Interview with Geoffrey Dunn

ivan

– 08/08/2008Posted in: Magazine Interviews

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Geoffrey Dunn, writer, producer, reggae and calypso lover: “I was at the Bob Marley concert in Santa Cruz in July of 1978. I was visiting with a friend of mine at the Civic Audiorium who was involved with the promotion of the show when the bands were loading and Family Man Barrett approached me. I had blondish sun-bleached dreadlocks and they were rare on euro-americans at that time. I told him I was a native of Santa Cruz from an old fishing family and that while I was a journalist at the time for the alternate press, I also still worked in the fish industry. He was looking for a place to run (because Bob wanted to run by a river) and get outside and maybe also get high and so I took him and a few others on a short walk to the river which went down to the beach and Monterey Bay. It was foggy in the morning and the sun had just come out and it was glowing golden. I think the idea was perhaps for them to later take Marley for a run / walk along the levee to the beach. I was invited backstage for the show and was introduced from a distance to Marley. He was very intense and hard-wired and seemed to have a glow around him. I was impressed by his hair — I had never seen dreads like that before — and by his athleticism. We had similar builds.

As for the concert, “I Shot the Sheriff” brought down the house, followed by “No Woman No Cry” and “Is This Love?” (which was rumored to have been written for Cindy Breakspeare as I recall, and some local feminists had chastized Marley for his sexism in practice) and he closed with “Get Up Stand Up” which really brought the house down again.
I should say that while I admired and appreciated Marley at the time, I was not a devoted fan or hero worshipper of his or anything like that. I was actually more into Jimmy Cliff and always way more into Dylan. But I became a real fan after. His performance was electrifying. Unfortunately when he came back again the following year, I was out of town awaiting the birth of my daughter in a town much to the north. Little did I realize that I would never get the chance to see him perform live again.
A few years later I moved back to my family’s hometown of Riva Trigoso, Italy (Genova), and I was surprised to discover how big Marley was in Italy, even in this little coastal village. I bought a Marley tape for about 4,000 liras that I played over and over again in Italy and I still have it today. It was really my introduction to “Redemption Song.”
Click here to read an interview with Geoffrey: http://www.jouvay.com/CalypsoDreams.htm

1-photo taken from expressnightout.com
2-photo by jeff cathrow: bob marley in santa cruz july 1978