Talk:Bob Marley and the Wailers/Archive 1

Redirecting to Bob Marley
The Wailers was a band. Bob Marley was a member of that band. Redirecting this article to Bob Marley makes no sence. This is a valid article in its own right. If you dislike it, then you'll have to go through an AfD procedure to have it removed/redirected. --Ezeu 09:25, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Article length
This article is shockingly short for such a famous group. More of a stub than an article JayKeaton (talk) 13:32, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Current Wailers Band
I saw the Wailers play a show a few weekends ago in downtown Raleigh. At least they called themselves the Wailers and played all of Marley's hits (and more). They played an amazing show that ill never forget, but who are they? It seems that they broke up 35 years ago.Bobbyschultz (talk) 03:59, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism
Bob loved lasers??? There were many members of this band such as, Diana Ross, Nick Price, Michael Jackson, & Brittany Spears. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.197.35.189 (talk) 20:51, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Removed this defacement: Tha King of Cannabis B.K.A Tha Rastafari of Reefer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.254.51.151 (talk) 09:06, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Page name
Is it Bob Marley and the Wailers, Bob Marley & the Wailers or Bob Marley & The Wailers? Sincerely Erik gbg (talk) 18:14, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

We had one band called 'The Wailers Band' and one called 'The Wailers'. No problems with this as far as I could tell, so why do we now need this article disambiguated to 'The Wailers (1963-1974 band)', particularly since The Wailers were active in one form or another since 1961?--Michig (talk) 05:48, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose that the articles The Wailers (1963–1974 band) and Bob Marley & the Wailers are merged into the same article as there is a massive amount of overlap between the two articles. The subject of both these articles is essentially the same thing: Bob Marley's band.

A simple review of their discography shows that although the band have performed under a few slightly different names at various times - e.g. The Wailing Wailers and The Wailers - they were most commonly known as Bob Marley & the Wailers (used on 9 out of 13 of their studio albums).

Currently the two articles give the impression that The Wailers split in 1974 (after the departure of Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer) and that Bob Marley subsequently formed a new band entitled Bob Marley & the Wailers. This is not strictly accurate as two studio albums, Soul Rebels (1970) and Soul Revolution (1971), were released under the name Bob Marley & the Wailers while Tosh and Wailer were still in the band.

Furthermore, numerous people were members of both "The Wailers" and "Bob Marley & the Wailers" during the band's history, proving that Bob Marley & the Wailers was a in fact continuation of the same band that formed in 1963, not an entirely new band. Beej2k6 (talk) 21:15, 6 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I have performed the merger myself, as no one else contributed to the discussion. "The Wailers (1963-1974 band)" article has been redirected to the "Bob Marley & The Wailers" with the relevant information copied and pasted. However the article still needs a major cleanup to get to the standards of the Bob Marley article. Beej2k6 (talk) 12:57, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Move to Bob Marley and the Wailers. Cúchullain t/ c 16:50, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Bob Marley & → Bob Marley & the Wailers – non-capitalisation of the definite article in band names per MoS. GabeMc (talk&#124;contribs)  02:47, 20 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment – Bob Marley and the Wailers would be more consistent with the MOS, and is also common in sources. Why not?  Dicklyon (talk) 07:08, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Both are common in sources. The ampersand goes well in this "X & the Ys" type of name. The MOS makes no mention of it in this kind of case. Rothorpe (talk) 14:33, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * In books, spelled out "and" is more than twice as common. No reason to abbreviate it.  Dicklyon (talk) 04:10, 21 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I vote for Bob Marley and the Wailers, per Britannica and this album cover. Kauffner (talk) 03:10, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose 'The' would be capitalised in both Jamaica and England, but not the U.S. Wouldn't WP:LANG suggest keeping it? Also, if you look at covers of Catch A Fire and Uprising it's spelt that way. As far as Kauffner's argument goes. Britannica is a U.S. publication, and the Platinum album sourced looks all upper case to me.  It can be spelt either way in running prose, per WP:TBP. Wwwhatsup (talk) 07:57, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * "The" is listed in MOS:CT under "words that are not capitalized". This ngram suggests that "Bob Marley and the Wailers" is by far the most common form in both British and American English. Kauffner (talk) 09:12, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * That MOS is per American usage, however it is trumped 1) by WP:LANG and 2) by it being the actual proper name of the group. Same goes for ngram, which is always likely to favor American idioms. Also. One suspects there is a deeper but more subtle reason, beyond usage, why The Wailers was capitalized - it recognizes Peter & Bunny as The Wailers, with equivalent status. With a small t it is one entity, with a capital T it is two. The name stuck after they left. This is also why 'and' maybe preferred to &. Wwwhatsup (talk) 12:40, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I checked The Independent, The Jamaica Star, and The Jamaica Observer. It doesn't look to me like either the British or the Jamaicans follow any consistent rule about this stuff. Kauffner (talk) 14:36, 21 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Support for Bob Marley and the Wailers, per Dicklyon and Kauffner. GabeMc  (talk&#124;contribs)  00:55, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Support for Bob Marley and the Wailers, per Dicklyon, Kauffner, GabeMc and the MOS. Rothorpe (talk) 01:16, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
 * My reading of WP:Title is that proper names trump MOS. Would you like to comment on that? Wwwhatsup (talk) 04:14, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
 * If it does it needs to be rewritten. But I don't think it says anywhere that title usage should contradict normal  usage. Rothorpe (talk) 13:32, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Under WP:Title it says: "Use lower case, except for proper names: The initial letter of a title is almost always capitalized; subsequent words in a title are not, unless they are part of a proper name, and so would be capitalized in running text", which would seem to imply that regular sentence case applies to titles, not?  GabeMc  (talk&#124;contribs)  22:14, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I believe the definite article is a special case. That's why I quoted WP:TBP - capitalized in title, optional in running text. Wwwhatsup (talk) 02:49, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * According to the CMOS 8.155 "Capitalisation of titles of works—general principles", there are two choices, sentence-style capitalization and headline-style capitalization. In both cases CMOS prescribes a lower-cased article.(16th edition, 2010, pp. 448–449) GabeMc  (talk&#124;contribs)  02:56, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Then there is the other 'entity' point I mentioned above. If you read the talk on WP:TBP you'll see quite some discussion on this, The Beatles is an entity, the Beatles are the individual members of the entity, etc. In the special case of BMW, the original band was Bob + the other two who were The Wailers. Later after the other two left, lowercase came into common usage to describe the backing band, a collection of individuals who, post mortem, have eventually become an entity in their own right The Wailers Band. They expressly couldn't use the name The Wailers for this reason. If the title were to be altered, I believe this should be explicitly made clear. Personally I would stick with the former, as I feel that is the notable group, later incarnations were essentially Marley solo. Ignoring reality for the sake of style is questionable. Wwwhatsup (talk) 03:09, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * In a comparable case there were the Miracles, then Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, then the Miracles again. Here we have the Wailers, who were replaced by Bob Marley and the Wailers, consisting of Marley and the Wailers Band. That seems quite clear whatever style one uses. Capitalising "the" before "Wailers" imparts no information. Rothorpe (talk) 15:31, 27 January 2013 (UTC)


