Because of the giant shadow that
Bob Marley casts over Jamaican music, it's easy to forget that
the Wailers, with
Marley,
Peter Tosh, and
Bunny Livingston were very much a group in the beginning, and that
Tosh and
Livingston were far from just bystanders in the equation. In truth tall, proud, and defiant,
Tosh was never a bystander in much of anything in his life, and while he wasn't as prolific as
Marley as a songwriter, and nowhere near as, well, cuddly, if that's the right term, he still produced some stunning work, as this succinct 14-track (there's a 15th CD-R track here as well) collection makes clear. All the key songs from his post-
Wailers career are here, including "Legalize It," the vicious "Stepping Razor" ("I'm dangerous,"
Tosh sings, and he was, in a way that
Marley wasn't), the panoramic "400 Years," and "Downpressor Man," among others, and the end result is a tight, wall to wall portrait of a proud, angry man with a huge heart and a lot of soul.