Crying in The Chapel - Bob Marley & The Wailers Version

Bob Marley & The Wailers Version

In April, 1968, the vocal trio The Wailers, featuring Bob Marley on lead vocals and guitar, Rita Marley (replacing Neville Livingston aka Bunny Wailer, who was in jail at the time) and Peter Tosh on harmony vocals backed by Rastafarian nyabinghi percussion group Ras Michael & the Sons of Negus recorded an adapted version of the song in Kingston, Jamaica. Its lyrics were adapted from the Orioles' version by Rasta leader Mortimo Planno, who also produced and pressed the single entitled "Selassie Is the Chapel", the first ever Rastafarian song recorded and released by Bob Marley. The song is thus very meaningful to Rastafarians as its lyrics were modified in order to affirm the divinity of Haile Selassie as the born again Christ:

Haile Selassie is the chapel/Power of the trinity/Build your mind on this direction/Serve the living God and live

Only a few hundred copies of the single were pressed on a blank label at the time, making this song a much sought-after rarity for decades until it was finally reissued and documented on CD on the Selassie Is the Chapel hit album (JAD Records, 1997) as part of the Complete Bob Marley & the Wailers 1967 to 1972 series produced by Bruno Blum and Roger Steffens. A vinyl single was also released by JAD in 2002. The recording was reissued on that single along with the original Mortimo Planno-voiced flip side, Rastafarian cult song "A Little Prayer" as well as on the 2002 four CD Bob Marley Rebel anthology set released in France only and deleted in 2003. A "Selassie Is the Chapel" remix produced by Bruno Blum with a contribution by original Marley backing group The Wailers was released on the European Rastafari label in 1998 (and the Jamaican Human Race label a few years later) as War/Selassie Is the Chapel. They feature a virtual duet between Bob Marley and Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie in medley style. This duet version single hit number one in the U.K. Echoes Magazine in April 1998. A dub version entitled War/Selassie in Dub was released on the flip side. A later Jamaican DJ version by Joseph Cotton entitled Conflicts was released on the Rastafari label in 2009.