So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley

by Roger Steffens

  When Italy invaded Ethiopia, pictures appeared in the Jamaican papers of dreadlocked warriors known as “Nyabinghi men”—a name that meant “death to black and white oppressors”—hurling spears at Italian tanks. In emulation of them, the newly named Rastafarian adherents began to grow their locks too, as a covenant urged by the Bible. They kept an “ital livity,” or natural way of life, eschewing meat and shellfish, and giving thanks and praise to the Almighty through their use of marijuana (ganja) as a sacramental way of unifying with the universal spirit. Composed mainly of the poor and dispossessed, these early Rasta lived primarily in the bush, and when they came into the city they were roundly despised and feared, accused of being “blackheart men,” who reputedly ate little children and flouted all the colonial laws.

  They had their own language, too, based on the holy trinity of word, sound and power. One conceives the word and when it is sounded from a pure heart it is the very power of creation itself. “Weakheart conception haffe drop,” goes one of their favorite expressions. That is, if you have an impure motive, whatever you are saying is doomed to death and destruction. Everything in the Rasta lingua must therefore be positive and constructive. And there must be no separation among mankind—thus the locution “I and I,” meaning you and I, God and I, God in I, because we are all one manifestation of the true and living God. “Yes I,” say the Rasta, because they are really talking to themselves. Thus there are no plurals in Rasta-speak, underlining the “I”-nity of all. They don’t go to a university but to an i-niversity; nor would they visit a library, rather a true-brary, because lies lie buried in a lie-brary.

  In addition, Zion is meant to be achieved here on earth. No dying to see Jesus. “We know and we understand Almighty God is a living man,” the Wailers would sing in their anthem “Get Up Stand Up.” Selassie’s visit led to a single recorded by Peter just a few days after His Majesty left the island, called “Rasta Shook Them Up,” the Wailers’ first record specifically mentioning Selassie.

  Among the first people to introduce Bob to Rasta was a relative of Rita’s.

  BEVERLEY KELSO: This Rasta business started with Rita’s brother. I think Rita’s brother used to go to University of the West Indies. He didn’t comb his hair. I remember it’s like he used to preach to them, telling them things like Babylon, whatever he used to preach to them. That preaching start and they start to smoke more frequently now.

  SEGREE WESLEY: I wouldn’t say that ganja affected Bob. I know he was an adherent smoker so to speak, I know like in the mornings you’d see him, he take a smoke and he says, gotta have a slug. But I never see where it affected him in any way.

  BEVERLEY KELSO: The smoking start coming in more and more and more and more. And then they start saying Rastafari and talking, you know, wild talk now about this Rasta business until Bob start to grow his hair, Peter start, Bunny, they’re not combing their hair anymore. And I start to pull away ’cause they passing the spliff to me and I back away from it. I didn’t want no part of that.

  ROGER STEFFENS: Bob’s eight months in Delaware saw the remaining Wailers record occasionally with the Soulettes, whose early recordings were distributed throughout Kingston by Rita, riding her bicycle.

  VISION WALKER: Wailers and Soulettes had a sound that was building up from the first time we meet. We rehearsed together, so it was a buildup to that. When Bob went to America I replaced him. Bob didn’t know when he left that I would be singing in the group. But it was a unity. It is a family. It wasn’t just music.

  ROGER STEFFENS: It was a politically restive time in the ghettos as they were being transformed in “garrisons” aligned with the two main political parties. The CIA was funneling guns to the right-wing government and the opposition PNP was beginning to arm themselves for protection. Economic opportunities were limited, and many Jamaicans were moving to the U.S. or to England, which actively recruited them for menial jobs there. A new underclass of disaffected youth came to be known as “rude boys.” Vision Walker sang on two of the fiercest rude boy songs of the era, “Let Him Go” and “I Stand Predominate.”

