Bob Marley & the Wailers - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: In Concert, Stanley Theater, Pittsburgh, PA, 9-23-1980

This is the fourth and last BBC album I'm posting from Bob Marley and the Wailers. It also happens to be the very last concert Marley ever gave!

In 1977, Marley was diagnosed with malignant cancer under the nail of the big toe of his right foot. Contrary to popular belief, this had nothing to do with a soccer injury he got earlier that year, since signs were the cancer had been there for some time already. He was only about 31 years at the time. He was advised to amputate his toe, but he decided against it, saying it went against his religious beliefs.

He went full speed ahead with his career, and for several years, the cancer didn't bother him that much. But slowly but surely, his health declined. On September 16, 1980, he started a new tour to promote his latest album, "Uprising." On September 21, just two days prior to this concert in Pittsburgh, he collapsed while jogging in Central Park in New York City. He was taken to the hospital, where it was discover the cancer had spread to his brains, lungs, and liver. It was very touch and go until the last minute whether this concert would take place at all. But a sold out crowd of 3,500 people were already there and excited, and he decided he didn't want to let down his fans.

Given that context, it's remarkable how energetic and good Marley sounds in this concert. Dennis Thompson, who engineered all of Marley's concerts in the 1970s, later said, "Bob did not know how to give less than 100 percent at a concert, so even if his foot was dropping off, you would never know. His work, his music, took precedence over everything."

The tour was supposed to just be getting started. Many more dates were scheduled. But after this concert, all further dates were canceled. So Marley didn't announce during this concert that it would be the last one, since that was still up in the air at the time, but one must guess that he already had a good idea it was the last one, or at least close to the last. His health rapidly declined after that. He died on May 11, 1981, at the age of 36.

This album has been officially released as "Live Forever." The BBC didn't broadcast the concert at the time, but they did later. Marley was in the habit of occasionally recording his concerts on reel to reel tape, and this happened to be one of the ones that got recorded. After the cancellation of the tour and then his death eight months later, this recording took on new importance. The BBC broadcast it for the first time in 1991, while the official album came out in 2011.

Unfortunately, there's one major flaw with the recording: the tape ran out before the encore of "Work" and "Get Up, Stand Up." The "Live Forever" album tried to make up for this by resorting to an audience bootleg for the last two songs. Unfortunately, the sound quality is much worse. I decided to remove "Work" from my version of this concert, because the sound quality is that bad. However, I've kept "Get Up, Stand Up," since it was the very last song he performed in public, and it's such a great song. I did some audio editing to try to make that song together, but one can only do so much, even with the latest technology, so it still sounds pretty rough.

This album is an hour and 27 minutes long.

01 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
02 Natural Mystic (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
03 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
04 Positive Vibration (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
05 Burnin' and Lootin' (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
06 Them Belly Full [But We Hungry] (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
07 The Heathen (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
08 Running Away (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
09 Crazy Baldhead (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
10 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
11 War - No More Trouble (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
12 Zimbabwe (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
13 Zion Train (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
14 No Woman, No Cry (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
15 Jamming (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
16 Exodus (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
17 Redemption Song (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
18 Coming In from the Cold (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
19 Could You Be Loved (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
20 Is This Love (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
21 Get Up, Stand Up (Bob Marley & the Wailers)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/JvNtbMGY

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/lMIDEaaIXwejwZG/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Bob Marley & the Wailers - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Rainbow Theatre, London, Britain, 6-4-1977

Here's another Bob Marley and the Wailers concert, from 1977.

This is kind of a BBC concert. What I mean is, I don't see evidence that the BBC broadcast this back in 1977. But since the 2000s, the BBC has broadcast it repeatedly. Perhaps they got the rights to it much later, after deciding they didn't have enough live music from this key reggae artist. But it counts in my book, especially since I feel I haven't posted enough of Marley's music so far.

This concert has been officially released, but in rather obscure form. In 1977, Marley and the Wailers played the Rainbow Theatre in London four nights in a row. In 2020, all four shows were released, but only in streaming or download form. The fourth night is the one the BBC had been rebroadcasting for years already. 

At the time, the band had just released their classic "Exodus" album. It actually came out one day prior to this show! So naturally there were some songs from that.

This album is an hour and 23 minutes long.

01 Trenchtown Rock (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
02 Rebel Music [3 O'Clock Roadblock] (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
03 Burnin' and Lootin' (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
04 Them Belly Full [But We Hungry] (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
05 The Heathen (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
06 I Shot the Sheriff (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
07 War - No More Trouble (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
08 Crazy Baldhead - Running Away (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
09 No Woman, No Cry (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
10 Lively Up Yourself (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
11 Jammin' (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
12 Get Up, Stand Up (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
13 Exodus (Bob Marley & the Wailers)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/i2GXngmj

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/wZRMPep6BCDWicB/file

The cover photo is from a concert at the Rainbow in 1977, but it's not clear which concert, since he did at least four.

