Did you Know? Issue 7

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1971: Winston Francis
TF-Mm hmm. So I imagine you were also providing a lot of background vocals for other artists as well?
WF- Oh yes. Oh Yes. Between ’68 to ’71, most of the records that came out I’d be in within some way. Because everybody did back-up vocals for everybody else. I remember when I did “Too Experience” and “California Dreaming,” I did the vocals on the rhythm track… We recorded the track the afternoon and we were waiting for the girls, you know, the backing vocalists to come in and do the backing vocals. And Bob Marley was sitting near the water cooler, strumming his guitar, because he as going to start to record at about seven in the evening. Because he had recorded songs in the morning, and he wanted to finish off his songs in the evening. And he came over to me- I have a nickname- they call me “Cobra Man.” And he came over and he says “Cobra! When are you gonna finish your thing? And I said “We haven’t got the backing girls to come.” And after about half an hour he came back and he said “They here yet?” and I said “No.” ’bout a half hour later he came back and he said “Listen! I’m gonna be late, man. I’m not gonna get finished if these girls don’t show up. Why don’t we go and do the backing vocals?” So I said “Sure.” So we went in, Ken Boothe, Bob and myself and there was somebody else- another guy, not a popular known guy. But we went in, we did the backing vocals and came out. It was done. That night, Mr. Dodd came in and was listening to the song, and his comment was, now Bob was sitting there, and he says “Boy! The girls sound great, man! Just Wicked!”
TF- Laughter
WF- And Bob says, And Bob got angry and said “Who you calling a girl, Sir D?” Because he thought it was the girls that came and did it. But he said “Oh man! You guys sound like angels, man.”
(http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=101919868& blogID=323810616)

1975: Barry Vincent: I was studying Jazz Arranging and Composition at the Jamaica School Of Music, in New Kingston during this period. It was under the leadership It started around 7:30pm a few days a week. There was Tyrone Downie on Piano, Dean Fraser on Alto sax, yours truly(and a few others) on guitar and I struggle to remember the rest of musicians, but on most days the class comprised of 2-4 trumpets, 2-4 saxes, 2-4 trombones and rythym section. It happened that one of the trumpeters in this class told me he knew a reggae singer that was looking for a guitar player. Following his directions, I arrived at the premises to the to meet the singer. It was across from King’s House on Hope Rd. I walked up the driveway in my khaki pants and box guitar in hand. As I approached the inner yard, I was approached by a dread who said ” Hold On!” I told him who sent me and he said ” Let me hear what you can do” as he rested his foot on the front bumper of a green BMW

I though to myself this man is ‘facety’ (Jamaican slang…. means rude), but decided I WOULD show him what I could do! I played until he stopped me and his previously serious expression turned into a big smile. He invited me into the compound showing me to a small room at the side of one of the buildings. There was a Fender Twin or two and a Gison Les Paul which he welcomed me to play
Before we got started he briefly left, returning with another guitar which he played. Soon he and I were jamming to reggae music I had never heard before
I distinctly remember feeling a unique energy from this singer. It is hard to describe. A kind of magic in the air. It made my hairs stand on end. Like a low current shock of electricity. He was called Jah B by those around him
I could hear that there was a blues influence in Jah B’s style of reggae, but I was 15+ years old and was ignorant of his past work. He did like to play a lot of 9th chords (Dominant 7th with a 9th).
After our jam session he invited me to go to the cook and get a fish which I did. Needless to say, it was delicious! I was told that I was welcome to come around anytime, and I did
I played soccer in the front yard with guys from all over……Of course I was the youngest and was always expected to run after the ball when it misssed the mark. I quickly got tired of that! The sacrifices we make for reggae……..
One day Bob said today is ‘studio day’ and four of us indluding Jah B rode to Joe Gibbs recording studio, off Retirement Road. I knew this studio because prior to Ardenne High School, I atteneded St. Stevens College, an all age private school in the same area. I had never been allowed inside. This time I was
There I first met reggae bassist Family Man. If my mind serves me well, guitarist Chinna Smith was also there that day. I did not play on that session but was a keen observer. I was 16 years old! Of course what one might not understand is that Kingston is a small place and the music community was even smaller. It’s all about word of mouth.
I also remember on that day at Joe Gibbs studio, Family Man and Chinna Smith tuning up the guitars in preparation for the work to be done. Also there was a person that was playing around on the piano. Next thing I know Bob says ‘Come off a dat youth!’…..Have you ever seen a dog retreat with it’s tail between it’s legs? Wow!
This exciting period came to an abrupt finale when my immigration application for permanent residence in the US was successful and I was on a plane to New York. The singer I write about above was Bob Marley. A couple years later (1979-81),
was attending Berklee Of Music (Boston, Massachusetts, USA) Bob Marley and the Wailers were in town. I went over to the Hotel where they were staying. I got in his room but it was crowded with people
BARELY standing room and after making eye contact and realizing that Bob did’nt recognize me, I left. It’s understanable. I only hung in the Marley camp for maybe 6 months or less and on the road things are fast moving
After a while it get’s like a blur. You meet lots of people and cover lots of territory. Bob Marley and the Wailers certainly did. Those were not small tours!
By that time they had a full schedule. I knew Bob Marley as a regular guy. He became a Legend. It WAS a great experience and I remember those times vividly.….
(http://www.funkyguitarist.com/Jammin…ob_Marley.html)

