Nail the ToneBob Marley & The Wailers

No Woman, No Cry

Bob Marley & The Wailers · Natty Dread · 1974

The skank on the Natty Dread version is a clean, thin, tightly muted chop with the bass end pulled way back so it sits above Family Man's bassline and next to the piano and organ. Bob Marley is credited with rhythm guitar and his instrument in this period was the modified Gibson Les Paul Special with P-90s, played on the bridge pickup; Al Anderson overdubbed the lead with a 1957 Strat into a Twin Reverb. Keep the volume low enough that there's no breakup at all, add just a touch of spring reverb, and put all the work into the right hand.

Where these numbers come from: worked out from the documented rig and the sound of the record

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo

Studio cut sits in C major in standard tuning with no capo; the offbeat chop is doubled by piano and organ, so the guitar is only one layer of the skank.

Part: Rhythm

Guitar

  • Gibson Les Paul Special · P-90 soapbars · bridge pickup
  • Fender Stratocaster (1957) · single-coils · neck pickup

Amp

Fender Twin Reverb (silverface)

GAIN
2.5
BASS
3.0
MID
5.0
TREBLE
6.5
REVERB
2.5

Al Anderson says he showed up to the Natty Dread sessions with a '57 blonde Strat, a Twin Reverb and a Clyde McCoy wah, and a silverface Twin is photographed with the band in this period; no source documents which amp Bob's Les Paul Special went through for the rhythm chop, and Island's Basing Street engineers routinely took guitars straight into the Helios desk, so a board-direct clean is also plausible. Volume knob stands in for gain here; the silverface Twin has no presence control.

Tone character

clean, no dirt · clipped staccato chop · bridge P-90 bite · rolled-off lows · light spring reverb

easy

The chop itself is easy — muted staccato downstrokes on beats 2 and 4 — but the F barre chord and the G/B inversion have to change cleanly while the strum stays exactly off the beat.

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These are the record's settings. Tell us what you play through and we'll translate every knob to the amp you actually own — free.

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Sources