Toppa Top 10: The Ten Best Bob Marley Covers

Words by Raine Martin and Jesse Serwer—

As we celebrate Bob Marley’s 68th birthday today, here’s a look at some of the best cover versions of Bob’s songs. Many have tried, and few have succeeded but here’s a few that stand above the fray.

10. Stiff Little Fingers, “Johnny Was”

Northern Ireland’s Stiff Little Fingers featured an eight-minute version of Marley’s “Johnny Was A Good Man” on their 1979 debut album Inflammable Material, a landmark LP in the punk world. Far from a faithful rendition, their version flips the song’s setting from Kingston to the band’s Civil War-torn hometown of Belfast.

9. Stephen Marley, “Pale Moonlight (How Many Times)”

Of Bob Marley’s many musical youths, Stephen might be the closest reflection of his father in terms of his voice and musical abilities. So leave it to him to put the most interesting spins on his father’s music of any of his siblings, like re-imagining The Wailers’ early Studio One ska side “How Many Times” as the twang-y “Pale Moonlight” on his 2011 album, Revelation: The Root of Life.

8. Jerry Garcia Band/Grateful Dead, “Stir It Up”

Most people only connect Bob Marley and Jerry Garcia when it comes to their legendary marijuana use, and iconic status among hippies. But while he hasn’t ever really been credited for it, Jerry Garcia (in both his Jerry Garcia Band and The Grateful Dead) helped popularize reggae in the US as the bands covered not only Bob but Jimmy Cliff and Peter Tosh as far back as the early 70’s, even before UK’s Eric Clapton dropped “I Shot The Sheriff.” Grateful Dead live recordings being an entire industry unto themselves, these excursions are well documented, like this version of “Stir It Up” (by the full Dead) from Hampton, Virginia, in March of ’88:

And just for fun, here’s another version of “Stir It Up,” this time by Dread Zeppelin, the band known for performing the songs of Led Zeppelin in a reggae style as sung by a 300-pound Vegas Elvis impersonator. Seriously.

7. Annie Lennox, “Waiting In Vain”

Only Annie Lennox could take Bob Marley’s classic reggae tune about unrequited love and put a post-modern feminist spin on it— and that’s part of the genius of her version of “Waiting in Vain.”  In 1995, the former Eurythmic put some blue-eyed soul in Bob’s “Waiting in Vain” for Medusa, an album of covers all originally recorded by male singers. “Waiting in Vain” was also featured in the films Serendipity and Changing Lanes. The video below features the amazingly soulful rendition, as well as some underlying commentary about love, tradition, and women…

6. Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer, “Redemption Song”

When the Man in Black puts his legendary bass-barritone to the tune of Marley’s masterpiece of emancipation and redemption, the recording can be nothing less than epic–if for nothing else, just seeing the names Johnny Cash and Bob Marley together on a song. Cash and the Clash’s Joe Strummer teamed up with another iconic musical figure, Rick Rubin, to record “Redemption Song” in the early 2000s. The absolute best part of this version is Cash’s stiff patois attempt on “wi fahwud in this generation.” The single was released on Cash’s posthumously released Unearthed box-set collectible in 2003.

5. Eric Clapton, “I Shot the Sheriff”

Guitar hero Eric Clapton’s 1974 version of “I Shot the Sheriff” is certainly the most ubiquitous Bob Marley cover; it was also the first Marley-written tune to chart in the U.S, and the only one to top the Hot 100 singles chart. EPMD sampled it years later for their 1988 rap classic “Strictly Business”; things came full circle when Dogg Pound rapper/producer Warren G dropped a 1997 G-Funk version of “I Shot the Sheriff,” which EPMD’s Erick Sermon then remixed using samples of Clapton’s version. Check out Clapton’s performance of “I Shot the Sheriff” backed by a Sly & Robbie-led all-star team of Jamaican session men, from 1987’s Island Records 25th anniversary:

4. Dennis Brown, “Rainbow Country”

Bob Marley is said to have called Dennis Brown his favorite singer. Shortly before his untimely death at age 42 in 1999, Brown paid respect to Marley in his own way with this pitch-perfect 1995 version of “Rainbow Country” (a track also covered by Max Romeo and Ziggy Marley) for England’s Saxon Records.

3. Lauryn Hill, “Turn Your Lights Down Low”

If there is one good thing to be said about the advancements in music technology, it’s that it gave Bob Marley the opportunity to make a track with Lauryn Hill. Marley’s “Turn Your Lights Down Low” featuring Lauryn Hill was perhaps the best track from the Chant Down Babylon hip-hop covers experiment in the late 90s. Marley and Hill, who incidentally is the mother of Marley’s grandchildren, came together digitally as seamlessly as if this was an original recording.

Also worth checking out is Lauryn’s emotional live version of Marley’s soul-stirring version of “Chances Are,” from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon two years ago.

2. Luciano and Beenie Man, “Crazy Baldheads”

Genius rhythmic duo Sly & Robbie paired up emerging roots singer Luciano with Dancehall’s golden boy Beenie Man back in ’95 on a killer cut of Bob Marley’s “Crazy Baldhead” (re-dubbed as “Crazy Baldheads”) for their Hail Up the Taxi album. This tune is pure conscious fire, and was part of a wave Rasta-inspired music that would counteract the lewd gun-toting lyrical culture of dancehall in the mid-90s.

[Editor’s Note: For better audio, click here].

1. The Fugees, “No Woman, No Cry” (Stephen Marley Remix)

+1 (aka Honorable Mention): The Roots, “Burnin’ and Lootin'”

The 1999 tribute LP Chant Down Babylon wasn’t a covers album so much as a compilation of MCs (Rakim, Busta Rhymes, Krayzie Bone) and Neo-soul folks (Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill) rapping and singing along with Bob’s original masters. Among the participants was none other than the Roots, who contributed a version of “Burnin’ and Lootin.'” If nothing else, this track is notable for being the only Roots track that starts out with “Jah! Rastafari!”

…Meanwhile, Americana string band Old Crow Medicine Show’s folky version of “Soul Rebel” from the syndicated radio show, Prairie Home Companion, is pretty great. It would have landed pretty high on our list if we’d ever heard of it before today. Some great vocals on this one…