The Wailers to come to Mumbai this weekend

MUMBAI: Get up, stand up for the legendary Wailers who, come Saturday, will be jammin’ in this city. If despite these tawdry lyrical references you’re still left wondering about this band, they’re no other than the backing band for Jamaican roots-reggae icon Bob Marley, whose heartfelt music and positivity has become synonymous with the genre. And 34 years after his demise, the Wailer’s continue Marley’s enviable legacy with a largely different line-up while striving for the same sound. “It is our greatest mission and our responsibility. I made a promise to Bob before he passed that I would continue to spread the music and that is what we are doing,” said hallmark bass player, Aston ‘Family Man’ Barrett, who joined Bob Marley & The Wailers, as they were once known, in the early 1970s.
As the only remaining member of The Wailers since Marley’s time, Barrett has watched the genesis of reggae music over decades, and is no less intrinsic to it as Marley himself.
Many of reggae’s most memorable hooks, or bass lines, were created by Barrett whose first bass was strung together using a curtain rod and plywood. After playing with a couple of bands including The Hippy Boys and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s The Upsetters, he joined Bob Marley & The Wailers as bass player with his younger brother Carlton ‘Carly’ Barrett on the drums. “My brother and I were the rhythm section, the heartbeat of reggae music in the studio and live setting,” said Family Man, so nicknamed having sired 42 children.
“We were the architects of reggae in the 1960’s when we went from rocksteady and slowed down the the tempo to form reggae. My brother Carly played the first ‘one drop’ rhythm on drums known as reggae. The global appeal is based on that rhythm and the messages,” added Barrett, whose brother was then brutally murdered in 1987.
Despite numerous changes in the line-up of the band, starting with exit of the founding members, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, Barrett has remained a fixture, determined to “bring roots rock reggae vibe to people”.
In what is their first trip to India, The Wailers (with a contemporary line-up including Barrett’s son Aston Barrett Jr. on either the drums, bass and organ) will be performing a number of Marley’s hits such as No Woman, No Cry, 3 Little Birds, Redemption Songs, One Love, Buffalo Soldier as well as instrumental dub-style reggae songs like Cobra Style from the album, Family Man In Dub. How does he account for the almost universal appeal of reggae? “People feel it in the one drop, that rhythm that replicates heart beat. They also feel the messages which come from Rastafari that is equal rights and justice and one love of all people.”
As a well-known Rastafarian himself, Barrett often ends the show with the popular tune, Exodus, which he holds close to his heart. “It’s a favourite because of its message that tells the story of our movement of Jah [the Biblical name of God] people. ‘We gonna walk through the roads of creation, we the generation, trod through great tribulation’.”