The Wailing Souls
are a Jamaican reggae vocal group still recording and performing live, whose origins date back to the 1960s.
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THE WAILING SOULS TICKETS
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Career
They have recorded with many top Jamaican
record producers including
Coxsone Dodd of
Studio One, Lloyd "
King Jammy" James,
Henry "Junjo" Lawes, Delroy Wright and
Freddie McGregor, as well as some early recordings at
Bob Marley's
Tuff Gong. The group is perhaps best known for two classic
roots reggae songs, "War" and "Bredda Gravalicious" as well as the more pop influenced "All Over The World". Their
album Firehouse Rock
and its title track was one of their early 1980s successes.
The
band has recorded
cover versions of a wide variety of
songs, such as
Kate and Anna McGarrigle's "
Heartbeats Accelerating",
The Who's "
My Generation" ,
The Beatles' "
Tomorrow Never Knows" and
Bob Dylan's "
Like a Rolling Stone". They also contributed a song for the
soundtrack of the animated
motion picture,
Titan A.E.
. Influenced by "War Deh Round a John Shop," Sublime altered the Wailing Souls song and renamed it Pawn Shop.
The group has seen many lineup changes but the two singers ever present are Winston "Pipe" Matthews and Lloyd "Bread" MacDonald. They have worked with
Sly and Robbie, the
Roots Radicals,
Lloyd Parks and many other renowned reggae musicians. In 2006 they released
Classic Jamaican Flava
, a two disc set featuring an
compact disc and
DVD of a live performance in
San Francisco,
California. Their vocal style, like many Jamaican harmony singers of their era, is heavily influenced by the
Motown Sound, perhaps because of the radio exposure of
Motown music in Jamaica during the 1950s and 1960s.
Discography
Year
| Album
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1974
| Wailing Souls
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1979
| Wild Suspense
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1981
| Fire House Rock
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1981
| Wailing
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1983
| Inchpinchers
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1983
| On The Rocks
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1983
| Soul and Power
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1984
| Stranded
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1986
| Lay It On The Line
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1987
| Kingston 14
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1989
| Stormy Night
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1991
| Reggae Ina Firehouse
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1992
| All Over The World
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1995
| Wild Suspense (Reissue of Wild Suspense - 1979)
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1995
| Live On
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1995
| Face The Devil (Reissue of Wailing - 1981)
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1996
| Tension
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1998
| Psychedelic Souls
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2000
| Equality
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2003
| Square Deal
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2004
| Souvenir From Jamaica
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2006
| Classic Jamaican Flava
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