Bob Marley & The Wailers Vinyl LP Gallery — Rare Covers, Legendary Albums, Reggae History on Wax #bobmarley

Bob Marley and the Wailers Complete Vinyl LP Album Cover Gallery and Discography

This web-page collects information on all of Bob Marley's vinyl records. Bob Marley's early music was recorded with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, who together with Bob Marley were the most prominent members of Bob Marley & The Wailers. In 1972, Bob Marley had his first hit outside Jamaica when Johnny Nash covered his song "Stir It Up", which became a U.K. hit. The 1973 album, "Catch a Fire" , was released worldwide, and sold well. It was followed by Burnin' which included the song "I Shot the Sheriff", of which a cover version by Eric Clapton became a hit in 1974. Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer left The Wailers in 1974. Bob Marley proceeded with Bob Marley & The Wailers, which included the Wailers Band and the I Threes. In 1975, he had his first own hit outside Jamaica with "No Woman, No Cry," from the Natty Dread album. His subsequent albums, including Rastaman Vibration , Exodus , Kaya , Survival and Uprising , were big international sellers. Bob Marley has sold between 100 and 250 million records worldwide. Between 1991 and 2007 Bob Marley and The Wailers have sold in excess of 21 million records.

Full details of these Bob Marley albums can be found on the web-pages listed below.

Bob Marley & The Wailers weren’t “a message” first—they were a sound that grabbed you by the collar and refused to let go. Yes, the big themes are in there, but what hit hardest was the pulse: street-level hope, spiritual heat, and that rhythm section moving like it had someplace urgent to be.

Marley was born on 6 February 1945 in Nine Mile, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica, and by 1963 he’d formed the Wailers with Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh (with early members like Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, and Cherry Smith in the mix). Those first sides lived in ska and rocksteady territory—because that’s what the island was breathing then, before “reggae” even had its name nailed down.

I still picture the 70s as the decade the band stopped being local property and became everybody’s argument: the records got bigger, the tours got longer, and suddenly the whole world had an opinion about what Jamaica “meant.” Marley sang like he was pushing air out of a crowded room. The Wailers didn’t “accompany” him—they drove the thing forward, tight and hungry, night after night.

Marley died on 11 May 1981 in Miami, only 36, and the industry has been varnishing his image ever since. Fine. Let them sell the candles and posters. I’d rather hear the actual recordings—where the edges are still sharp enough to cut through a bad day.

References

Rita Marley (born Alfarita Constantia Anderson, 25 July 1946, Santiago de Cuba) never needed the “wife of” label, even if the world keeps trying to staple it to her forehead. I first learned her name the way most of us did: by chasing the credits on battered sleeves and realizing that the voices behind Bob were not decoration. They were pressure. They pushed.

By the mid-70s, when Bob Marley & The Wailers tightened into that touring machine, Rita was there with Judy Mowatt and Marcia Griffiths as the I Threes. Not a “lead singer” situation. A blend. Three voices locking together like hands on the same steering wheel. You hear it on the era when the band’s sound turns bigger and sharper (think "Natty Dread" and what follows), and it is not subtle if you are actually listening instead of politely “appreciating.”

Rita had already been working long before the I Threes name got stamped on it. The 60s in Jamaica were not a gentle, curated pathway into greatness; they were hustle, rehearsals, tiny rooms, and the kind of persistence that doesn’t photograph well. Later, she cut her own records too. "Who Feels It Knows It" (1981) has that stubborn, personal edge, and "Harambe" (1982) doesn’t sound like someone asking permission.

The part that gets turned into greeting-card text is what she did after 1981: the unglamorous work of keeping an empire from falling apart while everyone had an opinion. She founded the Bob Marley Foundation in 1986, then created the Rita Marley Foundation in 2000, and she’s been pulled toward the practical end of “legacy” ever since: education, health, community work, the stuff that costs money and patience. Jamaica awarded her the Order of Distinction in 1996. Deserved. And also, awards are the easy part.

Rita’s story reads better when you stop trying to make her a saint or a footnote. She’s neither. She’s a working musician with calluses in her history, and a businesswoman who learned the hard way that grief doesn’t pay invoices. If you want a perfectly polished legend, go buy a poster. Records are messier. People are worse. That’s the point.