hello

yes i don't think the version of the tape is great

this may not because the original tape was bad

but it sounds to me that the quality of the encoding is particularly bad

this occured in early audio format compression, i.e. MP3s etc.

that used lossy encoding algorhythms

so hard to tell what is going on.

remember that Bob Marley's acoustic playing was fairly idiosyncratic

although he did write loads of great songs on the acoustic

most of them got translated to full band

although there are a few exceptions of classic reggae acoustic songs that Bob Marley wrote for the acoustic guitar such as redemption song and no woman no cry

a fair amount of the books on the market give acoustic versions of most his songs

but many of these are acoustic interpretations that aren't really authentic

there are also a few books on the market that explain how to play reggae on the electric guitar and some of the bob marley (and other bands) how to play song books do give the chords that were used on the recordings

Bob Marley, Pete tosh etc, usually used top 3 string tiads (while muting the other three strings), as well as the occassional barre chord to play most of their electric reggae

occassionally when they want a bigger fuller sound they may also use open chords

but due to the open nature these chords aren't under a finger that can mute them

so are harder to control and harder to get the muted rhythms that are so synonomous with good authentic reggae

btw the two main types of chord chops in reggae guitar

are called bang and chucka

the bang being a single syncopated hit

the chucka is a syncopated double hit

these are also then syncronated with sparse authentic reggae drum patterns

melodic bass guitar that leaves space for other elements to breath

and sometimes bubbles rhythm played on a keyboard that adds

extra energy which can often be mixed subtley in

the vocals are also really important

and when it comes to Bob Marley and the Wailers

you can hear all sorts of influences

but especially early rhythm and blues and soul

if you listen to how the lead vocals are arranged with the backing vocals

very US rhythm and blues of the late 50s and 60s

this i also believe is where they got the infleunce from the horn section too

that and the latter genres such as funk etc.