  VISION WALKER: The definition of a rude boy in those times—a bad man was measured by the way he protected his community, he didn’t need a gang. I stand alone. “I Stand Predominant.” Whatever come, it comes, but you have to face it yourself. That’s a bad man. He doesn’t need a gang. And that’s where the Wailers were, they were into their individual thing.

  When we cut our songs we did three takes at the most. First take is always the best take. Because one-track recording days is what we come from, everybody playing and singing at the same time, or else every man got vexed. And you don’t want to get the whole studio, the Skatalites, angry at you; you have to do your part. They were getting paid by the side.

  When I did “Don’t Look Back,” the version of the Temptations song, in 1966 with Peter, that was the time that I remember that Peter first used to play his guitar in the actual sessions. He had a kind of country-folk style, real sweet. Then there was an unreleased song called “Little Boy Blue.” It was like a theme song for I and I [me and my bandmates] because of the lyrics. “You’re crying little boy blue, you’ve lost your mommy.” Because we are all like motherless children as boys coming up. Most of those guys don’t have parents. That song was a very touching song, but it never came out. Politics.

  RITA MARLEY: “Little Boy Blue.” Whoosh! That’s a Wailers song! They took it from the Impressions. Oooh! That was one of the things that they would always rehearse in the evening. And it was the harmony just like the Impressions. [It] has an Impressions sound. Because during that time all the Wailers listened to was the Impressions. And the Soulettes would listen to the Supremes. “Little Boy Blue” came from an Impressions song, just like “Keep On Moving.”

  VISION WALKER: It was doing everything for the love of the music. We didn’t really know what it would be like. We were just doing our work. It’s the Rasta vibes, you know, not political. The forces of evil in Jamaica tried to distort Rasta and make us look bad, and we can’t get work, and they say things like “dirty boy from Trench Town.” But it didn’t take form until the man took his covenant [grew his locks].

  ROGER STEFFENS: The imposingly dreadlocked Mortimo Planno was a major Rasta influence in Trench Town at this time. His yard at 35 Fifth Street contained a library of books about Ethiopian history and the Black Power movement, and became a magnet for sufferers and uptown youth as well, often including students from the University of the West Indies. Peter and Bunny were frequent visitors during Bob’s absence and he avidly joined them at Planno’s upon his return, yearning to learn more about the Emperor’s life.

  Marley’s Rasta mentor Mortimo Planno and Vincent “Tata” Ford, alleged composer of “No Woman No Cry,” at the University of Technology in Kingston, July 2001.

  Peter, Bunny, Rita and Vision were present for the most momentous occasion in the troubled history of Rasta’s quest for acceptance, when His Majesty, Haile Selassie I, the Rasta God, came to visit Jamaica during a tour of the Caribbean on April 21, 1966. There was widespread hope among the Jamaican establishment that Selassie would publicly deny the divinity ascribed to him by members of the Rastafarian faith. Rasta elders who met with him claimed that he told them, “I am who you say I am.”

  The reception given Selassie was unprecedented. Rasta camped out for days in advance at the Kingston airport, and the air was ripe with the smoke from thousands of chalices burning the holy herb. When the plane landed, the throng surged past the barriers and struck such fear into Selassie that he remained on board for nearly an hour before Mortimo Planno himself came aboard and urged him to show himself to the crowd. Pictures show Planno in a white robe preceding the Emperor down the gangplank to his ecstatic worshippers.

  Rita Marley’s eyewitness account of this life-changing event came in a private discussion with me in 1991 backstage at a nightclub in Ventura, California.

  RITA MARLEY: Well, it was just a revelation, I see it as a revela
tion that came forth toward a doubtful mind. I was on my way to the airport, right by the cement company, when we heard that the motorcade was on its way, that it had left the airport and was coming, so everybody stood where they were. It was raining, and the sun was shining, and everything was happening. I went to the hairdresser the day before, and my hair was all permed and got wet and I said, “What the hell, why am I wetting up my hair and looking like this, just to see this little man? Who the hell is this man! What’s important about this man, now? I feel stupid.” But then again, another voice say, “No, if you feel that you are out here for being stupid, you are not, you are here for a purpose.” And I say, “Well, the only thing can make me really believe this man symbolize himself with God or could be the returned Messiah or the Jesus Christ who should come in a new name, the only thing is if I see the nail print in his hands.” I was so stubborn because I’d been reading. After we got married and Bob left, all I end up doing was reading and looking forward to either going up to Delaware or Bob coming back.

