Keep On Skanking is a posthumous Bob Marley & The Wailers compilation that gathers late‑1960s and very early‑’70s recordings from the period around their collaborations with producer Lee “Scratch” Perry, years before Marley’s Island Records breakthrough. Rather than a greatest‑hits set from the classic ’70s albums, it focuses on rootsy, small‑band sides originally issued on Jamaican singles and later recycled across various budget releases and box‑set volumes. Typical tracklists include early versions of “Thank You Lord,” “Lively Up Yourself,” “Small Axe,” “Concrete Jungle,” “Put It On,” “My Cup,” “Dreamland,” “Keep On Moving,” “Shocks of Mighty,” and the title tune “Keep On Skanking,” among other cuts from the same era.Musically, the album captures Marley and the Wailers in transition from rocksteady and ska into a heavier, more spacious reggae sound: the rhythms are slower and more meditative, the bass and drums sit deeper in the mix, and the arrangements are still relatively bare compared to the later Island productions. Songs like “Small Axe” and “Concrete Jungle” appear in rougher, more stripped‑down forms than the versions many listeners know, offering a glimpse of Marley’s songwriting before Chris Blackwell’s big‑studio polish. As a result, Keep On Skanking is best understood as a snapshot of an evolving band—appealing to collectors and deep fans who want to trace Marley’s development from local Jamaican singer and Wailers frontman into the globally recognized voice of roots reggae.