Bob Marley & the Wailers - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 5-24-1973

As I explained in my last post, Bob Marley and the Wailers did a lot of BBC performances in 1973, due to spending a lot of time in Britain that year. "Volume 1" contains some BBC studio sessions from that year. Whereas this is a short concert they also did for the BBC in 1973.

This is a very commonly shared bootleg, but this is a less common version. It turns out that concert was emceed by BBC DJ Pete Drummond, and he introduced all the songs except for the first one. This differs from the usual version in that it includes all of Drummond's comments (as separate tracks).

Like the other Bob Marley and the Wailers BBC volume I just posted, this remains officially unreleased. I'm surprised, since it's a rare, high quality recording of the band while Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer were still key members. In fact, Tosh wrote and sang lead vocals on "Stop That Train" and "400 Years," and shared the writing and singing on "Get Up, Stand Up."

The vocals were a bit low in the mix, so I used the audio editing program UVR5 too boost them some. Otherwise, there were no problems.

"Volume 1" starts with a BBC studio sessions from May 1st, whereas this show is from May 24th. That's why this one is "Volume 2," even though many songs on Volume 1 are from later. 

At the time of this concert, Marley was very little known outside of Jamaica. Heck, reggae as a whole was little known (aside from the 1972 hit song "I Can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash"). It was only with Eric Clapton's Number One hit single of Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" in 1974 that Marley would start to get lots of mainstream attention. So kudos to the BBC for giving him this radio show.

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 Rastafarian Chant (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
02 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
03 Slave Driver (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
04 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
05 Stop That Train (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
06 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
07 No More Trouble (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
08 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
09 400 Years (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
10 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
11 Midnight Ravers (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
12 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
13 Stir It Up (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
14 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
15 Concrete Jungle (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
16 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
17 Get Up, Stand Up (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
18 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
19 Kinky Reggae (Bob Marley & the Wailers)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RLvks46w

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/sArQjrLHjqTkWbp/file

The cover photo comes from the "Old Grey Whistle Test" performance they did earlier in May 1973. From left to right: Tosh, Marley, and Wailer. Other band members are cropped out. As a random aside, this is the second album cover in a week with big time lens flare after not having any of that pretty much ever. 

In February 2025, I upgraded the image slightly with the help of the Krea AI program.

Bob Marley & the Wailers - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1973-1980

Bob Marley and the Wailers spent most of 1973 in Britain, trying to make it popular there. While they were there, they performed for the BBC several times. I've compiled those into two albums, one of BBC studio sessions, and the other of a short concert. This is the studio sessions album. At the end, to fill out this album, I've added a few other live TV appearances in later years, some with the BBC, some not.

Marley and the Wailers did two BBC sessions with  BBC DJ John Peel in 1973. The first session took place on May 1, 1973, and that makes up the first three tracks here. That same day, they also filmed an appearance for the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test." They played two songs, "Stir It Up" and "Concrete Jungle." I've only included "Stir It Up" as track four, because they did "Concrete Jungle" at the Peel session that same day. Also, it's probable that the "Old Grey Whistle Test" performance was only a live vocal done to prerecorded instrumental version.

In November 1973, they did another BBC sessions hosted by Peel. That makes up tracks five through seven. Their album "Burnin'" had just been released and they were promoting that (although only the song "Get Up, Stand Up" was from that album). Note that at this point, the Wailers still included Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, although it was the last album with them.

Those seven songs only total 28 minutes. So I've added some more live TV appearances done in later years. They weren't on TV much, and sometimes when they were they had to do lip-syncing. So these are all the real live TV appearances I could find. I've included a second version of "Kinky Reggae" since there are so few TV appearances like this. Two of the four TV appearances - "Exodus" and "Satisfy My Soul" - are BBC performances on the show "Top of the Pops." Many artists did lip-syncing for that show, but I double checked and these two were actually live.

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 Concrete  Jungle (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
02 Rastaman Chant (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
03 Slave Driver (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
04 Stir It Up (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
05 Kinky Reggae (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
06 Can't Blame the Youth (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
07 Get Up, Stand Up (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
08 Kinky Reggae (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
09 Exodus (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
10 Satisfy My Soul (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
11 Redemption Song (Bob Marley & the Wailers)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/EoZXAEdL

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/MaPg6m5Cn7tbZt7/file

The cover photo is a screenshot I took from the "Old Grey Whistle Test" version of "Stir It Up." In February 2025, I improved the image a bit with the help of the Krea AI program.

