Did you Know? Issue 8

1961: Trenchtown
Ras Irice: “As a young man I had the privilege of attending the university of adversity in a Back-o-wall Kingston where I met Bob Marley in 1961, neither of us knowing where he was going because he was so humble. We would see each other at a courtyard in Back-o-wall known as Egypt where Rastas from all over the Island would meet and reason.” This is where the young Bob would receive some of his first Rasta reasoning sessions.
(http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/118524/index.php)

1962: Montego Bay
Derrick Morgan: …Oui, c’était en Février1962 à Charles Street… Une de mes petites amies Patricia Stewart , du duo Derrick & Pat, m’a présentée Bob et m’a demandé de l’aider à faire ses premiers pas dans la musique… je ne le connaissais pas bien mais je lui ai dit de passer au restaurant de Leslie pour une audition. Si je me souviens bien, c’est Jimmy Cliff qui a ramené Bob là-bas ce jour-là. Il nous a chanté “One Cup of Coffee” et “Judge Not”, Leslie a apprécié et il a enregistré les deux morceaux. De mon côté, j’étais sur le point de partir pour l’Angleterre car j’avais signé un deal avec Melodisc (le futur label Blue Beat) à travers Prince Buster. On a donc organisé un tournée d’adieu de trois dates sur l’île et j’ai embauché Bob pour deux d’entre elles. Pour lui, c’était une occasion en or de se faire connaître car à l’époque il était franchement meilleur danseur que chanteur (rires) ! On lui a appris à utiliser sa voix au mieux et on a l’a fait répéter pour le premier show à Montego bay mais lorsqu’il a entonné “One Cup of Coffe” le public l’a sifflé de suite ! Il a continué malgré tout et a enchaîné directement “Judge not”, le public a pris les paroles “Fait ton propre procès avant de juger ton prochain ” comme une réponse de Bob et l’endroit a soudain pris feu comme jamais auparavant ! Je me souviendrai toujours de ce soir là…
(http://www.heartical.net/reggae-danc…morgan.en.html)

1980: Gypsi Fari Reggae Band
You traveled and recorded with Bob Marley and the Wailers in the ’70s. What was that experience like for you and the band?
Leroy Webster: We were the first band in Chicago to play reggae music. As reggae’s influence spread, the bass player and the keyboard player went to see Bob Marley perform. Somehow, they got to go backstage and speak to Bob and after talking to him about reggae in Chicago, he wanted to meet me. I went to Madison Square Garden to see him perform, and when we got there, we were invited to see his show that same night. After the show, I was invited to his hotel room. I had Bob hear some of the music I have written. He fell in love with a piece I wrote called “Smoking Boy.” He said, “Why don’t you come down to Jamaica to record at Tuff Gong Studios [in Kingston, Jamaica]?” Eventually, we went to the studio with a couple of his musicians and recorded and toured afterward. (http://www.columbiachronicle.com/paper/arts.php?id=4799)

70’s: ZZ TOP
ZZ TOP spent the 70′s touring relentlessly expanding out of their Southern states fan base eventually transferring their concert ticket draw into record sales. By 1972 the band was showing a presence on the singles charts with ‘Francene’ cracking the top 100. The half live half studio ‘Fandango’ continued the pace in 1975. In 1976 ZZ TOP took their ‘World Wide Texas’ tour on the road literally taking their home state with them. Following ‘Fandango’ ZZ TOP slunk into the shadows denying the public any further studio material for a lengthy three years. During the lull Gibbons jammed with BOB MARLEY in Jamaica prior to involving himself in an art-house project in Paris. (http://www.rockdetector.com/officialbio,10250.sm)

