World of Jamaican Music

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An illustrated map of the creators of Jamaican music and how they are connected.

Remembering Derrick Harriott (1939-2026), rocksteady singer and producer. Read his story →

The Wailers

Band. Ska, rocksteady, reggae

Active
1963-1981
Also recorded as
Bob Marley & the Wailers

The Wailers began as a Trench Town vocal group and ended as the band that carried Jamaican music to the rest of the world. The name covers two different things: the harmony trio of Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, and the band Marley led after they left.

The group first came together in 1961, coached by Joe Higgs, who held singing classes in Trench Town that also produced the Wailing Souls. Marley, Neville "Bunny" Livingston and Peter McIntosh were joined by Junior Braithwaite and the singers Beverley Kelso and Cherry Smith (also known as Cherry Green), and the name went through the Teenagers, the Wailing Rudeboys and the Wailing Wailers before settling.

"Simmer Down," cut at Studio One at the end of 1963, went to number one in Jamaica. Several years of ska and rocksteady sides for Coxsone Dodd followed, "One Love," "Put It On" and "I'm Still Waiting" among them. The pay was flat fees, and after the break with Dodd, their own Wail 'N' Soul 'M label and a set for Leslie Kong, the group went to Lee Perry.

The Perry sessions are the hinge. With the Barrett brothers behind them, Aston on bass and Carlton on drums, they made "Duppy Conqueror," "Small Axe," "Soul Rebel" and "Kaya," slower and heavier than anything they had done, and the Barretts then joined permanently. Aston Barrett arranged as well as played: by Roger Steffens's account, Marley would bring the rough idea of a song to the band and leave them, under Barrett's direction, to flesh it out.

Chris Blackwell signed the group to Island in 1972 and advanced the money to record Catch a Fire, which was packaged as a rock album, in a sleeve shaped like a Zippo lighter, and overdubbed in London with the guitarist Wayne Perkins and the keyboard player John "Rabbit" Bundrick before Blackwell remixed it. Burnin' followed, with "I Shot the Sheriff" and "Get Up, Stand Up."

Livingston quit in the spring of 1973, before the American tour, and Tosh left by the end of the year, both objecting to the touring, the terms and the increasing focus on Marley. From 1974 the billing was Bob Marley and the Wailers: the Barretts, the I-Threes (Rita Marley, Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt), the guitarists Al Anderson and later Junior Marvin, and the keyboard players Earl "Wya" Lindo and Tyrone Downie. That band made Natty Dread, Rastaman Vibration, Exodus, Kaya, Survival and Uprising.

Marley departed in 1981. Tosh's life was taken in 1987, as was Carlton Barrett's; Bunny Wailer departed on March 2, 2021, and Aston Barrett on February 3, 2024, in Miami, aged seventy-seven, having held the Order of Distinction and fathered forty-one children. Aston Barrett's suit against Island over unpaid royalties failed. Bands using the name have toured continuously since, and who may use it has been litigated more than once.