1977: Youth
Back in ’77, Youth was a teenage punk, hanging out in Ladbroke Grove’s squats and toilet venues, soaking up in the street’s sounds and bass culture he heard everywhere he went. “You’d go up the Roxy, hear Don Lets playing dub. And I used to go and see Shaka, “ he remembers, “dub systems, blueses and shebeens at the Barley High. I went to meet Bob Marley with John Lydon at the Mayfair Hotel. It was Lydon that educated me about the way punk and reggae were rebel vibes”. (http://www.liquidsounddesign.com/artists/dub_trees.htm)

1979: Bob Marley and the Wailers Interview
It was the day after my birthday Dec 8th 1979. Drove the 200 miles to Nashville from Memphis, TN with 2 friends (Dave Weil and Ron Buck) to see the show and brought along a reel to reel tape machine, microphone and 35mm camera!
Backstage before the Wailers started we were hanging out in the hall and realized we did not bring a take-up reel. So we frantically reeled off 1200′ of tape from a full reel to make one right onto the floor…
Then the band came out of the dressing room each with a spliff in hand and the smell was awesome as it wafted down the hallway behind them making their way to the stage.
Went out front and the stage was setup lengthwise across the basketball court at Vanderbilt University. It took a while for the lights to come up and all you could see were orange glows coming from the stage as they tuned up… When the lights did come up it was the reverse of most normal concert settings as there was more smoke coming from the stage than from the audience.

The show was awesome and the whole basketball court made for a giant dance floor and people were passing around esmarelda’s everywhere!
Then afterwards we went backstage and met BMW (courtesy of and setup by Gene Dries Regional Promotions Director for Warner Bros Records)! I did the interview and got some albums autographed I had brought along. Then Bob did some station ID’s and promo clips for the radio station…. and we snapped off some candid shots!
Bob says…”Say it, say it, say it…This is WLYX”and the band chimes in “Memphis”
Then all of the sudden the band left and we realized we were in there alone still wrapping up the equipment. We happened to notice a series of paper plates and plastic knives scattered everywhere around the room. Each band member took care of their on needs as far as ganja goes and had left behind considerable amounts on each plate (10 or 11 total). We collected them all together and each knife had hash oil on it, So we rolled a bomber and smeared it up with all the remnants and celebrated our good fortune by smoking it on the way home. It was a great night and an awesome show! I basically smoked the same weed as the band that night. it is memory I will never forget…
by Mike Childress San Anselmo, California (http://www.myspace.com/outspokin)

