Wailers

"Live at the Rainbow." Bob Marley & the Wailers. RCA/Columbia. $29.95. The late Bob Marley was reggae's most powerful and persuasive figure, and he was at his creative and charismatic peak at the time of this 1977 concert in London. The problem with the video is that the camera work and editing are sometimes stiff and that this is merely a 41-minute "highlight" document rather than a record of the entire concert.

Reggae's success with young American audiences has been built on fast-talking deejays and electronic arrangements that often leave fans of traditional reggae cold. But new artists in the roots style are still emerging, and labels continue to reissue classic recordings from earlier eras of Jamaican music. The old and new variants of roots reggae are the focus of this edition of On the Offbeat, a periodic review of ethnic, roots and non-mainstream pop music from around the world.

Music producer Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd, a pioneer of reggae credited with launching the career of Bob Marley and the Wailers, has died. He was 72. Dodd suffered an apparent heart attack Tuesday, friends said. He was pronounced dead at Medical Associates Hospital in Kingston, Jamaica. Four days before his death, he had attended a ceremony to rename a Kingston street after his famous recording business, Studio One.

Drum rolls and synthesized music of the spheres swirled with portent, then a figure robed in priestly vestments appeared, stretched out his arms and said, "Behold." A glitzy holiday extravaganza at the Crystal Cathedral? No, just a Sunday-night reggae show at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. The self-consciously beatific entrance was cause for fretting, even though the man in the holy Rastafarian trappings was Bunny Wailer, last living founder of the Wailers, a band that had few rivals in creating music with lasting spiritual and social impact.

Black Uhuru's Garth Dennis has a deep, solemn voice and a flair for speaking in dramatic tones, as if every sentence were a prophecy. His Jamaican patois is as dense as his manelike dreadlocks, but his message is easily understood. "You watch the news, and it's all negative," Dennis said during a recent telephone interview. "But there's great, wonderful things happening all over the world. People dwell on the bad things, but they should look for the good in their soul at the same time."

Five years ago today, Bob Marley, the undisputed King of reggae music, died in a Miami hospital of cancer at the age of 36. Born dirt-poor in Jamaica's hill country, the singer-songwriter left an estate valued at more than $7 million, including businesses and properties around the world and a mass of unreleased material designed to perpetuate his legacy. Marley was the greatest star the Caribbean has ever produced: His 10 albums for Island Records have sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.

Is dancehall ready to take over the dominant role in reggae? The largely electronic style has become such a powerful force in bringing new fans into Jamaican music that the 12th annual Bob Marley Birthday Celebration over the weekend expanded to a third day to feature the sound. The results were mixed on Friday at the half-filled Long Beach Arena. A scrambled schedule found the show's announced headliner, Tiger, taking the stage shortly after 9 p.m.

The death of Peter Tosh, gunned down Sept. 11 at his Kingston, Jamaica, home during an apparent robbery, is only the latest tragedy in the reggae world. Tosh's murder follows by a few months the ambush slaying of Wailers' drummer Carleton Barrett, allegedly shot by his wife's lover. But reggae's current problems extend beyond these terrible personal losses: In many respects, the legacy of the first wave of Jamaican artists who brought reggae to the pop world is being eroded.

The odds might have seemed remote that a young musician from a small country could popularize a relatively unknown style of music to a worldwide audience. The way Bob Marley made Jamaican reggae catch fire, it looked preordained. Thirteen years after his death from cancer, Bob Marley & the Wailers discs play in coffeehouses and nightclubs throughout the world. His record sales still number in the millions and his music seems as immediate today as when he initially composed it.