [January]

Sims begins paying Bob, Peter, and Rita $100 (US) a week as a retainer, and they begin making a living from their music for the first time.

Bob, Peter, and Rita record more casual demos at Danny Sims' house. They sing Fallin' In And Out Of Love, Stranger On The Shore, and Splish For My Splash again, as well as What Goes Around Comes Around, and You Say I have No Feelings. [May]

Sims flies Bob, Peter, and Rita to New York to do a bit of recording, but mostly to meet people in the record industry. [Early in the year]

Bunny is released from Prison. [September]

The company/label that Johnny Nash, Danny Sims, and Arthur Jenkins run is called JAD. More than 30 of the songs that Bob and the Wailers record for JAD are written by rhythm-and-blues singer and songwriter Jimmy Norman. The rhythm tracks for the songs are recorded at Federal Studios (which Bob will one day buy) in Jamaica, and then the tapes are taken to New York where studio musicians add instrumentation that Sims assumes to be more palatable to North American and European ears. As a result, much of the JAD material sounds like a compromise that doesn't satisfy the musical tastes of either country.

The Wailers continue recording and releasing their own music on Wail 'N Soul 'M (and later Tuff Gong) throughout the JAD period.

Bob brings Rita and their children Sharon, Cedella, and Ziggy to Wilmington to visit his mother. [Spring]

Later in the year, Rita convinces Bob to emigrate to Delaware. The plan is to live there permanently. They move in with Bob's mother, and Bob and Rita get jobs and enroll the kids in school. Bob goes back to work at the Chrysler plant, Rita works a series of domestic jobs.

Bob intends to bring Bunny and Peter up to Delaware, but when he writes to them in Jamaica, they don't respond. (Bunny says he didn't respond because Bob asked him to come to America but to leave Peter behind in Jamaica.)

Bob receives a draft notice from the U.S. government inviting him to fight in the Vietnam war. Feeling as if he has no other options, he moves the family back to Jamaica. [Late summer]

Peter (without the other Wailers) records with the Barrett brothers for the first time on the song, Earth's Rightful Ruler, with Lee Perry at the controls. A few months later, all three of the Wailers record Black Progress with the Barretts and Scratch.

The Wailers record their first album The Best of The Wailers, with Leslie Kong for the Beverly's label. [May] (Their previous album, The Wailing Wailers is a singles compilation.)

The Wail 'N Soul 'M label name is dropped and the band starts releasing records on Tuff Gong.

The Wailers start working consistently with Lee "Scratch" Perry. My Cup is the first track they do together over the next nine months. [August] (Bob initially approaches Perry to work with him as a solo artist. Perry convinces Bob to include Peter and Bunny in the project, which keeps the original Wailers together for a few more years.)

Between August of 1970 and April of 1971 the Wailers record over 40 songs with Scratch at Randy's that are released on Perry's Upsetter Records label. On days they don't work with Scratch, they record songs to release on their own Tuff Gong label.

Bob goes to Stockholm (via New York) for two months to work on the soundtrack of a Johnny Nash film. He returns to Jamaica in late June or early July.

Someone breaks into The Wailers Record Shack in Kingston (at 127 King Street, corner of Beeston) and steals $960 worth of records and musical equipment. [April 21]

In Stockholm Bob makes an informal acoustic recording of Guava Jelly, This Train, Cornerstone, Comma Comma, Dewdrops, Stir It Up, Cry To Me, and I'm Hurting Inside. [May]

Bunny doesn't like the Best Of The Wailers title, feeling that their best is yet to come. He has some words with Leslie Kong, and may mutter a vague threat about Kong not living long if he released the album with the "Best Of" title. When Kong dies a few months before The Best of The Wailers album is released, a myth grows up around Bunny's "cursing" of Kong that supposedly caused his death.

On the song Trench Town Rock Bob records his distinctive chicka-chicka upstroke rhythm guitar style for the first time. [July]

The Wailers play a show at the Ward Theater in Kingston as part of a "Festival 71" dance competition. Later the same day they play a Miss Jamaica beauty pageant/water pageant at National Stadium Pool. [July 14]

The Wailers play an afternoon show at "The oldest tavern in the New World," the Ferry Inn. [August 1]

The Wailers play a number of "PNP Bandwagon" shows, today's at the Ward Theater in Kingston. [October 3] While they insist they are playing the shows only for the money ($150 per show) and not out of any political affiliation, the shows are clearly promoted as political gatherings.

The Wailers play a pair of shows at the Students Union at the University of the West Indies in Kingston. [October 9, October 13]

Bob returns to Sweden in November and stays until late December.

