The Wailers’ “Catch a Fire”

Cover of The Wailer's album "Catch a Fire"

This week, I’ve been listening to Bob Marley and the Wailers’ fifth album “Catch a Fire” from 1973. Caribbean music was only just starting to get noticed by the rest of world. This great album combined with an international tour, drove the band and reggae into world-wide fame.

The closest thing to reggae we listened to in my house growing up was Eddy Grant’s Electric Avenue.” In my late teens, I actually gave some reggae a listen. I was intrigued by the heavy use of syncopation. Attempts to emulate the strumming patterns on guitar challenged me. It wouldn’t be until my mid-twenties that my girlfriend’s music collection gave me a decent introduction to the music of Bob Marley and the Wailers. I came to appreciate his music and stop simply associating it with hippies and stoners. This was real, passionate and sincere music with immediate socio-political concerns. There was more rebellion here than just some smoke.

Concrete Jungle

The Wailers open the album with “Concrete Jungle.” Marley sings about Moving from Jamaica to an American city to find the big city life to just as oppressive, only in a different way. While the song definitely reggae, there’s something about the sound and rhythms that also remind me of Stevie Wonder’s funk. This could be an intentional incorporation of the music of American cities, or perhaps just a cross-pollination of genres in the early 1970s.

The song follows a I-I-vi-IV chord progression for the verses and the chorus, with a I-IV pre-chorus. The rhythms are particularly interesting to me. The way guitar is used is one of the defining features of the genre. The guitar is firmly a member of the rhythm section. Short syncopated percussive claps of guitar chords emphasize the upbeat. A quick stroke of the pick hits these strings and they are immediately muted preventing the chords from ringing out. The Wailers will often use two electric guitars.. on that plays on the eight-note upbeat and the other adding an additional hop by playing an adjacent sixteenth note.

The bass guitar rests a lot more than we often hear in rock and pop music. There will be a deep bass note on the first beat of the measure, with a waking melodic groove until the third beat and then rest. While in most of the music I listen to will have the kick drum emphasize the first and third beat of each measure, that is not the case here. There is still often a snare or timbale on the second and fourth beat, but not always.

Stir It Up

Probably my favorite song on the album is the mellow “Stir It Up.” The Wailers released this song as a single in 1967. A cover of the song by Johnny Nash had found success internationally in 1972, leading to The Wailers joining him on an international tour. For this album, they re-recorded the track. The “Catch a Fire” version starts with an up-beat double-sixteenth chop pattern. A Moog synth provides a deliciously modulated pad that provides the memorable sound of the track.

The song follows a basic I-I-IV-V chord progression throughout. The muted electric guitar keeps the syncopated rhythm pattern. A Clavinet supports the guitar with its equally percussive chops. A percussive bass groove hits the first and second beat then rolls through rest of the bars rising. During the verses, the bass takes more rests, hitting that first beat still, providing a restrained lower end. And while all of this might seem like it’d be chaotic in description, its actually very smooth and relaxing.

Overall, I was disappointed when I started with this album, because I was hoping for songs like “Redemption Song.” Now, I see that that is from a much later album. However, after a week, many of these songs grew on me. They have strong melodies and accompaniment. There are hooks throughout that I found myself singing throughout the day when not listening to the album.

The Clash’s “The Clash”

Cover for the The Clash's debut album

This week, I’ve been listening to the Clash‘s 1977 self-titled debut album. I spent a week with their double-LP “London Calling,” making this the second time I’ve spent a week with one of the Clash’s albums for this project. I knew some of that one, but with this album I am very value.

My new group of friends in Athens, OH introduced me to punk rock in 1994; This one immediately caught my interest. I didn’t realize that this was the same band that did “Rock the Casbah,” a favorite song from my childhood. With a year, I bought this debut album and played it frequently. It’s part of the soundtrack of my youth, as well as an album I’ve continued to love as an adult.

Janie Jones

The rocker “Janie Jones” opened the original UK LP release of the Clash’s debut album. The drums start the song with a rapid steady beat like a speeding train. Then Mick Jones’s sharp overdriven guitar cuts in with a burst of a single chord. Joe Strummer’s distinctive raspy vocals jump right into the chorus “He’s in love with rock n’ roll, whoa.” The guitar stabs with the same chord at the start of the next bar, “He’s in love with getting stoned, whoa.” And the same for the next two lines, “He’s in love with Janie Jones, whoa. He don’t like his boring job, no.” And with those simple lines they probably embraced half of their audience. Then they repeat the chorus, this time joined by a simple, but energetic bassline.

This is not a complex song; Rather much of its success comes from it’s direct and simple approach. There’s only one chord to the chorus, with the guitar only providing a stab at the beginning of each bar and resting throughout. The verses follow a V-I-IV-V chord progression, with each chord lasting a full two bars. Topper Headon relentlessly beats a near consistent pattern, with basic fills at the end of every two bars. The instrumentation is sparse. We have the drums, bass guitar, a buzz-saw electric guitar, and vocals, but the Clash delivers plenty of energy and attitude that drives this song through its short 2 minute length.