1980: Bob Marley au FC Nantes
Comment l’un des musiciens les plus populaires du XXe siècle, a croisé la route du FC Nantes et tapé dans le ballon en compagnie des Nantais…
1980. Les Canaris sont champions de France pour la cinquième fois. Le championnat se termine, les supporters exultent. Rideau. Enfin pas tout à fait… Car Bob Marley passe par Nantes avec les Wailers, pour donner un concert au parc des expositions. Et le FC Nantes reçoit un coup de téléphone du manager des Wailers. Celui-ci souhaite organiser un petit match entre des joueurs du club et les Wailers. Car tout le monde ne le sait pas, mais Bob Marley est un mordu de football. Il faut dire que pour la jeunesse de Jamaïque dans les années cinquante-soixante, l’époque de Bob Marley, il n’y a pas cinquante moyens de rêver à sortir du ghetto. La musique, voie que Bob finit par choisir. Et le ballon rond, que son ami Alan Skill Cole choisit, avant de devenir le plus grand footballeur jamaïcain de l’histoire.
C’est donc bien sur les bords de l’Erdre, sur un stabilisé de la Jonelière, le matin du 2 juillet 1980, que cinq joueurs nantais, après l’entraînement, affrontent en tout amitié cinq Wailers, avec Bob à leur tête (malgré sa blessure récurrente à l’orteil, qui avait permis de détecter des cellules cancéreuses dès 1977). Les cinq élus : Henri Michel, Jean-Paul Bertrand-Demanes, Gilles Rampillon, Bruno Baronchelli et Loïc Amisse. Et face à eux, outre Bob en attaque, Al Anderson, Junior Marvin, Carlton Barett et Aston Barrett. Les Canaris ne voient dans ce match qu’un petit entraînement tranquille. Ils ne savent pas que Bob Marley a passé sa jeunesse à jouer au foot.
Éric Pécout est absent, mais il se souvient tout de même de l’événement : “Les joueurs nantais qui ont joué m’ont dit qu’ils avaient pris le bouillon ! Ils avaient souffert au début parce que les Wailers jouaient mieux que prévu… Il a fallu qu’ils se bougent pour les battre de justesse sur la fin. Les Nantais ont pris le match par-dessus la jambe au début, ils étaient menés. Égalité. Menés. Égalité ! Ça a duré trois quarts d’heure. Les Wailers, c’étaient des bons ! Bob se débrouillait très, très bien. Les musiciens de Bob jouaient tous les jours, dès qu’ils avaient deux minutes. J’aurais bien aimé jouer ce match.” Baronchelli confirme le niveau de ses adversaires d’un jour : “Avant d’affronter Bob et les Wailers, on avait déjà fait des oppositions contre des célébrités qui aimaient le ballon. Eux, c’étaient vraiment des fans de foot et de bons footballeurs.”
Parmi les présents, Gilles Rampillon se rappelle de son côté d’un “pur moment de bonheur. J’ai même gardé une photo de moi avec le Maître. Le fait que Bob Marley ait sollicité cette rencontre prouvait qu’ils en avaient l’envie… Et les moyens ! C’était un petit match après l’entraînement, un petit cinq contre cinq. On avait joué avec des petits buts et c’était très agréable. Bob Marley et son groupe étaient réellement passionnés de football.” Un souvenir euphorique que partage Jean-Paul Bertrand-Demanes : “Déjà, rencontrer Bob Marley ! C’était quand même une icône ! Je me souviens qu’après le match, ils nous avaient offert un disque dédicacé. On est même allé dans le car des Wailers, et il y avait de la fumée… C’était pas de la Gitanes maïs ! Bob était super sympa, il jouait pas mal au foot, un vrai amoureux du ballon. Son équipe, c’était pas des charlots, ça jouait ! Après le match, on a été aussi invité au concert de Bob à Nantes, c’était un bon moment.”
Loïc Amisse de son côté modère un peu les mérites de son adversaire d’un jour : “Bob Marley et ses potes n’étaient pas franchement agressifs, plutôt décontractés. On sentait qu’ils aimaient ça, manipuler le ballon. Pour nous, joueurs nantais, c’était un moment assez unique : Bob Marley représentait quelque chose, un type respecté dans son milieu, et puis le reggae était à la mode à l’époque. Bon, il ne faut pas s’enflammer non plus, il n’avait pas le niveau pour intégrer le centre de formation du FCN ! Mais bon, il maniait assez bien le ballon. Dans le jeu, Bob était plutôt habile. À la fin, il nous a signé des autographes, d’ailleurs j’ai gardé le disque qu’il nous avait dédicacé.”
Derrière l’anecdote amusante, il y a cependant dans cette rencontre fraternelle, et dans la venue même de Bob Marley à Nantes, un sens caché qui n’échappait probablement pas à l’intéressé lui-même. Que le descendant d’esclaves le plus célèbre de son temps vienne dans l’ex-capitale européenne du commerce triangulaire chanter pour la jeunesse nantaise n’est pas anodin. Nantes en 1980 n’avait d’ailleurs pas encore effectué le travail de mémoire accompli depuis. Voir Bob Marley jouer avec le maillot nantais, en soi, symbolise beaucoup. On aimerait d’ailleurs que le foot, comme la musique, ne symbolise jamais autre chose que la paix et la fraternité. Un vœu pieux, le plus souvent.
Moins d’un an plus tard, le lundi 11 mai 1981, Bob Marley meurt à 36 ans à Miami, des suites d’une tumeur au cerveau. Le lendemain, le FC Nantes trébuche en championnat en concédant un nul à domicile face à Saint-Étienne. Les Verts terminent champions un mois plus tard, avec deux points d’avance. Les Nantais ont deux yeux pour pleurer. (http://conan.racingstub.com/blog/631…y-au-fc-nantes)

