In our first meeting as a band, we discussed how many songs we would like to play at the gig and what those songs would be. We settled on 5 songs as we believed that this would be a manageable amount, yet they would still create a great atmosphere at the concert and cover much of Bob Marley’s career. We had some disagreements at first on our set list as I really wanted to do “No woman no cry” however in the end the majority of people in the band decided not to include this. “Could you be loved” was also up there for contention, but again this didn’t quite make the cut.
The songs we chose were as follows:
Buffalo Soldier –
“Buffalo Soldier” is a reggae song written by Bob Marley and Noel “King Sporty” Williams, and recorded by Bob Marley and the Wailers. The title and lyrics refer to the black U.S. cavalry regiments, known as “Buffalo Soldiers” that fought in the Indian Wars after 1866. Marley likened their fight to a fight for survival, and recasts it as a symbol of black resistance.
Three little Birds –
“Three Little Birds” is a song by Bob Marley and The Wailers. It is the fourth track on side two of their 1977 album Exodus and was released as a single in 1980. The song reached the Top 20 in the UK, peaking at number 17. It is one of Bob Marley’s most popular songs. The song has been covered by numerous other artists. The song is often thought to be named “Don’t Worry About a Thing” or “Every Little Thing is Gonna Be Alright”, because of the memorable use of those phrases in the chorus.
The source of Marley’s inspiration for the lyrics of “Three Little Birds” remains disputed. They are partly inspired by birds that Marley was fond of, that used to fly and sit next to his home. Tony Gilbert, a long time friend of Marley, was present at the time he was writing the song and elaborated, “Bob got inspired by a lot of things around him, he observed life. I remember the three little birds. They were pretty birds, canaries, who would come by the windowsill at Hope Road.”However, three female singers from the reggae group I Threes who did shows with Marley claim it is a reference to them. I Threes member Marcia Griffiths remarked, “After the song was written, Bob would always refer to us as the Three Little Birds. After a show, there would be an encore, sometimes people even wanted us to go back onstage four times. Bob would still want to go back and he would say, ‘What is my Three Little Birds saying?’
Turn your lights down low –
Is this love –
“Is This Love” is a song by Bob Marley and The Wailers, released on their 1978 album Kaya. The song became one of the best-known Marley songs and was part of the Legend compilation. It peaked at number 9 in the UK charts upon its release in 1978.
Jammin –
“Jamming” is a song by the reggae band Bob Marley and The Wailers from their 1977 album Exodus. The song also appears on the compilation album Legend. The song was re-released 10 years later as a tribute to Bob Marley and was again a hit, as in the Netherlands, where it was classified in the charts for 4 weeks.In Jamaican patois the word jamming refers to a getting together or celebration.
Originally our set list took this shape, however a few days before the gig we decided to move three little birds to the end as it’s Bob Marley’s most famous song, therefore we felt it was a fitting tribute to end our set on it.
Rehearsal structure
As we had about 8 weeks to prepare for the concert we kept our rehearsing schedule casual at first before building it up in the last two weeks before the gig. Therefore at the beginning we decided to work on one song per week allowing us time to then polish the songs toward the end.
Personally I spent quite a lot of time working my parts out on my own as in Bob Marley’s original set up there was no saxophone player therefore I had to work out where I could fit in and transpose the parts. After establishing the parts I would then play them in the full ensemble and adjust them to fit the set up as best as I could.
Below are a rough sketch of the parts that I played on Alto Saxophone.
When I played on the congas for turn your lights down low and jammin, I was generally improvising for the most part therefore I didn’t feel the need to write a fixed part down.
Above “Buffalo soldier” + “Three little birds”
Below “Is this love”
Unfortunately due to the large size of the band we struggled to organise ourselves when rehearsing the songs as there were so many different parts to work with, therefore as most of us had never played in a band that size, the overall discipline and organisation of the group could have been much better. As it was a group project I think that we did well in trying to establish a democratic side to the planning however this caused quite a bit of confusion when the decisions were being made as we lacked a decisive manor to our proceedings which delayed the process somewhat. In the future when working in bands like this I think it would be useful to have a few more band meetings or reviews throughout the process just to iron out any concerns a band member might have.
However saying this, we did manage to get 5 songs up to a relatively good standard for the gig and considering the size managed to include every band member in some way which felt like a great achievement.
Above is an excerpt from an early rehearsal in which we were in the beginning stages of running through Turn Your Lights Down Low. I am on the right hand side in the red jumper playing some percussion, as you can hear in the video some of the timing is off and we were just beginning to figure out the structure of the song therefore it isn’t perfect.