Deep Glove Bruno posted:

My advice is to go early, extremely early. I am the same I wore out home dubbed cassettes of like Legend and Exodus (all the radio/mall songs) at like age 11 and never need to hear another "hit" from dude again. But Mr. Brown (posted upthread) still makes me want to empty my bowels due to the insane bass production and harmonies.

That said, if you're delving into early Wailers you should just be checking out other reggae acts from the same era. I said earlier, Toots and the Maytals were bigger in JA than Bob for many years, and there's a reason, Toots is the greatest. I'll fight anybody. Listen to Time Tough. Listen to Fever. Pressure Drop. 54-46 Was My Number. All better than any Bob Marley song and I don't even think Bob Marley is bad. The In The Dark album will make you drop a enchirito out of your crackass.

In fact, just listen to soundtrack to The Harder They Come, which pretty much introduced the US to reggae and is probably the greatest album ever made of any genre, any time. Toots, Jimmy Cliff, Desmond Dekker, The Ethiopians... And watch the movie which is dope, I think a hi-res rip is on youtube at the moment.

Sorry for not dropping links but it's more a rule of thumb re: big name reggae.

Here's a more obscure one - another '77 calypso banger. I can't get this out of my head. My mother sung it to me when I was a kid and I had to, in my thirties, track it down and play it for my kid.
Mighty Shadow - Jump Judges Jump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owuYW_3LMLs
He's talking poo poo on the judges of the Calypso Monarch because he was pissed off he had the biggest audience hits and wasn't winning the judges' comp. He finally won in like 2000.