Did you Know? Issue 9

DID YOU KNOW?
issue 9
(july 2009)

60’s: trenchtown
Cee josephs:
I met Bob Marley as a young girl. He liked one of my older sisters’ friend who lived on our street. He would visit her after football sessions. Of course, that was before he became great. I went once to hear him perform at an uptown club. I don’t think I need to say how much his music means to me. I would be echoing what all Jamaicans would say.

60’s-70’s:
Tony recounts some personal memories of Bob Marley
In 1969 or early 70’s Bob used to pick me up at my gate to go to rehearsal up at Johnny Nash’s house, but the first time we met Bob, Peter and Bunny was when we recorded ‘Sun is Shining’ and ‘Duppy Conqueror’ for producer Lee Scratch Perry. As it turn out Scratch later recorded Duppy Conqueror with Family Man, Carly and Glen Adams and Reggie but did end up using the riddim we did and released it with new vocals and called it Mr. Brown. We did a few shows backing up the Wailers in Kingston and a few more recording sessions for Bob’s record label called Wail N’ Soul M’. Bob used to pay Fully and I with personal checks that we would collect at his record store. At that time Bob was not a big international star as yet. The Wailers were big in Jamaica but remember the Wailers was not a band in those days, it was a singing trio with Bob Peter and Bunny. I miss those days!

“The time when I played with Bob at Tivoli Gardens wasn’t planned. It just happened and was very soon after Bob had been shot. Soul Syndicate was already on the bill as Tappa Zukie’s backing band and also on the bill was Inner Circle and some other artists but Bob and the Wailers headlining. Tivoli Gardens was in JLP Territory and this concert had strong political ties. The venue was packed and strong herb smell was in the air. All the artists performed their set with very good response from the audience. We were a little nervous that there might be gunshots at any moment, but none ever went on. Bob was the headliner and everyone was waiting and looking forward to his performance. There was a long delay and we were wondering what was taking so long. We got to find out that some of Bob’s musicians did not show up for the show – I heard they were worried about violence breaking out and, remember, this was just after Bob had been shot – so Bob asked me if I would jam with him. Others agreed to fill in… Chinna, Ian Lewis (Inner Circle bass player) keyboardist Touter, Junior Marvin and myself did the show with Bob. We didn’t have a set list so Bob just called out songs as we went and it was very magical. Bob played longer than originally expected and vibes were strong! I had never played some of Bob’s newer songs so Junior was calling out the chords to me and Junior didn’t know some of the older songs so I was calling the chords out to him. I don’t remember what happened after the show but I wish someone would have recorded the show. Soon after that the PNP Party asked Syndicate to play on one of their events but we weren’t sure about it until Fully’s father, who was our manager, said we should do it so – as to not show any partiality to one of the parties over the other. So we did that show as well and all was good.

The last time I saw Bob was in 1980 in Paris. Soul Syndicate was on tour with UROY at the time and Bob was also on tour there. I went to Bob’s hotel and saw Judy Mowatt in the lobby and she greeted me and took me up to Bob’s suite. Tyrone Downie answered the door and he was happy to see me and told me that Bob was using Soul Syndicate’s riddim called Stalag 17 for the opening number for their show! We chatted awhile and then he took me into Bob’s room. There was Bob, Skill Cole and a next rasta I didn’t know. I could tell Bob was not well as his face was looking drawn and gaunt but he still was expressive and lively joking while he played with his ratchet knife in his hand. We reasoned for a bit and then I left not knowing that would be the last time I talked to Brother Bob. He was always my greatest musical inspiration, and still is to this day. (http://www.abouttonychin.com/story5.htm)

1980: Lenny Chin
Lenny Chin tells a long tale as one of Bob’s best friends in the last two years of his life. “I met Bob when I was managing a shoe store in Miami Florida. Desmond Smith was one of his (Bob) best friends and also a friend of mine; he used to always talk about me.
“So Bob said he had to meet this guy Desmond was always talking about. Desmond took him to the store to meet me and he bought two pairs of Clarks shoes from me. The next day he came by and played football with us on my mom’s lawn. At that time, I managed a football team, ASMJAM-American Jamaican. Bob was my hero. I was so thrilled I couldn’t believe it, recalls Chin excitedly. Bob is my hero I feel like I’m his disciple.”
Owning a restaurant has never been a part of Chin’s plans. He has always been involved in music, managing various bands, then he turned his attention to running his father’s business. This to me is a part of a mission. I knew there was some mission I had to fulfil so I’m taking it in strides.”