1980: UPRISING TOUR
Fred Schruers: In the early summer of 1980, Bob Marley and The Wailers were almost midway through an extensive world tour that would take them from Libreville, Gabon to, unevocatively enough, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Or unevocative Pittsburgh would seem were it not now recognizable as the last venue where Bob Marley ever took the stage. But that June, when my editor at Rolling Stone assigned me to join the band on a leg of their European tour, all seemed well. In fact, with the Uprising album having been recorded between early January concert dates in Gabon and two legendary mid-April dates in Zimbabwe, it looked to be a propitious moment in an epochal career as Bob brought his political message to an increasingly-involved and enthusiastically-widening public. He’d also visit Brazil that spring, hoping to tour later with Jacob Miller and Inner Circle—until Miller’s untimely death in March that year, which left Bob alone (not to dismiss the rapturous and soulful work of Toots and The Maytals), at the summit of reggae music.

I knew little enough about the man, somewhat more about his music. I had interviewed him for Circus magazine in 1976 (coincident with a pair of dates at Manhattan’s Beacon Theater), resulting in a story not reprinted here but available to all where the sole copy I know of sits lacquered onto the wall of the Bob Marley Museum in his former home at 56 Hope Road in Kingston. On the April day of that interview, I’d turned up in the doorway of the suite he often borrowed from Island Records’ Chris Blackwell. I stood uncertainly peering through a haze of blue smoke at a collection of dreadlocked and, it seemed to me at the time, hostile or sardonically amused band mates and camp followers. I recall looking at the man himself with what must have been a forlorn expression. He looked back, forehead knitted in that severely thoughtful way of his for a moment. Then came the smile that audiences often saw, as wide and beneficent as any I had ever seen. “Hey, Skip,” he said, and patted an empty spot on the couch where he sat. That was Bob.

I joined the tour in Barcelona, where the concert took place in a bullring that was hardly as intimate as The Beacon but where he demonstrated, with a great sense of the scale of the arena and what size of gesture would reach its far corners, his unerring command of the crowd. He was exuberant on the new song, “Could You Be Loved,” with its Brazilian lilt; fascinatingly querulous with an underbelly of anger as he recited the spoken interludes on “Crazy Baldhead”; and on “No Woman No Cry,” with his hand raised to his brow, shading his eyes as he mimed an entirely believable, supplicating misery, he was completely entrancing.

The next morning I found myself talking in a car parked on a foggy side street with Tommy Cowan, a long-time football-playing pal of Bob who was as much a part of the travelling party as the band. We were discussing Bob’s Rastafarianism (he was specifically allied with the Nyahbingi tribe), and his history as the son of a white Jamaican administrator—Norval St. Clair Marley, a man known as Captain who, Bob’s mother Cedella would recall, “loved to cry”—raised in a rural district in northern Jamaica but knowledgeable of the United States from his time working in an auto plant in Delaware. “Bob,” said Tommy simply, “wants to speak to all the people.”

