Bob Marley & The Wailers: Bob Marley (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, percussion); Aston "Family Man" Barrett (guitar, bass, percussion); Earl "Chinna" Smith (guitar, percussion); Al Anderson, Donald Kinsey (guitar); Tyrone Downie (keyboards, bass, percussion, background vocals); Carlton Barrett (drums, percussion); Alvin "Seeco" Patterson (percussion).

Additional personnel: The I Threes (background vocals).

Reissue producers: Bill Levenson, Maxine Stone.

Recorded at Harry J Studios and Joe Gibbs Studio, Kingston, Jamaica. Originally released on Island (59383).

All tracks have been digitally remastered.

Personnel: Bob Marley (vocals, acoustic guitar, percussion); Aston Barrett (guitar, electric bass, percussion); Earl "Chinna" Smith (guitar, percussion); Donald Kinsey, Al Yasha Anderson (guitar); Tyrone Downie (keyboards, percussion, background vocals); Carlton "Carlie" Barrett (drums, percussion); Alvin "Seeco" Patterson (percussion); Judy Mowatt, Marcia Griffiths, Rita Marley (background vocals).

Audio Mixers: Chris Blackwell; Ray Thompson; Aston Barrett.

Recording information: Harry J Studios, Kingston, Jamaica (1975-1976); Joe Gibbs Studio, Kingston, Jamaica (1975-1976); Kingston, Jamaica (1975-1976); The Roxy, Hollywood, CA (1975-1976); Wally Heider's Mobile Recording Truck (1975-1976).

Photographers: Kim Gottlieb-Walker; Neville Garrick.

RASTAMAN VIBRATION's burlap-esque jacket design couldn't be more appropriate packaging-this is a load of Natty knowledge delivered in simple, raw fashion. And there's a real beauty in the weave. This 1976 release finds Bob dropping ever more lyrics on human entanglements both local and global, his transcendent voice threading wisdom through it all.

"Positive Vibration" and "Roots, Rock, Reggae" are anthemic in character, inviting all listeners to quit their negativity and start a-dancin'. "Want More" is a promise of bad karma for back-biters everywhere, leadened fearfully by solemn bass lines and seamless production. Perhaps most compelling here is "War," a musical setting of a 1968 speech on global justice by the Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. Bob's echoing fade with the words, "Good Over Evil" is positively haunting. While Peter Tosh's voice is absent, the classic exchange between Marley and the I-Threes (backing vocal divas, for those not in the know) shines all the more brightly in the spotlight. Funky organs are everywhere. Every track on RASTAMAN VIBRATION is an excellent piece of vintage roots reggae, proving just how powerful and tight Bob's studio sessions could be.

Bob Marley had reached critical mass as an international star when he came to make Rastaman Vibration in the winter of 1975-1976, having scored a Top 40 hit in the U.K. with "No Woman, No Cry" and seen his and the Wailers' last three studio albums belatedly enter the U.S. charts. Marley was acutely aware of his increasing status and its value. "We bubbling on the Top 100, just like a mighty dread," he sang in "Roots, Rock, Reggae," which indeed became his first American chart single when it was pulled from the album, while Rastaman Vibration itself spent four weeks in the Top Ten of the Billboard charts, the highest-charting LP of his career. Marley used his soapbox to emphasize his religious/political concerns in socially conscious songs like "Johnny Was," "Want More," and the musicalization of one of Haile Selassie's speeches, "War." The result was one of his most substantive collections. This vastly expanded reissue adds more than an hour and a half to the original 34-minute album, providing a musical view of the entire period in Marley's music. "Jah Live," the single that preceded the album, and "Smile Jamaica," which followed it, are included, along with six previously unreleased alternate mixes of songs from the album and a ten-song concert performed at the Roxy nightclub in Los Angeles on May 26, 1976, during the tour supporting the album, which had been released a month earlier. The concert, in particular, is a valuable addition, complementing the 1975 set Live by including versions of the same seven songs the earlier album featured, plus three songs from Rastaman Vibration. This was a key point in Marley's life, marking the consolidation of his international renown and prefacing the assassination attempt that exiled him from his native country. It is chronicled here. ~ William Ruhlmann

Q (9/01, p.135) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...Marley as superstar..."

Mojo (Publisher) (8/02, p.85) - "...The most complete and uncompromised studio album that The Wailers made..."