In a review of a their appearance at a holiday "Nuggets for the Needy" show, the Gleaner calls the Wailer's music "Afro-Jazz."

The Wailers travel to America to play a brief tour. Their first ever U.S. show is on New Years Eve, in the Bronx. [December 31]

Over the first two weeks of the year the Wailers continue their brief U.S. tour, playing shows (to primarily Jamaican audiences) in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

Bob travels to Sweden to write music for a Johnny Nash film. [mid February] He remains abroad with Nash for almost three months, writing, recording, and doing some small shows together in England (where Nash is billed as "The King of Reggae").

The Wailers (along with Family Man, Carly, and Wya Lindo) go to England to do a full-scale tour with Johnny Nash. [end of May] Rather than a full-scale tour, the Wailers end up doing only one full show as openers for Nash (though Bob opens most shows singing two songs with Nash's band as backup, Reggae On Broadway and Oh Lord I Got To Get There, taken from the single Sims recorded and released in England).

The Catch A Fire album is started as a project for CBS (via a deal made by Nash and Sims), but CBS drops the project. The May recording session listed here takes place at CBS Studios in London. The Wailers then approach Island Records Chris Blackwell for funding to complete the album, which he provides. Bunny recalls that The Wailers also contributed some of their own money to the cost of the recordings. [September]

There are conflicting stories of how Bob made the move from CBS to Island. Bob may have put the breaks on the deal himself after being snubbed at the CBS corporate offices, or Blackwell may have taken interest in Bob and intervened behind the scenes.

The Jamaican sessions for Catch A Fire take place at the Dynamic Sounds studio in Kingston. It's unknown whether any of the tracks recorded for CBS in England are used for the album. [October]

As outlets for their solo material, Bunny starts the Solomonic label and Peter starts Intel-Diplo H.I.M..

The basic tracks for Burnin' are recorded at Harry J's studio in Kingston. Around the same time demos are recorded (at the request of Island Records) of Small Axe, Oppressed Song, Reincarnated Souls, One Foundation, No Sympathy, and Get Up Stand Up. The group then travels to England to record overdubs on the basic tracks for Burnin' at Island's Basing Street Studios. [April] During the British Burnin' sessions, the Wailers do a short tour of a couple dozen shows to promote Catch A Fire.

The recording of Rasta Man Chant is the last time all three Wailers are in the studio together as a group. (That's based on studio notes. Bunny remembers the last song they recorded being Get Up, Stand Up.)

Tensions in the group rise during the spring recording sessions and British tour. The three Wailers aren't getting along, due in part to increasing frustration over what Peter and Bunny see as Blackwell's favoritism toward Bob. At a meeting to discuss the U.S. leg of the tour, Chris Blackwell mentions that the group would be playing at "freak clubs." Bunny wants no part of a freak club tour, and expects other members of the group to side with him. When they don't, he returns to Jamaica and Joe Higgs takes his place for the tour. Bunny won't perform in America again until 1986.

During the British tour Bob buys the guitar he will play for the rest of his life, a 1950s Gibson Les Paul Special. [May] He bought the guitar in London at the Top Gear music store on Denmark Street. It was previously owned by guitar, effect, and amplifier builder Dan Armstrong. Marc Bolan bought the Special from Top Gear before Bob, but returned it for a Les Paul with humbucking pickups. All the customization and repair of the guitar over the years was done by Roger Mayer, who built and customized effects pedals for Jimi Hendrix.

The Wailers do an abbreviated U.S. tour (without Bunny), Opening 14 shows for Bruce Springsteen at Max's Kansas City in New York and then going on the road opening for Sly And The Family Stone. [October]

After the U.S. tour the group continues on to do more shows in England. During the British leg of the tour Peter quits the Wailers. [late November]

The initial pressing of Catch A Fire sells fewer than 15,000 copies.

"Turn Me Loose" and "Keep On Skanking" is listed as a Wailers session, but Peter and Bunny's vocals were recorded in 1971, so the session was essentially Bob and Lee Perry reworking old tracks.

With Peter and Bunny adamant that they were finished touring with the Wailers, Bob begins recording the songs for the Natty Dread album with the I Threes. Bunny and Peter continue to appear on each other's records, but all three Wailers do not record together again.

They perform perform together a few more times at high profile gigs in Jamaica, opening for Marvin Gaye [May, 1974], and Stevie Wonder [November, 1974] (all three Wailers join Stevie Wonder for his version of Get Up, Stand Up).

Bob continues to use the Wailers name after Peter and Bunny have left the group, which, at least temporarily, irritates both men.

Bunny credits some of his early solo single releases to "Wailers."