I’m trying to condense my cassette collection. I have a lot of old mix tapes, and up to now, I’ve been amazingly successful at finding copies of the various songs on them. But there’s one that eludes me.
Did you know that there are two versions of “Buffalo Soldier”? Don’t bother telling me that I’m delusional; I was just listening to a fast version of it, not the mellow one everyone’s familiar with. So I know it exists, but I can’t find another copy of it anywhere. By now, I’m open to the possibility that someone other than Bob Marley recorded it. Or it could be a live version, although it doesn’t sound live. But is anyone aware of an upbeat version of this song? And who recorded it, if it’s not Marley (Ziggy, maybe, in honor of his father?) and what album it’s on? It does exist; I was just listening to it. On this old mix tape from 1989 or so.
Silverfish released a cover of it, but their lead singer is a woman, which would probably have made it obvious that it wasn’t Marley (either one), so that’s probably not it.
I realize that this is a zombie thread but yes, there are definitely two versions of Bob Marley’s “Buffalo Soldier”. I have heard both. A roommate of mine in college had a copy of the “Legend” album that he bought from a used record store. I had taped the album and that was the version I was familiar with for many years.
Much later when I bought my own copy of Legend on CD, I noticed that both “Buffalo Soldier” and “No Woman No Cry” were different versions than what were on my old roommate’s album.
One thing I would note is that I remember my roommate’s album had a stamp on it that said “promotional copy - not for resale” on it. We used to see that on a lot of albums at the used record store. I’m guessing that might have something to do with why the album had different versions of the songs.
Yes, that’s the one. I used to call it the “disco” version, or sometimes the “Banana Splits” version since the intro vocals kind of reminded me of the theme song to the old Saturday morning “Banana Splits” TV show. As opposed to the version with horns in the intro.
That sounds like an 80’s synth-pop club version of it. Was he even alive when it was mixed? I’m wondering if he actually sang it to that music or if they just dubbed his voice over this.