  When His Majesty’s car reach me it reach a slowdown and the man look right at me and went like this [waves, palm outward]. And then I look, reading eyes, he was talking to me. And I felt a surge of zoom! come through me and I look again, and he went like this [waves] and when I look, in the middle of the man’s hand was the mark of the nail print that I said to myself was the only thing would convince me that this man is what they profess him to be. ’Cause he has not said anything about himself so far but they profess him to be. And I was convinced that this man was the Christ that I’m looking for. And when he waved and I see it, I was like a lamb, I was changed instantly. I mean all my power went somewhere else. The Rita that I knew, by the time I went home, she was gone somewhere else. She was nowhere to be found again.

  Same time I go home and write Bob a long letter, say Bob, something is happening here. Bunny and Peter were quite conscious before, in terms of being black, but there wasn’t any dominant Rasta system in there. They were still pretty young boys, and the thing about not eating pork—Bob would insist, “Rita, don’t eat pork, don’t eat this, you mustn’t eat that.” But he didn’t want me to stop pressing my hair because he figured that it fit me so well, and I must keep doing my hair, but just realize that God is black. But after I see this thing that day, I went back home and I started to read the Bible now, Isaiah, where it tell about the false beauty and the daughters of Zion who walk with a crisp tinkling of the feet, and what’s abomination from. And I said, “Cho! This is a reality.” ’Cause I look back and I said, “I’m gonna have to tell Bob about this.” So I wrote to him, and he wrote back to me to say I’m getting crazy! He said, “You must be getting crazy, Rita!”

  VISION WALKER: We all went to see Selassie, me and Rita and Precious were together, we walk from Trench Town from west to east, Palisadoes Road, the main road, we caught the procession coming around from the ocean. It was like the man turn to us and go so [waves his hand back and forth once, slowly, with great dignity]. That rain got us wet coming in, and it was like we were just walking through the streets with flags waving. This was a special day for us, nobody really believed it. And then, “Look! His Majesty that!” He turned and go so [waves]. I saw the stigmata in his hand too. It was something! Boy, so much things I see. Everyone see something else. I just feel a power, like I see the power in this man. How he turned, like, to us, and just wave like that! That was the mystical thing. They were going by kind of fast, so that’s why it touched us. That week was something to look forward to that Rasta prophesied about all these years, so there was a buildup for it. Men say, “Oh, Rasta God is coming!”

  BUNNY WAILER: I remember it was Friday, April 21, going up to Coxson that morning to get some food money. He had us sitting down for about four hours waiting. Came in. Went away. Came in. Went Away. Me, Peter and Dream, we were waiting on him. I think he gave us three pounds that morning. And we went down to the ghetto, because everybody was getting ready to go and see His Imperial Majesty—all the church people with waving palm leaves, and it was a hell of a thing. It was a great, great occasion for Jamaica. I never seen nothing like that since I heard about when Christ was passing through Palestine and people wave palms. Well, that’s the way it was when King Selassie came in. One look on his face and I was changed. He was the Almighty. You look at the Creator of all things. And everything inside of you changes. It’s like a switch switches on, and one switch is off. Everybody felt that way.

  ROGER STEFFENS: The arrival of Selassie would have a profound effect on Jamaica, on the Rasta faith, and of course on the Wailers. Songs composed in Bob’s absence started to have a much stronger political component. In particular, a song called “Rescue Me,” which wouldn’t surface until later, was inspired by Selassie’s visit.

