Artist:   The Wailers
Song:   "Hallelujah Time"
Album: Burnin'
Label:   Island Records
Year:    1973

It starts out like something from the Redd Foxx Show, but “Hallelujah Time” quickly jumps into deep love by reggae’s all-time favorite aggregation. Singer Bunny Wailer has a soul man’s light inside his voice. And like so many of the Jamaican greats, he’s really a preacher, pointing to a life beyond the tribulations of his people. There is such a clearness warming his vocal that it’s like the music is flooded by sunshine, at the same time Wailer knows too well the hurt so many carry in their heart. For Bob Marley and his band, it really was always about hope, no matter how huge the odds they ran up against. The body might bend, but the men never bowed. When the group throws in on the chorus’ refrain, they are testifying with everything they’ve got. Reggae’s rise in the ‘70s came when so much of popular music had veered away from its spiritual roots, and the island sounds rushed to the rescue to steer it back to be a force of belief. Where Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions left off in the ‘60s is precisely the point the Wailers picked up on with their early albums Catch A Fire and Burnin’. The beat might have sounded upside down and the vocal accents from another land, but at the center of both messages was one celebrating a better world, one racing towards peace and salvation. Bunny Wailer and band mate Peter Tosh were soon to leave, while Marley’s rise to fame was right around the corner. In some ways, though, this was the Wailers’ true Hallelujah Time, a collection of people who created a joy that would last forever.