[Reggae], as played by Bob Marley and the Wailers, is both a well-spring of homespun adages and a canny cultural tool with great facility for adaptation and innovation…. [The] band's evolution is so dramatic that one realizes the music has never lingered in any stylistic camp for more than two years. In fact, the Wailers are the only group to have thrived during these many phases…. Still, it's surprising to find Marley, on the live Babylon by Bus, turning a new musical corner with an altogether buoyant sound that's religious in its life-affirming Rastafarian underpinnings and universal in its romantic longing….

Despite the sternness of the material, Rastaman Vibration was Bob Marley's first attempt at joining the immediacy of reggae's volatile social and religious commentary with the visceral release of a unique brand of rockin' soul. On succeeding Wailers albums (Exodus, Kaya), he eschewed the grim dictums of...