  BUNNY WAILER: “Rescue Me” was also one of those songs we would be doing in the backyard. Peter did it also on one of his albums in a different way still, but it was that kind of song also, when all those guns were firing in West Kingston, about ’67 when the politics really steamed up, when guns were just introduced, guns were just firing all over the place, anybody could get shot. It wasn’t really aimed at anyone physically, just guns firing. Political motivations. Guys just want to get everybody involved, so it doesn’t matter who you shoot, just shoot somebody and then that somebody would start shooting back at somebody and that was how it really ignited. And when we saw that we decided to sit down and compose a song, that was the Wailers’ job to do, we were like newspapers. That was when His Imperial Majesty had just left [April 1966], that was when the politics started. So you was to notice, we were dealing with His Imperial Majesty to rescue us from these guns, these little youth who were given automatic weapons for reasons we couldn’t even tell.

  ROGER STEFFENS: The explosion of political violence was growing daily, fueled by fears of a Communist takeover of the island. The successful revolution in neighboring Cuba led the U.S. to try to undermine any similar activity in Jamaica. It was in this perilous climate that Bob would return to his homeland, with visions of the Black Power struggle fresh in his mind.

  CHAPTER 7

  Wailers A Go Wail

  R

  OGER STEFFENS: Marley spent about nine months in Delaware, during which time he swept floors in the Hotel du Pont in Wilmington and drove a forklift in the parts department of a Chrysler plant, trying to earn enough money for the Wailers to start their own label and gain control of their careers. His frustration was great after charting hit after hit for the previous two years and reaping no financial rewards. He knew that he and his partners had all the tools necessary for a successful music career: interesting voices, composing chops, a loosely choreographed (and often amusing) stage act and, more and more, lyrics that meant something to their people, enabling them to stir the masses.

  BUNNY WAILER: When Bob returned he went looking for Coxson by himself, without Peter or me, because I was at war with Coxson. Bob and Coxson reasoned, and then Bob came to us and told us that Coxson had asked, “Are you still going to use them?” Bob answered, “What do you mean ‘use them’? You mean them fall off, them not improve? What do you mean?”

  Coxson replied, “Sure, them improve, them improve a lot, but in those two years there, you were in charge, and I want to know if you are still.” So he was trying to influence Bob, saying why bother with them, just come sing now, you, Bob Marley. He didn’t come round straight and say it, but Bob didn’t have any intention of doing that. So Bob just shake him off and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, them still good.” Coxson knew that Bob was aware that there was a war between us, so that if he got sensitive with me, Bob would get turned off. So he went along with it and said, “Yeah, Bob, you can use them, them all right, them improving.”

  When Bob came out and told us that, I said, “Listen, if you a go sing fe Coxson, go on, because this is one time me naw join you. Me naw sing for Coxson no more!” But Bob wanted to do our first session, “Bend Down Low” and “Freedom Time,
” at Studio One. The money for the session came from the little that Bob brought back from America, combined with money that Coxson told us Chris Blackwell had sent him for our record sales in England. Now Blackwell might have given him a hundred thousand pounds but all Coxson gave us was ninety-five pounds, like crumbs falling off a table. And the Wailers took crumbs and turned it into a bread. Simple as that. We just take out some nickels to eat some food and put the rest aside for the record.

  Now that we had our own label, we began to call ourselves the Wailing Wailers. We understood the meaning of the word Wailers some more. We had carried that name as a group of youth who were just searching. But now we found what we were searching for. It’s the people who wail, the wailing ones. For we a wail for the people. We a wail for the oppressed. We a wail for all the people who wail. So we were now the Wailing Wailers.

  We designed a label with our three hands holding one another and called it Wail’n Soul’m. The name came about because Bob married a Soulettes—so the Wailers and the Soulettes were now intertwined, mixed, gone in a blood. And we decided to call the label Wail and Soul Them, but we just shortened it and said Wail’n Soul’m, like Wail dem Soul dem.