I & I: The Natural Mystics: Marley, Tosh and Wailer - Hardcover

Grant, Colin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0224086081 ISBN 13: 9780224086080

Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 2011

Synopsis

Over one dramatic decade, a trio of Trenchtown R&B crooners, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer and Bob Marley, swapped their 1960s Brylcreem hairdos and two-tone suits for 1970s battle fatigues and dreadlocks to become the Wailers - one of the most influential groups in popular music

From youth to early adulthood, they had been inseparable; united in their ambition, through musical harmony and financial reward, to escape Jamaica's Trench Town ghetto. On the cusp of success however, they'd been pulled apart by the elevation of Marley as first among equals and by the razor sharp instincts of Chris Blackwell, the shrewd and charming boss of Island Records.

I & I: The Natural Mystics examines for the first time the story of the Wailers, arguing that these musicians offered a model for black men in the second half of the twentiethcentury: accommodate and succeed (Marley), fight and die (Tosh) or ret reat and live (Wailer). It charts their complex relationship, their fluctuating fortunes, musical peak, and the politics andideologies that provoked their split.

Following their trail from Jamaica through Europe, America, Africa and back to the vibrant and volatile world of Trench Town, Colin Grant travels in search of the last surviving Wailer. He unravels the roots of their charisma, their adoption of the cult of Rastafari, their suspicion of race pimps and Obeah men (witch doctors), and illuminates why the Wailers were not just extraordinary musicians, but also natural mystics.

I & I is a remarkable story of creativity, squandered talent and fierce ambitious rivalry - a mix of reportage and revelatory history by one of our best and brightest non-fiction writers.

About this title

Review:

"Successful in adding to the Bob Marley canon" (Bernadette McNulty Telegraph)

Book Description:

The history of the original Wailers - Tosh, Livingstone and Marley - as never before told

About this edition

• Publisher: Jonathan Cape
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0224086081
• ISBN 13: 9780224086080
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320