Quotes: ‘Babylon By Bus’ was a live double album, recorded for the most part during a three night run of shows in June 1978. "Babylon By Bus was a live double-album, recorded for the most part during a three-night run of shows in June 1978 at the 10,000-capacity Pavillon de Paris in France, and released on November 10. It was the second album to be released by Bob Marley and the Wailers in 1978, a year during which the band also slotted in a “world” tour to promote the previous album, Kaya. This was some workload for a man who had been diagnosed with malignant cancer of the toe the year before. And it was some balancing act for a band whose music embodied the raw street-spirit of their shantytown origins yet who were now routinely required to deliver a full-scale, bread-and-circuses spectacle on some of the world’s biggest indoor stages.

Bob Marley & The Wailers – Babylon By Bus

‘Babylon By Bus’ was a live double album, recorded for the most part during a three night run of shows in June 1978.

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Babylon By Bus was a live double-album, recorded for the most part during a three-night run of shows in June 1978 at the 10,000-capacity Pavillon de Paris in France, and released on November 10. It was the second album to be released by Bob Marley and the Wailers in 1978, a year during which the band also slotted in a “world” tour to promote the previous album, Kaya. This was some workload for a man who had been diagnosed with malignant cancer of the toe the year before. And it was some balancing act for a band whose music embodied the raw street-spirit of their shantytown origins yet who were now routinely required to deliver a full-scale, bread-and-circuses spectacle on some of the world’s biggest indoor stages.

The start of the Kaya tour was subject to delay owing to health problems, not with Marley, but with the Wailers’ guitarist Junior Marvin, who had joined the group in February 1977 soon after Marley moved to London. Not to be confused with Junior Murvin of “Police And Thieves” fame (who died in 2013), Marvin was a flamboyant performer who added a key element of rock & roll swagger to the Wailers stage show. Indeed, such was his contribution, that Marvin’s health issues were enough to force the rescheduling of several shows before the Kaya tour finally got underway in Ann Arbor, Michigan on May 18.