Bob Marley: 1945-1981

I stood on the other side of the glass in Harry J's Kingston studio on the autumn evening in 1975 when Marley laid down the vocal tracks for "Jah Live." As he sang, the crisp mesh of music and testimony grew louder, spiraling upward, higher and higher in a dizzying prosody of tension and release, until its spell was awesome in its psychic grip.

The truth is an offense, but not a sin!
Is he laugh last, is he who win!
Is a foolish dog barks at a flying bird!
One sheep must learn to respect the shepard!
Jah Live! Selassie lives, chil-dran!
Jah Live! Jah-Jah live!

My final encounter with Bob Marley was last fall, the day after his second concert stand at Madison Square Garden. I was unaware of it at the time, but he was about to undergo diagnostic treatment for cancer at New York City's Memorial Sloan-Kettering hospital. Stretched out on the bed at the Essex House, he looked drained, frail and annoyed by the flock of hangers-on that filled the numerous rooms of his suite, guffawing loudly and helping themselves to room service.

The aura of joy that had always surrounded him had begun to dissipate. His payment for the previous night's show arrived, and he looked pensively at the crisp stack of bills as if studying an old gimcrack to see if it still held meaning or should be discarded. He absently passed the money to a band member.

Several months later, I was told how sick Bob was. I began to think back on the pleasurable years I spent immersed in Bob Marley and the Wailers.

I remembered hunting through the basement of Daddy Kook Records in London in the winter of 1976. A contact at Island Records had told me it was a particularly good place to locate vintage ska, rock steady and reggae. Sure enough, there were tiers of singles and LPs stacked halfway to the ceiling and spilling out of broken bins. I waded into the confusion and located two of the many treasures I was after: a copy of "Simmer Down," the Wailers' first single, which was cut in 1964 for Jamaican producer Clement Dodd's Studio One; the seminal trio was augmented by singers Juno Braithwaite, Beverly Kelso and a woman named Cherry. Singer Joe Higgs had helped him iron out the kinks in their harmonies, and instrumental backup was provided various Skatalites. The rude-boy classic, admonishing unruly ghetto youths to control their tempers, was an instant hit.

The second record was the original version of "Duppy Conqueror," which the Wailers recorded in 1967 while under contract to the Upsetter label. As Peter Tosh once explained to me, "The Wailers were more interested in 'reality music' than 'I love you darlin',' and all that," and the raw, rancorous call to arms that was "Duppy Conqueror" closed with the challenge, "Don't try to show off/For I will cut you off/I will take your rass off." I've never found a band as compelling as the Wailers and a singer who could fire my imagination like Marley.

What I will remember most about Bob Marley is how his music was so much a part of his life. Near the end of our first meeting, in Kingston in 1975, he began to speak about children, how close he felt to them, how their presence always strengthened him and how blessed he was by his own brood.

I told him how I had shuddered when I'd read a story in the Jamaican Daily News about the plight of local youngsters who forage through huge trash heaps on Causeway Road outside Kingston for food and clothing.

He nodded slowly and then told me he had recently written a song called "Children of the Ghetto." "When my children are old enough to sing it," he said, "I'm gonna record it with them."

("Children of the Ghetto," since retitled "Children Playing in the Streets," was released on Tuff Gong in 1979 by the Melody Makers, a group consisting of Bob and Rita's four children.)

Slumped against the great, gnarled tree beside his house on that sun-splashed day, their father began to talk-sing the lyrics: Children playing in the streets
In broken bottles and rubbish heap
Ain't got nothin' to eat
Only sweets dat rot dere teeth
Sitting in the darkness
Searching for the light . . .
Moma scream, "Watch that car!"
But hit-and-run man has gone too far

When he was finished, Bob turned away to watch Rita and son Robbie cavorting on the lawn, and he slipped into a trance. He picked up a stick, rolled it in his palms; his arms tensed and he broke the stick in half with a loud crack!

Then he relaxed, and his lips wrinkled in a weary grin.

"Ahh, Jamaica," he sighed. "Where can your people go? I wonder if it's anyplace on this earth."

I saw his eyes; he knew the answer to that question.

[From Issue 346 — June 25, 1981]