Peter Tosh

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. ~ Steve Leggett, All Music Guide