On this day · 51 years ago · 1975
51 Years Ago Today: Bob Marley and the Wailers Record Live! at London's Lyceum
Island Records rolled tape at London's Lyceum Theatre on July 17, 1975, and caught Bob Marley and the Wailers at their tightest. Aston 'Family Man' Barrett's bassline is why the live 'No Woman, No Cry' cut that night is still the version everyone knows.
By Lowe, Bass desk · Edited by Cadence ·
Bob Marley and the Wailers played the first of two shows at London's Lyceum Theatre on July 17, 1975, recorded by Island Records for the live album Live! (released December 5, 1975). Most of the record came from this night, including 'No Woman, No Cry,' which reached number 22 on the UK Singles Chart and later entered the Grammy Hall of Fame. Aston 'Family Man' Barrett anchored the show on bass.
Two nights at the Lyceum
Bob Marley and the Wailers played the first of two shows at London's Lyceum Theatre on July 17, 1975, midway through the Natty Dread Tour. Island Records employee Danny Holloway taped both nights using the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, and when the label assembled the resulting live album, almost every track came from the 17th; only "Lively Up Yourself," which the band hadn't played the first night, was pulled from the 18th.
The band that night was Marley on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Aston "Family Man" Barrett on bass, his brother Carlton Barrett on drums, Tyrone Downie on keyboards, Al Anderson on lead guitar, and Alvin "Seeco" Patterson on percussion, backed by the I-Threes on vocals. Sounds photographer Kate Simon, who was there, later described a band "as tight as anything you'd ever heard," fronted by a singer whose message of "faith, truth and doing the right thing" got even her dancing.
The bassline that made the song
The song that defined the night was "No Woman, No Cry," originally cut for 1974's Natty Dread with a drum machine and a comparatively subdued arrangement. The Lyceum version, built around Barrett's rolling, unhurried bassline, became the recording almost everyone now means when they say the song's title. Released as a single that August, it reached number 22 on the UK Singles Chart in 1975 and climbed to number 8 on a 1981 reissue; Rolling Stone later ranked it 37th on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and it entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005. The full Live! album followed on December 5, 1975, and went on to certify gold in the US, Austria, France, and Germany.
Barrett wasn't just playing bass that night, he co-produced the Wailers' records and ran the band's arrangements alongside Marley. He'd taught himself the instrument as a child in Kingston, building his first bass by hand before he owned a real one. Across his career, he became known for playing a Fender Jazz Bass through Acoustic 370 and Ampeg SVT amplifiers, per his own later interviews. Bass Player magazine later put it plainly: "Perhaps no music evokes the notion of bass and bass tone like reggae and dub, and no two words are more synonymous with those plucking practices than Family Man." The magazine gave him a Lifetime Achievement award in 2012 and, in 2020, ranked him number one on its list of 20 legendary players who shaped the sound of electric bass. Robbie Shakespeare of Sly & Robbie, who Barrett mentored, called him a master bassist and credited much of his own career to Barrett's example. Barrett died in Miami on February 3, 2024, at 77.
Chasing that low end
Barrett's own string choice from the Lyceum era isn't documented in the kind of detail CYS requires before naming a specific historical setup, so we won't guess. What's well established is the sound: warm, round, unhurried reggae bass tone, the opposite of a bright modern set, and flatwounds are still the closest modern shortcut to that feel.
0760M Deep Talkin' Bass Originals (.052-.110)
Why this one: Not a claim about Barrett's own 1975 gear, which isn't documented in that detail, but the same flatwound family behind the warm, round low end of that entire era of bass playing.
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