Bob Marley & the Wailers - Aeroport du Bourget, Paris, France, 7-3-1980

There are lots of musical giants for whom I haven't posted any material from yet, or only a little. One example is Bob Marley. I'm only a moderate reggae fan in general, but how can anybody not be a Bob Marley fan? He's arguably the most well known musician on the planet, in large part due to his popularity in the Third World.

Marley and his band the Wailers were very good in concert. His most popular live albums generally were recorded in the mid-1970s. But I've always wanted a good recording from the last year he performed on stage, in 1980.

Before I continue, a little explanation of his personal history is necessary. Marley was diagnosed with a kind of skin cancer on his foot in 1977. He had some minor surgery, removing a toenail and some surrounding skin. For the next few years, he was fine. In 1980, he put out the album "Uprising" and then started a big world tour in the middle of the year. But in September 1980, his health took a drastic turn for the worse. He collapsed while jogging in New York City, and was taken to the hospital. It was discovered that his cancer had spread to his heart, lungs, and liver, and he was only given a month or two to live. Despite this, he put on a concert in Pittsburgh the next day. It was his last concert. He managed to hang on longer than expected, but he died in May 1981, at only the age of 36.

The reason I mention all that is because currently the only live album from 1980 is called "Live Forever," and it's taken from that very last concert he did in Pittsburgh. I think this was a terrible decision by the record company, because he didn't go out on a high note. For that show, his health clearly got to him, and he could barely make it through the show. I recommend do NOT listen to that album.

A much better way to remember his last year is to listen to a concert from earlier in the summer, when he was on tour in Europe. Luckily, there are multiple excellent soundboard bootlegs from that leg of the tour, especially shows in Milan, Italy, Zurich, Switzerland, Deeside, Britain, and Paris, France. I listened to all of them. The sound is fantastic on all of them, with the best of them equaling the sound on the live "Live Forever" album. For years, I had the Milan show in my collection. But just a few days ago, I found the Paris show, and I've decided that was the best one of all.

I think this could be my favorite Marley concert recording. Not only is the sound quality great, but I really like the set list. His 1980 shows have some of my favorite songs from the end of his career that the other official live albums don't have, such as "Redemption Song," "Coming In from the Cold," Could You Be Loved," and "Is This Love." It's much like a greatest hits overview of his entire musical career.

There were some problems with the recording, but I was able to fix them. One weird aspect of the recording was that one of the stereo channels was much louder than the other one. I edited each song to bring them to a better balance. I did still keep one channel a bit louder though, since that's the one where most of the lead vocals were.

Additionally, the song "Jammin'" was cut in the middle, with a minute or two missing. I did an edit to stitch the two parts together. Luckily, the break was in a spot where I don't think you'll notice anything missing at all. Also, there were a few seconds of feedback here and there on some of the later songs, especially "Could You Be Loved" and "Kinky Reggae." I was able to fix those by patching in music from elsewhere in the song.

Finally, the recording of the last song "Get Up, Stand Up," ended a couple of minutes before the song ended. I used the version of the song from the Milan concert to give that an ending. These only a few seconds of music from that version, but then a long applause from the crowd that fades out. It wasn't a good match musically, so I got it over with as quickly as possible to give the song a proper ending.

The Paris portion of the concert is an hour and 31 minutes long. Since I knew of three other excellent soundboards from the same tour, I checked to see if they had any different songs. The set list was pretty much the same from night to night, but he did throw in some variations. So I added two songs from the Zurich show to the very start of the album ("Talkin' Blues" and "We and Them"), and then one from the Deeside one as the third song ("Coming In from the Cold"). (The Milan show didn't have any songs not played in Paris.) If you add in those three extra songs, this album totals an hour and 44 minutes.

01 Talkin' Blues (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
02 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
03 We and Them (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
04 Coming In from the Cold (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
05 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
06 Positive Vibration (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
07 Revolution (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
08 I Shot the Sheriff (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
09 War - No More Trouble (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
10 Zimbabwe (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
11 Zion Train (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
12 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
13 No Woman, No Cry (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
14 Lively Up Yourself (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
15 Jammin' [Edit] (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
16 Exodus (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
17 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
18 Redemption Song (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
19 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
20 Natty Dread (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
21 Work (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
22 Is This Love (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
23 Could You Be Loved (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
24 Roots, Rock, Reggae (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
25 Kinky Reggae (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
26 Get Up, Stand Up [Edit] (Bob Marley & the Wailers) 

https://www.imagenetz.de/jQGN9

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zKtnFYDV

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/TIFAKtYQOhEC3iL/file

I'm happy to say that the cover art photo is from the exact concert in question.