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Peter Tosh birthday - TIMH

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October 19, 2015 at 9:09am
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Winston Hubert "Peter" McIntosh was born in Jamaica today in 1944. He moved to the infamous Trench Town neighborhood of Kingston when he was 15 years old and met Neville "Bunny" Livingston and Robert Nesta Marley. The three of them formed a band called The Wailing Wailers along with some other local singers. Initially, Peter was the only member of the band who could play an instrument but the others would soon learn.

The band originally played ska music, a precursor to reggae but not the kind of ska music you hear today played by chubby white guys in fedoras. Ska, along with a brand of music called Dance Hall and the slower paced style of Rocksteady, was the skeleton upon which reggae was built. All of those styles were influenced by American R&B music from the 1950s and 60s but were reinterpreted through the ears, mouths and hands of the island.

Eventually, Peter and the band settled on the slower Rocksteady beat and began incorporating ideas from their Rastafarian faith into the lyrics. They renamed themselves The Wailers, got signed to Island Records under producer Chris Blackwell and released their first two albums in 1973, "Catch a Fire" and "Burnin'".

Bob Marley soon became the central figure in the band which was eventually renamed Bob Marley & The Wailers. Bunny and Tosh would leave the band and launch solo careers. In 1976 Tosh released the solo album "Legalize It" and followed the next year with "Equal Rights" in 1977. By this time he attracted the attention of Mick Jagger who signed him to the Rolling Stones record label. On the Stones’ label he released the 1978 album "Bush Doctor" to a much wider audience.

While the audience size grew, Tosh struggled to have the kind of success that Marley did. Tosh's music and lyrics had a much sharper bite to them and he maintained a level of militancy that didn't resonate as well with people off the island. He would continue to release albums through his death in 1987 but has always seemed overshadowed by Marley’s cult of personality. The tragedy of his death was magnified because he was murdered just at the time that he was experiencing a renewed energy around his musical work.

Here is Tosh with the title track off his 1978 album “Bush Doctor”: 

“Downpressor Man” off the 1977 album “Equal Rights”: 

 

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