1975: San Francisco
http://www.skankproductions.com/warrensmith.htm
Warren Smith, agent and producer: “Well, I’d been involved with music and I was very active politically. I was the chairman of our SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) chapter. So anyway, I had some very close friends in Berkeley that I always used to hang with. I think it was ’71 maybe when one of them came back from the Caribbean with a lot of reggae records. I was still in school but in 1974 I booked Bob Marley in Chico for a benefit, but he actually cancelled the tour. During that time I had a couple of Jamaican friends from San Francisco who owned a reggae shop and I had them come up and help with the promotion. Then the following year, in 1975, I started getting these calls from my friends in San Francisco saying that I gotta come down and help them on their show. Two weeks before our show with Toots, Bob came through and spent a week at a place called the Boarding House. He did four shows there. I met him the first night and I actually got to know him pretty well. A funny story is that I was with this absolutely stunning woman. She was Cuban and into Castro and was living in Berkeley. I brought her with me that first night and Bob was immediately interested in her and he told her to come to his hotel room and she said no way. She said if he wanted to see her he’d have to come up to her house. So Bob finally goes ok and was going to have such and such drive them to her house. And she goes no, she came with Warren, so if he wanted to come see her, he had to go home with her and Warren. I had this little funky Volkswagen station wagon and the next thing I know, here I had Bob Marley in the front seat telling me he didn’t know if I was CIA or not!”

1978:
MAnsel Cridland, frontman for the reggae trio The Meditations, learned an early lesson from the master.editations
Cridland’s band experienced success in Jamaica with the single “Woman Is Like a Shadow,” which was recorded in 1974 and released two years later. The smooth harmonies of Cridland, Danny Clarke and Winston Watson caught the ear of reggae legend Bob Marley.

As the story goes, Marley tracked down Clarke, put him in a cab and told him not to stop until he could find the other band members to start recording. Once Clarke found Cridland, it was difficult to convince him.

“It took me a while to believe it was true,” Cridland said during a phone interview from New York. “`Bob Marley? Are you kidding, mon?”’

Marley invited the group to sing backing vocals on several songs, including “Blackman Redemption,” “Punky Reggae Party” and “Rastaman Live Up.” He later asked them to open at his legendary One Love Peace concert in April 1978. Remembering the two-month practice sessions leading up to the show, Cridland said he was struck by Marley’s drive.

Marley would sing until he was hoarse, Cridland said. During a two-night leave, Cridland said he talked to Marley about taking it easy.

“I thought he’d cool off and rest his voice,” Cridland said. “I said, `You should rest tomorrow night.’ He said, `What?”’

Marley would sing for hours, including while the musicians waited for meals to be served, Cridland said. Even when the others were tired of playing, Marley kept rehearsing.

“I said, `Man, this man is so great.’ That was the man he was, a very dedicated man,” he said. “I loved music, but it showed how much you have to dedicate to play music.”

1978: Dave Valentine, owner of the Coach House in University Circle, the first mainstream club in Cleveland to book reggae: “Bob Marley was something I’ll never forget. His performance was just so awesome. And then I was fortunate enough after the show to go up to his room with him with [I-Tal percussionist] George Gordon who was Jamaican and he was kind of able to communicate and they knew the same neighbourhood of Kingston. We went up to the room at Swingos and they were having a religious discussion. They were sitting around a big table, members of the band and these Jehovah’s Witness people and they were discussing the bible. I rode up the elevator up to the room with him, my wife also and George. That was one of the highpoints of my reggae stories, I guess, was being with Bob Marley for a little while.”
http://www.freetimes.com/freeblog/?p=116

1979:Nadine Sutherland:” Listened to my first song the other day, Starvation on the Land. I remembered Bob Marley coming into the studio and telling them to put me on a chair because I was too small to reach the microphone. The bass line of that song was influenced by some chord changes he suggested to the bass player on that session. He made sure I was okay and smiled to make me comfortable.” (from jamaicaobserver.com)

1980: Zimbabwe
Apparently when Robert Mugabe was told that Bob Marley would perform at his swearing-in as Zimbabwe’s prime minister in 1980, Mugabe complained that Marley was too scruffy and suggested that “the perennially wholesome Cliff Richard” would be a better act. [I spotted the telling anecdote -- about Mugabe's real politics -- in journalist Andrew Meldrum's book Where We Have Hope: A Memoir of Zimbabwe, a bit of a plodding read, which I have to review.]
http://theleoafricanus.com/2008/06/16/robert-mugabes-bad-taste-in-music/

1980: Lenny Chin
Lenny Chin tells a long tale as one of Bob’s best friends in the last two years of his life. “I met Bob when I was managing a shoe store in Miami Florida. Desmond Smith was one of his (Bob) best friends and also a friend of mine; he used to always talk about me.

“So Bob said he had to meet this guy Desmond was always talking about. Desmond took him to the store to meet me and he bought two pairs of Clarks shoes from me. The next day he came by and played football with us on my mom’s lawn. At that time, I managed a football team, ASMJAM-American Jamaican. Bob was my hero. I was so thrilled I couldn’t believe it, recalls Chin excitedly. Bob is my hero I feel like I’m his disciple.”