The Natural Mystics

ON A CHILLY AFTERNOON in the late London fall of 1972, three young men walked down a quiet street in Ladbroke Grove. Their brown skin and lilting diction marked them as West Indians. One of the three, shorter and lighter-skinned than the others, carried himself with an assurance bespeaking his extra days' knowledge of the neighborhood's damp streets. The trio, known as The Wailers, had been making music together since their teens. They had gained  fame in Jamaica singing chirpy covers of U.S. pop hits as adolescents, before moving on, in their twenties, to become masters of the slinky, driving rhythm known as reggae. This music — which had ruled the island's airwaves since another group of Kingston strivers had waxed a catchy tune called "Do the Reggay" in 1968 — was still largely unknown beyond its country of origin; The Wailers's trip to England was the result of a break caught by the most ambitious of their number a few years before...

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