#3 -- Bob Marley and the Wailers

The lion: reggae; pop music, its prey.  

The optimistic view of Bob Marley's career sees a re-imagining of the very basics of rhythm and intonation; a new, old African style that revolutionized popular music.  Heading into the 1980s, the likes of "Punky Reggae Party" with its embrace of punk and rap placed Marley at the very center of innovation, shortly before his untimely death from cancer.

The pessimistic view is that the original 'Wailers' (Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Waller), once they'd gone their separate ways in the early '70s, never regained their original genius as individual acts, probably due to an over-indulgence in ganga.

Rastafari creed, the belief in a living god that can be known through assisted meditation, likewise, falls somewhere in-between; between an optimistic and a pessimistic reading: endearing myth or first step toward yon crackpot.  

If we know anything, however, we know that Marley's music feels like a clear-eyed wake up following something momentous the night before.  On first hearing, its virtues were self-evident to our amazed ears.  Little has changed.

TIME magazine famously named Marley and the Wailers the greatest act of the 20th Century.  Maybe.

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Each band or performer is graded on four things:
  1.  Innovation
  2.  Influence in my life--as a typical American
  3.  Integrity: the band's approach to music (just making a buck or honing a craft?)  
  4.  Immortality--am I, a typical American--still eager to hear their music

10/8/7/10 = 35 out of a perfect 40

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Hocus Pocus Quote:  "This is for all those out there with a residual hand over one eye--and for those who've never tried seeing the world, in focus, with just one eye."