The myth of Bob Marley looms so enormously on the cultural landscape that sometimes it's easy to forget the simple truth that Marley was a man who wrote great songs and sang them with conviction. Going back to Marley's earliest work is a good antidote to his overblown myth, and ANOTHER DANCE: RARITIES FROM STUDIO ONE provides just such an opportunity.

ANOTHER DANCE, a collection of rare, very early singles and mixes recorded for Clement Dodd at Studio one, provides a vintage snapshot of early Wailers. Recorded in the mid 1960s, these tracks show the group before they'd alighted upon the trademark roots-rock sound that would change the world. Instead, here are the Wailers as an exuberant, ska-inflected R&B group, heavily influenced by Motown and doo-wop, while the young Marley, not yet a mystic or prophet, sings with no less passion and purpose.