Rastafarianism is a creed that hides its humane spirituality under warlike metaphors. Since his death in 1981, Bob Marley has been both Rasta saint and commander in chief. His eminence came from his universality, and his best work, from "No Woman No Cry" to "Redemption Song," fused anger with tenderness and incantational melodies. This posthumous album inevitably falls far short of his best. It was compiled by his wife, Rita, and Island Records chief Chris Blackwell from three reworked Jamaican singles ("Blackman Redemption," "I Know" and "Trench Town") and from studio tracks dating back to the 1979-1980 sessions between the Survival and Uprising LPs. Called Confrontation, in line with Marley's wish to have a trilogy of linked conceptual names, the album is diffuse in its impact. Marley's scratchy-soothing vocal style and inimitable phrasing dominate the songs, properly and sometimes powerfully, but the charged atmosphere that came about when he led the Wailers and the magically responsive backup singers, the I-Threes, simply can't be duplicated by overdubs. Confrontation is an album of numerous small pleasures — the water-bug delicacy of "Jump Nyabinghi," the forceful insight of "Buffalo Soldier," the gospel-like adamancy of "Rastaman Live Up!"–and it is a valuable, welcome document. But the magical part of Marley's rich legacy is best sought out on previous releases.

“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."