Bob Marley: Natty Dread [BACK TO BLACK]

Why you'll love it

This Back to Black edition is a remastered 180g pressing from the Netherlands with a download code. Natty Dread went gold in the UK, and Rolling Stone placed it among the 500 greatest albums of all time.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Remastered
• Download card included
• Pressed in the Netherlands

About the album

Natty Dread marks a new chapter. With Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer gone, Bob Marley stepped forward as the frontman of a reshaped Wailers, and he brought in a vocal trio, the I Threes (Rita Marley, Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt), whose harmonies would become part of his signature sound.

"Lively Up Yourself" opens with a bluesy, joyful celebration of skanking, and "No Woman, No Cry" is Marley's tender look back at growing up in Trenchtown, credited to his childhood friend Vincent "Tartar" Ford, who had fed him when times were hard. "Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)" and "Rebel Music (3 O'Clock Road Block)" carry his message, the title track and "So Jah Seh" show his deepening Rastafari faith, and "Bend Down Low" is pure romance.

The songs have been covered by everyone from Boney M. to Pearl Jam to the Fugees. The live "No Woman, No Cry" became the famous hit a year later, but this is where it started, and the studio version has a gentle charm of its own; we've caught more than one customer humming it at the till.

Also at Kops: more Bob Marley on vinyl · browse Reggae & Caribbean

Tracklist

Listen

On Tuff Gong / Island, a reissue of the 1974 album.