For Bob Marley collectors, the Holy Grail has long been an obscure seven-inch, blank- label single released in 1968 in a tiny edition of 26 copies, called "Selassie Is The Chapel." Adapted from the Orioles' doo-wop hit, "Crying in the Chapel," the Marley single contained new lyrics especially written for him by his one-time Rasta mentor Mortimo Planno. Recently a copy was offered for auction, receiving a high bid of $3,800! Now, at long last, that nearly priceless rarity is available to the public, along with other long-lost treasures from the Wailers' late '60s Jamaican catalog like "The Lord Will Make A Way," "Tread Oh," "Feel Alright," "Rhythm," "Give Me A Ticket" ("The Letter"), "Trouble On The Road Again," "Hold On To This Feeling," "Black Progress," and "Sugar Sugar."

 They're all part of a projected 10-CD series known as The Complete Wailers 1967 - 1972, from a revived JAD Records, the label which signed Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Rita Marley to a long-term contract during that period as both singers and song-writers. JAD was co-owned by Johnny Nash, producer Arthur Jenkins, and businessman Danny Sims, whose initials formed its logo. "In those days," Sims explains from his current headquarters in Santa Monica, California. "Bob wanted to be a soul singer like Otis Redding. He told us to do whatever it would take to make him number one on the American R&B charts." For the past couple of decades I have been railing on the air and in print about all the unreleased Marley gems lying dormant in various record companies' vaults.

In the l7 years since the reggae master's passing, only a trickle of "new" material has been revealed. A major part of the reason for this musical drought was the never-ending litigations among various factions vying for control of Marley's estate. By 1996, most of the lawsuits had been settled, each of Bob's eleven acknowledged children had become a millionaire, and the way seemed clear finally for all the suppressed material to surface. Instead, nothing but bootlegs continued to appear, with substandard sound and inaccurate titles, and - most egregrious - not paying royalties to anyone. The antidote to this dismal shituation had its beginnings in January of 1995, when I had a visit at my Reggae Archives in L.A. from noted French journalist/cartoonist/musician Bruno Blum.

A handsome long haired vegetarian tee-totaler, who had written for several major French music magazines from his London base during punk's emergence in the late '70s, Blum was seeking help for several projects involving the history of Jah music. These included a mini-encyclopedia for Best magazine, a feature film containing unreleased Marley footage called "The History of Reggae" and a proposed compilation of all the Jamaican singles that the Wailers released betwen the end of their time with Coxson Dodd's Studio One in 1966 and the beginning of their international period on Island in 1973. Regarding the latter, I told him quite frankly that I thought he was crazy, that assembling these 200+ releases was a practical and legal impossibility and basically a waste of time.

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