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They had also appeared on national TV (ABC's Dick Clark Show) & on the Alan Freed Show, toured the East Coast (1959) & California (1961, etc), played shows headlined by the likes of Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, the Standells, the Royal Guardsmen, Sopwith Camel -- & enjoyed the release of a half-dozen additional 45s and four LPs. So, the band was rather well-known.
Thus it remains a bit of mystery why they (& their lawyers) did not react when the Jamaican band – which included future superstar, Bob Marley -- emerged with the exact same name. Except, to consider that by the time Marley's crew followed up with a new LP in 1970 (plus three more in 1971) – they scored no hits in the United States -- & those years were a low ebb for our local heroes. By the time the Tacoma boys began reuniting & playing more regularly in 1977, Marley's Wailers had caught fire in the British & American marketplaces: album's like 1973's Catch A Fire charted & Burnin' went gold, 1974's Natty Dread charted, 1976's Rastaman Vibration went platinum, & 1977's Exodus went multi-platinum.
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In June 2007 surviving memers of Tacoma's Wailers – bassist Buck Ormsby, & keyboardist Kent Morrill – finally brought suit [Ormsby v. Barrett, No. 07-5305] against the reggae band after they discovered that the internet domain name "wailers.com" had been grabbed. Their complaint was that of trademark infringement, dilution, unfair competition, & cybersquatting, based on their registered trademark of the word "Wailers." Too little, too late: in January 2008, Western District Judge Ronald Leighton ruled for the defendants. Cased closed.