Police & Thieves

In the middle of the second side, The Clash perform a cover of reggae artist Junior Murvin’s “Police and Thieves.” This is both the only cover song and the longest song on the album, at six minutes. Murvin’s song had been release just the previous year and The Clash frequently performed the song as a warm-up during recording sessions. Reggae had a big influence on punk rock, and especially the Clash. These 70s punks, like Joe Strummer and gang, would’ve spent their teenage years hearing songs like “Israelites” by Desmond Dekker during the late 1960s. A teenager’s appreciation for reggae in England at the time would’ve been a rebellious act of opposition of the racism of older generations.

I love the interplay of Joe Strummer and Mick Jones’s guitars across the stereo field. One is panned hard left, the other hard right. Their overdriven short chord bursts go back and forth. First with one playing a chord that slides up to the next, then rests while the other bursts the chord in response. The bass plays a bouncy little riff at the beginning of each bar, preceded by a lead-in at at the end of the previous bar. All of these elements demonstrate how the Clash translated the sound and rhythms of reggae into their own music.

White Man in Hammersmith Palais

Since the first time I heard this album, “White Man in Hammersmith Palais” stands consistently as my favorite Clash song. The melody and singing are outstanding, showing off Strummer’s excellent ability to mix sonorous melodic singing, reggae influence, and British punk attitude. The melody, backing harmonies, and lyrics grabbed me immediately as a teenager. It’s an epic song, aware of its scope. There’s reggae rhythms through out, little percussive taps and ticks. The guitars scratches and bursts chords on the upbeat. It’s an absolutely perfect and essential track.

I think the line that got me first was “You think it’s funny, turning rebellion into money.” in response to rock bands and corporations capitalizing on youth. In a later verse he sings “If Adolf Hitler flew in today, they’d send a limousine anyway,” which I wonder may’ve been in partially in response to David Bowie’s comment the previous year that “Adolf Hitler one of the first rock stars.” WIth Bowie being a huge influence on the group and punk rock in general, that and other statements Bowie made about fascism may’ve been troubling for the punks.

Importantly, I think, Stummer acknowledges his own lack of credibility, “I’m the all-night drug-prowling wolf, who looks so sick in the sun. I’m the white man in the Palais, just looking for fun.”

The Clash’s “London Calling”

London Calling album cover

This week, I’ve been listening to The Clash’s 1979 album “London Calling” for what I can learn as a songwriting musician to improve my craft. It’s been a great week!

I got into The Clash in a rather backwards way. I grew up loving the video for “Rock the Casbah“, but that was mostly because of the armadillo. When I was about twelve, I bought a cassette of Big Audio Dynamite’s 1986 album “No. 10, Upping St.” at a dollar store. Singer Mick Jones had been kicked out of The Clash a few years previous and formed B.A.D. with Don Letts, who had directed several of The Clash’s music videos.  I went from there to The Clash’s 1977 self-titled debut album, which is more of a reggae-aware punk album than the later “London Calling”. It’s difficult to categorize this album. There’s a mix of reggae, ska, punk, rockabilly, post-punk, new wave, pub rock, etc. No matter what you want to call it, it’s definitely the Clash.

The music on “London Calling” has a very percussive quality. In reggae music, the rhythm guitars frequently emphasize the offbeat. For most of these songs, the Clash rhythm guitarist strum hits on the quarter-note along with the kick and snare, emphasizing the beat rather than adding a hop to it. Sometimes the upbeat, the 2nd the 4th beat gets an emphasis, but more often it’s all four. The lead guitars are more likely to play the offbeat than the rhythm, which I find interesting. There are exceptions, of course, with some songs being decidedly more “reggae”, or the hit “Train in Vain” for which the rhythm guitar focuses on the offbeat; and then some sections hits on the downbeat. This change gives these sections a sense of “slowing down” even though the tempo actually remains constant.

The instrumentation and production on this album is very open and light. There’s space between the instruments, with each occupying its own space sonically. There’s also a lot of air. Instruments frequently rest, which makes the sound both open and rhythmic. Strums are muted, or quickly muted, as opposed to ringing out. There’s also not much “padding” to fill the space. It’s refreshing to hear all of this bounce and grit with breathing room.

Every track is fantastic, but “Jimmy Jazz” stands out as my favorite. Our son pointed out that this track may’ve been of particular influence to one of my heroes, Peter Doherty. I like how the song maintains a breezy feel, while still having the percussive quality. A bright acoustic guitar punctuates the beat throughout, with a flanged slightly distorted lead guitar plays on the offbeat. I also like the horns, which is not something I an often say. The lyrics vaguely tell the story of a character named Jimmy Jazz, being sought by the police. An outsider, apparently on the wrong side of the law.

The lyrics on this album combine story-telling with a sense of “sharing the news”. We learn about strange characters, romanticized like the Beats saw old movies and dime paperbacks. These cool scenes of outsiders populate some songs, while others are more like a street-punk standing in the street shouting to fellow rebels, “This is what’s happening, open your eyes, take a stand.” The album combines a multi-national perspective musically, with a boot firmly rooted in the British streets.