Bob was so unquestionably the center of the travelling circus that the band, especially young and talented multi-instrumentalist Tyrone Downie, took his cue and was welcoming. They paid me the compliment of being just as stingy towards me with the ganja as they were to each other. A typical private bus transfer from the airport would feature the various band members pulling out their individual, cigar-sized, conical spliffs and drawing deeply and alone on them; any borrowing of the smoke was understood to be momentary and led to a quick, low-voiced, “Re-turn to send-ah.” It required the introduction of a small but potent hash joint from Paris to gain any respect from the group. The advisability of such preparations before getting into a small and seemingly shaky turbo-prop plane for the flight from Nantes to Paris through a bank of slate-gray thunderheads was something they were oblivious to, although they glared silently, Rasta-style, at the weather just outside the windows that was soon rattling the plane.
What became clear upon landing was that Bob Marley and The Wailers, with a gig booked on a plain on the outskirts of Le Bourget Airport, owned the city. The Marley entourage, with their dreadlocks, their red, gold and green satin tour jackets and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell languidly overseeing it all with the French actress Nathalie Delon at his side, were treated like royalty. A private boat ride down the Seine was memorable for the moment when Tyrone got in a scuffle with a local gent he thought had shown disrespect to Nathalie. The concert itself was up to the compelling Marley standard. The highlight may have been the rush of the bus back into the city’s center, accompanied by the blaring klaxons of a 20-strong motorcycle escort.

Perhaps, though, the real moment of insight came in the lobby of the Hotel Nikko as the band was fitfully assembling to decamp for Dijon (and soon, London’s Crystal Palace). I was saying farewell to Bob, whom I wouldn’t see for almost three months, as Rita Marley and her fellow I-Threes came off the elevator heading for the narrow, steep escalator that led to the street. Rita was wrestling her bulky, rolling suitcase and in a moment was in an unpromising contretemps with the escalator. There was a moment of hesitation. Bob was not a faithful husband and Rita was not an easy wife but there was much history and respect between them. With one of his easy smiles sent over his shoulder by way of goodbye, Bob Marley, Rebel Superstar, hastened as inconspicuously as possible across the lobby, wrangled the suitcase onto the escalator, and glided out of view.

The rest of the story is, of course, not happy. The band did their sweep through the British Isles and headed for America, where New York would be their base. Word came that Nesta had collapsed while jogging in Central Park. He performed two nights at Madison Square Garden, and the evident energy and fire he brought to those gigs now seems heroic; perhaps he had a foreboding sense that these would truly count. The day after the second, I was scheduled to accompany Bob and the band out to the annual West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn. The plan was for the band to travel the parade route on a flatbed trick, waving and grooving to their own recordings played through a sizeable speaker set-up. I met Lister, the Island aide who had promised “soon come” to a generation of journalists, downstairs in the Essex House lobby, and we rode up to the room with its view all the way north up Central Park to Harlem.

Once again I found myself in the doorway of his suite, and again there was that smile—one I appreciated all the more because of the obvious effort it cost him. Bob was wearing one of his concert outfits, a tight denim suit with bell-bottoms, but the dreadlocks he liked to unleash with a flourish were gathered under a tam and his face looked drawn. He was seated in a stiff-backed wooden chair immediately beside the door, as if he’d diligently brought himself that close before sitting back down. He seemed to be gathering himself for a moment. Finally he looked up. “Lister,” he said, with real regret in his voice, “Naw cyan do it.”

Bob would play that final Pittsburgh gig on September 23, 1980, and save for a brief, spoken recording (made in one of the hospitals where his life guttered out, but ostensibly sent back from a recuperative visit to Africa), he was essentially done communicating with his public in his earthly form. The next time I saw him he was laying in state in a Kingston arena, Bible and guitar nestled in his arms. He had once survived an assault by gun, during the Jamaican political wars he helped to defuse, but he was mortal after all.

His body was transported, often on single-lane roads, in a winding caravan to his mausoleum near his birthplace in Nine Mile in St Ann’s Parish. As he was put in the tomb, I found myself as one of many white faces that had made the pilgrimage. Next to me was Chris Blackwell, certainly somber but as usual attentive to the tenor of the assemblage, and at the same time offering comfort with personal and private grace. Afterwards, Kate Simon and I found ourselves at an impromptu memorial at Tuff Gong Studios where Cedella Booker, swaying at the center of a small gathering of musicians, powerfully sang a hymn. We had put aside our work implements in that sacred space. As I was phoning in the story of the day’s events to the Washington Post, I could hear the repeated, gently rocking refrain spilling through the open studio door: “And I say, Hail, Hail, Hail…”

Later Blackwell would say of Bob’s early death, “It’s a continuing sadness,” and certainly that’s true. But what’s proven daily—I remember thinking one day listening to Bob’s Legend collection play over and over in a barefoot bar called Rasta Baby II on a Thai beach—is that Bob Marley’s life and music is also a continuing joy (http://www.hightimes.com/ht/entertainment/content.php?bid=162&aid=24)

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