 * All of the band's Island studio releases (Natty Dread, Rastaman Vibration, Exodus, Kaya, Survival, Uprising, and Confrontation) use the ampersand ( & ). Only the Trojan compilations and a few others use "and".  —  AjaxSmack   02:55, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
 * And the ampersand, unlike "and", is properly followed by a capitalized definite article, as in linking two proper names. Wwwhatsup (talk) 09:03, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
 * How does Wikipedia handle such cases? The list at Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/The Beatles/Archive 3 contains many 'and the' and '& the' examples, including another Marley, as well as Toots and the Maytals, formerly just the Maytals; there are of course no examples of '& The':
 * Sly and the Family Stone, Derek and the Dominos, Country Joe and the Fish, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Jason & the Scorchers, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Mott the Hoople, Hootie & the Blowfish, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Gary Lewis & the Playboys, Shep and the Limelites, Rage Against the Machine, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, Lori and the Chameleons, Joey Dee and the Starlighters, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers, Kool & the Gang, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Echo & the Bunnymen, Tommy James and the Shondells, Johnny and the Hurricanes, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Huey Lewis and the News, Gerry and the Pacemakers, KC and the Sunshine Band, Jay and the Americans, Freddie and the Dreamers, Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs, Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, Toots and the Maytals, Booker T. & the M.G.s, ? and the Mysterians. Rothorpe (talk) 14:07, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
 * But did those act's original proper names have the capital T? Most are American acts. The others should be checked, and maybe changed. Here (p.10) is an example I just came across today of the 'Bob Marley and The Wailers' usage - in an American publication. Wwwhatsup (talk) 04:24, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, usage varies, but "and the" wins the contest, as you'll see from the link I provided above. No need to make an exception for the Wailers. Rothorpe (talk) 17:03, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Tourdates
can someone tell me the source of the Tourdates? the internet seems to have diffirent opions about this dates (e.g. Thirdfield, which is mentioned to have a lot of mistakes (what I belive) but who is right now? reliable source please. thank you in advice - Hartmann Schedel  cheers  01:31, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Capitalization of The
Given the move, I would suggest, in the name of accuracy, that at least some mention be given to the fact that the band was actually called Bob Marley and The Wailers. Wwwhatsup (talk) 01:07, 15 February 2013 (UTC)