70’s: Dennis Thompson
SES: How did you come to work for Bob Marley?
DT: We use to tease each other in the studio in Jamaica, they (BMW) use to come into the studio to work, saying they were going on tour; I use to say you were going to the country to play. It became a standing joke, (they would say) whenever we were going on tour we will come for you, I said okay we have a deal.
SS: Which Studio was this?
DT: Randy’s (Recording studio) after my old sound system and club days, I decided to go into commercial recording. I got a job at Randy doing Mastering, and then I went over to the recording side.
SS: Then you must have seen everybody then?
Yes, every body came through there.
SS: Let get back to Bob Marley, he was your initiation into the big time.
DT: Into everything
SS: What was it like as an engineer, when you hit the road with Bob?
DT: It was learning experience,
SS Tell us about what you learnt?
DT: Everything, first of all you learn discipline, and you learn your craft, the hard way, (also) to live with people as people. You’re a novice, you’re working with the best, there is no such thing as you’re going to try, and you have to just do
SS: Get it done
DT: Yes
SS: Was he a tough person to work for?
DT No. he only wanted you to do your best and be truthful. That all he required. If you lied there were problems, do not sacrifice the sound for anything. If you need something that will help the sound (he expected you) to ask for it, to go and get it. According to Thompson Marley didn’t accept excuses for failure.
SS: You were required to think a head, be proactive.
DT: Yes, there was an incident that created that, he didn’t know what was happening, things were being held back from him and something happened and it came to light. He said this is what you have to do.
SS: Talk about the Zimbabwe show in 1980?
DT: That was dream of his that came through. He wanted to do it. They (the Govt of Zimbabwe) asked him to do it, they couldn’t afford the cost, he said find me some rooms and a stage I’ll be there (It reportedly cost Marley ½$m to transport equipment and personnel)
SS: For you what was that experience like?
DT: It was an experience, because you’re seeing the birth of a nation, people seeing and hearing things they had never heard before.
SS: Tell me about your role in the development of the Ziggy Marley & the Melody Makers?
DT: Bob had put a lot of songs on tape for the kids to sing; one day we were in the studio going through reel to reel (tape) with these nice rthymns, so I said to him who sings all these tunes, he said he did them with the kids in mind to sing them. So I said well they have got to sing them soon, He said no they are too young, I said no lets try it, so I set up the microphones, the kids were out in the yard playing. I said (to the kids) hey guys what are you doing, (they said) we are playing Uncle Dennis, and I said do you want to sing a song for me. They already knew the music since they had already heard it; they came in studio and start singing. He (Bob) is sitting beside me and because daddy sitting there they got nervous. They were singing off key. He was getting upset and telling them how to sing. I said (to Bob) you have to leave the studio because you can’t rush them, they didn’t expect this. So he left the studio. So I had them sing one by one. They sang, I punched the console, they were still off key.
SS: Which song was this?
DT: Children playing in the street. I said “no session tonight Iam going to stay up all night and work on this song.
SS: You pieced it together.
DT: Aaah, Yes, at 6 am the next morning Boston, who lived in the yard, brought tea made from ginger, cinnamon and thyme in a tall bamboo cup. He said bro’ D, you drink this, all the gas you have from working all night this will take care of it. I drank the tea and I played the tape, I said do you like this, he asked is that the kids, I said yes, he said he didn’t believe. The next morning I played it for the workers, they were surprised.
SS: What did Bob have to say?
DT: He was just amazed. If Bob doesn’t say anything to you then everything is okay. The question then was what their name would be. We need a name them. He said the Marley children, so I said what happens when they grow up. Now Ziggy had an idea what he wanted (for a name) there is a magazine from England, Melody Maker, he liked that name.
(http://www.jamaicans.com/music/interviews/DeMenaceEngineerExtraordinairePart1.shtml)

Seamstress
For my interview I interviewed Mugabe Tenn-Kin, a twenty-eight years old and was born in Kingston, Jamaica.
His parents were very much into music, his father’s day job was a cable man, but he also played the drums and actually played for Bob Marley a few times. His mother was a seamstress and made many of Bob Marley’s shirts… (http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Inter…n-Native/67861)

Cindy Breakspeare
Life with Bob
“Bob was a fascinating person and to know him was to understand that immediately. We met because I was living at 56 Hope Road and he was also living there. At the time, Chris Blackwell owned the property. They used to live there * Bob’s home at that time was really in Bull Bay, so when they were in Kingston for rehearsal and stuff like that he used to live at 56 Hope Road. I had rented a flat there, my brother and I * that was during my nightclub days * and they were always kicking football…
“I remember going to see him at Carib when Marvin Gaye came. They were the supporting act. Catch A Fire was out and I had bought that before I had actually moved to 56 Hope Road. It was my first introduction to Bob Marley – you remember that jacket? You had a lighter that opened. My brother brought that home and the same Marvin Gaye What’s Going On and believe me, nutten else went on the turntable for the next however long.
“So, once you met Bob, I mean he was so steeped in his religion and his philosophy and he was so very different, as you may as well imagine, from the young men I had dated up until then but it was very intoxicating. He was very charismatic, very strong and I always have liked that in people in general, and in particular in the men that I choose to spend time with. I’m not interested in any shrinking violet but um… so that was it. All of us, everybody, all of us youngsters who met Bob at that time * immediately you knew boy, here was somebody different, here was somebody with great talent, incredibly focused * all the things that have ever been said about Bob.”