Last updated October 21, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. The Rough Guide describes Higgs "tutoring young vocal harmony groups like the original Wailers and the Wailing Souls in the kitchen of his home in Trench Town." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 22. See also Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 213.
  2. The Rough Guide says the Wailers "first got together" at Higgs's yard in 1961, "initially calling themselves the Teenagers," with Braithwaite and "two backing singers, Beverley Kelso and Cherry Green." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 38. Wikipedia lists the Teenagers, the Wailing Rudeboys and the Wailing Wailers among the group's names and dates its start to 1963. "Bob Marley and the Wailers," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Marley_and_the_Wailers.
  3. The Rough Guide says Dodd signed the group "just before Christmas" and that "Simmer Down" "stayed at the top of the Jamaican charts for two months following its release at the end of December 1963." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 38. Bradley also dates it to 1963. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 94.
  4. The Rough Guide names "One Love" and "Put It On" among the Studio One highlights, and Bradley lists "Simmer Down," "Hooligan" and "Rude Boy." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 38; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 95.
  5. The Rough Guide dates the Wail 'N' Soul 'M label to 1967, notes the material Kong recorded with the Wailers in 1969, and says that "after the failure of their own Wail 'N' Soul 'M enterprise, the Wailers joined those working with Scratch." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 79, 107, 130. The books disagree on when the Perry sessions began: Bradley says 1969, the Rough Guide "between August 1970 and April 1971." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 402; Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 138.
  6. The Rough Guide lists "Duppy Conqueror," "Kaya" and "Small Axe" among the Perry records and says "the rhythms from the Upsetters were in an appropriate slower, 'dread' mood." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 130-31. It puts the Barretts in "the basic Wailers line-up" that made Catch a Fire. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 137.
  7. The judgment summarizes the evidence of Roger Steffens, a witness for Barrett: Marley's "manner of composing" was "to bring the rough idea of a song to the band members, playing it generally as an acoustic number, and then leaving the band, under Aston Barrett's direction, to flesh out the song," though the judge noted that Steffens did not endorse the Barretts' claims to authorship. It records that Marley told Vivien Goldman he relied on Barrett's judgment "on the rhythm and the sound of the music," and Chris Blackwell accepted that Barrett might have been the musical arranger: Barrett v. Universal-Island Records Ltd. and Others, [2006] EWHC 1009 (Ch), May 15, 2006, https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/ch/2006/1009, paras. 259, 268-70. Barrett's counsel argued that "Aston Barrett and his brother literally created the sound of The Wailers." "Bob Marley Bassist Loses Royalties Claim," NME, May 15, 2006, https://www.nme.com/news/music/bob-marley-32-1357876.
  8. The Rough Guide says Catch a Fire was recorded at Harry J, Dynamic and Randy's, with overdubs by "'Rabbit' Bundrick (organ), Wayne Perkins (guitar) and Chris Karen (tabla)" added in London, packaged "in the shape of a Zippo lighter," and released in Britain in December 1972. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 137. Bradley says the music was "extensively tinkered around with in London." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 413-14. Wikipedia says Blackwell advanced £4,000. "Bob Marley and the Wailers."
  9. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 138.
  10. The Rough Guide says Livingston quit "at the end of spring 1973 in London," that Joe Higgs took his place on the American tour with Sly & the Family Stone, that the trio "had done their last work together by the end of 1973," and that "Peter and Bunny left, both feeling that too much attention was given to Bob." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 137-38. Bradley notes that both had gone before Natty Dread. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 416.
  11. On the I-Threes and Junior Marvin, Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 138. The Rough Guide says Lindo left at the end of 1973 to join Taj Mahal; Wikipedia says he rejoined in 1978. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 138; "Earl Lindo," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Lindo.
  12. On Tosh's killing, "Man Guilty in Slaying of Reggae Star Peter Tosh," UPI, June 17, 1988, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/06/17/Man-guilty-in-slaying-of-reggae-star-Peter-Tosh/6320582523200/. On Carlton Barrett's, Sybil E. Hibbert, "'Cheating' Wife Freed of Murder of Musician Carlton Barrett," Jamaica Observer, March 8, 2013, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2013/03/08/cheating-wife-freed-of-murder-of-musician-carlton-barrett/.
  13. On Bunny Wailer's death on March 2, 2021, "Bunny Wailer," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunny_Wailer. On Aston Barrett's death at seventy-seven at the University of Miami Hospital and his Order of Distinction, "'Iconic Musician' Aston 'Family Man' Barrett Dies at 77," Jamaica Gleaner, February 3, 2024, http://past.jamaica-gleaner.com/article/entertainment/20240203/iconic-musician-aston-family-man-barrett-dies-77. On the forty-one children, "Family Man (Musician)," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Man_(musician).
  14. The judge held that "all the claims that Mr Aston Barrett brings in his personal capacity have been compromised by the settlement agreement" of 1994 and dismissed the claim: Barrett v. Universal-Island Records, paras. 161, 401.
  15. Wikipedia lists the Wailers Band and the Original Wailers among the groups that grew out of the band. "Bob Marley and the Wailers." A Seattle band called the Wailers sued the Jamaican group over the name and lost, the judge finding that it had waited too long. "You Can't Sue for Trademark Infringement Forty-Five Years Later; Wailers Get to Keep Their Name," Techdirt, accessed October 21, 2026, https://archive.techdirt.com/articles/20080127/10391980.shtml. In 2018 former members led by Aston Barrett petitioned a Virginia Beach court against the group then touring under the name. Associated Press, "Ex-Wailers Members Go to Court over Use of Band's Name," Gulf News, September 15, 2018, https://gulfnews.com/entertainment/music/ex-wailers-members-go-to-court-over-use-of-bands-name-1.1885528.

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