Keep On Moving (The Impressions)
Bob Marley was tremendously influenced tremendously by Curtis Mayfield’s Chicago vocal group the Impressions, so much so that the Wailers covered their songs routinely in their early years. And, although it might not have been apparent yet in these early recordings, Mayfield’s political messages—he was one of the first R&B artists to incorporate themes of civil rights and Black pride into his music—would clearly influence Marley as he, too, evolved from love songs to social commentary. Bob would record three different versions of the Impressions’ “Keep on Moving,” two times with the Wailers in the early ’70s and again while exiled in London in 1977, and he even performed it at his most famed live show, at the 1976 Smile Jamaica concert days after his attempted assassination.