“So how did it end?” I asked.
“He passed away.”
Ouch.

“Our relationship had been through some changes right before he fell ill and I had had Damian, and I knew I sort of wanted to restructure my life a little bit. So we were dealing with all of that, but I mean, by then Bob was now a superstar, he really was, and he didn’t really have the time to devote to that side of his life very much. So when he fell ill I just set that aside, Rita set her grievances aside, and we all rallied around him. It was all about him at that point, caring for somebody who was going through this terrible thing. None of us wanted to lose him, whether or not we were romantically involved with him.

“Did you ever have any ‘confrontations’ with Rita Marley?” I asked.
“No”.

“After Miss World I came home, had Damian, set up house and started Ital Craft when Damian was about four to six months old (with Donna Coore) and it just really grew from strength to strength. We started from nothing virtually. We went to Hellshire beach and dug up cactus, we bought clay pots and wrapped them in sisal string that we dyed and it was just whatever we could imagine to do or make. Those were really fun days. There was no pressure, no order for 5,000 of one belt, there were no * it was just creativity, it was just about creativity and it was great fun.
“Bob used to come up and sit with us in the workshop. I started it at my home at the foot of Russell Heights because I had a self-contained cottage that was empty, so it was the perfect spot for a little workshop. So that was where we started. Bob would come up, man, and pull up a table to the bench and say, ‘alright wha yuh wha mi fi do fi yuh now? Mi is a tradesman yuh nuh’.
“He used to bring me a lot of material whenever he would travel, things to make jewellery, lovely beads and bindings, quartz and stuff like that from London, one trip from Australia he brought shells * oh you couldn’t imagine. We were just flabbergasted when we saw them, they were the most amazing shells.”

So why did she stop?
“I decided I wanted to move on. It had got to a point where the paperwork was taking over my life. We weren’t getting as much time to enjoy the creative process as we were initially, so I just decided it was time to move on, I became involved in the music business….”
(http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20011209/ent/ent3.html)

Lorna Wainwright
Lorna Wainwright has been playing an important role in the reggae music industry for many years, but most of her work has been behind the scenes. She’s now the manager of the Tuff Gong recording studio on Marcus Garvey Drive in Kingston, but it took several years of hard work to get there.
It all started one weekday evening in the early 1970s when she had her first encounter with the Tuff Gong himself.
“I was staying at an apartment next door to Bob Marley’s home on Hope Road then. One evening, I heard some music coming from over there, so I climbed up on something and was looking over the wall. Bob was in the yard and saw me looking over and yelled, ‘is who dat?’ Wainwright chuckled at the memory.
“I tried to run, but Bob told one of the men over there to bring me over. When I went over there and told him my name, Bob told everyone that I was family and could come over there whenever I wanted,” she said. “It turns out that my father’s mother and Bob’s grandmother are first cousins.”
After that, Wainwright was a regular at 56 Hope Road and would sit in on rehearsals all the time.
“Anytime Bob saw me there, he would tell me that Sister Rita soon come. He knew that I was a big I-Threes fan.”
It was her fascination with the female trio, and Rita Marley in particular, that would eventually land her her dream job.
“I remember being at Hope Road one day and waiting for Sister Rita, as usual. When she arrived, she hailed everyone and went upstairs. She was working on her album Who Feels It at that time. About 15 minutes later, she came back down and told the people in her office that she needed to have a letter typed. They told her that there was nobody there at that time who could do it. Of course, I offered to do it. I was a graduate of Alpha Commercial College and was eager to help Sister Rita in any way,” said Wainwright.

Fateful moment
That was a fateful moment in Lorna Wainwright’s life that immediately put her in Rita Marley’s good books and initiated a strong trust between the two.
After being turned down for a job at a prominent technology company in the 1970s, Wainwright told Marley that she believed she was being unfairly judged because of her Rastafarian beliefs.
“Bob told me that I shouldn’t worry, because one day he would set up a company run by Rasta and I would be able to work and be true to my God and my faith.”
(http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20080218/flair/flair6.html)

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