COXSON DODD: He even went as far as—this is how McCalla died, he was found in his bathtub with his throat slit.
ROGER STEFFENS: A subsequent pressing was released by CBS, despite Coxson’s attempts to prevent it. Promotional materials claimed that the album contained the original master tapes with no overdubs.
COXSON DODD: I doubt that, because I brought back the original tapes and left CBS with the overdubbing. I’ve never collected a penny in my life from CBS. This is so sticky, because I had a lawyer working here with them, but Chris finally got to them. Because it seem as if Chris would prefer to really do something under the table instead of coming up front. Instead of really taking this chicken feed that Chris and Trojan really want to offer I prefer to let the world know what is happening and leave the rest to God.
ROGER STEFFENS: Marley was beginning to make serious money, and vultures circled more frequently. But there was a tour to do, and Marley spent most of his energy preparing for it. During the American leg, his mother, who had left Jamaica in 1962, saw Bob on stage for the first time ever, in Philadelphia. It was one of the very few shows in which Bob spoke between several of the songs, motivated no doubt by the presence of his extended family.
CEDELLA BOOKER: Philadelphia, 1976, that was my first sight of seeing Bob perform. It start from the house in Delaware, he sent a limousine to pick us up. It was around ten of my family, my sisters, my brother, my nieces. And on the way going on, I just feel, to go and listen to my son perform and everybody so excited about it, you hear them a talking all over, I tell you I was excited myself! Oh my, that night, it bring joys, it bring tears, everything really. When I sit there and look at Bob, according to the glaze of the light, they put that light on him, when I see sweat running down it looked to me like blood! He was highly in the spirit.
ROGER STEFFENS: Bob was indeed becoming more spiritual, influenced by Skill Cole, who was now an official with the Rasta organization known as the Twelve Tribes. They believed that the people of the world were divided among twelve tendencies of mankind, indicated by the house or month in which they were born. Bob, born in February, was in the House of Joseph. On the back cover of the Rastaman Vibration album is written, “Joseph is a fruitful bough.”
NEVILLE GARRICK: Yes, yes, yes! But it does not necessarily indicate his coming out in support of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Skill Cole was one of Bob’s very close friends. Skill was in the Twelve Tribes, and Bob, because of closeness with Skill, was more dealing with other of Skill’s bredren who were in the Twelve Tribes. But Bob always dealt with every group in Jamaica who were dealing with Rastafari business.
ROGER STEFFENS: The quote went on to say, “The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him.” Soon after the group’s return from the 1976 tour there would be a dramatic attempt on Marley’s life. Some saw the biblical quotation as prophetic.
NEVILLE GARRICK: Bob called for a meeting of all the different houses of Rastafari to meet at Hope Road, and really get together, because he wasn’t dealing with this division business, like Presbyterians and Mormons, and all that, because we’re not about that. And the same day, a queen bee flew into Hope Road and the beehive is still there! Bees are a symbol of wealth and prosperity. So, as I say, is prophecy.
CHAPTER 20
Ambush in the Night
R
OGER STEFFENS: Bob’s life came within inches of ending on December 3, 1976, when a carload of assassins drove into a suddenly unguarded Tuff Gong at 56 Hope Road and opened fire on everyone in sight. The Smile Jamaica concert, headlined by Marley, was to take place two nights later, and the atmosphere in the city was tense and filled with violence.
Charles Campbell, a PNP government official in 1976, told me at the Reggae Sun Ska Festival in France in 2011 that it was he who had come up with the idea six months earlier, in June of that year, for a kind of concert of national unity. He wanted Bob and others to perform in a free public event. Others have claimed that it was Bob himself who approached the government for permission to do such an event.
Author Stephen Davis wrote one of the first, and best, biographies of Marley and studied the shooting extensively.
STEPHEN DAVIS: Stevie Wonder had done a concert the previous year in aid of blind children in Jamaica. Bob wanted to do something like that, a benefit concert. It was set up for the National Heroes Park. It had no political overtones, except, of course, the fact that there was a huge battle for the soul of the nation; it was an election year. And Bob had supported the PNP in the past. Then Manley called for elections right after the concert was announced, so it would look like, at the height of the battle for Jamaica, that Bob Marley and the Wailers would appear to support the PNP. Now obviously, to do a concert like that, it might be a bit naive to say that there was no politics involved in this in the beginning. Because even to mount a small concert in Kingston, you had to have approval of the government. To do a large concert like Bob wanted to do, it all had to be done almost directly through the prime minister’s office. So there was politics involved from the beginning. So for all intents and purposes, and indeed appearances, it looked like this was a benefit for the People’s National Party, which was Michael Manley’s party.
ROGER STEFFENS: Jeff Walker was the West Coast director of publicity for Island Records, based in the label’s Hollywood headquarters and responsible for all publicity for Bob as well as all of the Wailers and Island’s other reggae artists. He and his wife, photographer Kim Gottlieb-Walker, spent a great deal of time in Jamaica in 1975 and 1976. I devoted an entire four-hour Reggae Beat broadcast to the Smile Jamaica events in 1985, and interviewed both Stephen Davis and Jeff Walker on it.
JEFF WALKER: Although there were efforts made on the Wailers’ part to divorce it from politics, it was specifically announced as co-sponsored by the Ministry of Culture. Bob was conscious that it could be interpreted politically. I think there was a certain amount of that he was willing to go along with. But he did not want to be swept into something where he was going to be used. The lineup was not just Marley. It was a lineup of the top bands of the time. So it was An Event. And I believe that the political forces, more or less, were behind the scenes and manipulating that event into something that might, they thought, be helpful in the long run. The elections were announced after the concert was already set and there was no way Bob at that point could say, “I’m gonna cancel the concert,” because then it would be interpreted politically.
ROGER STEFFENS: The name of the concert would be Smile Jamaica, taken from a recent Bob Marley hit. Artist Neville Garrick did uncredited backing vocals on the tune.
NEVILLE GARRICK: I know of two versions of the song, a fast one and a slow one. I remember one he did with Lee Perry, which was the faster one. Sometimes Bob made songs for the Jamaican market, for there, how the people pick up sound there. And then the other one we made was not at Lee Perry’s four-track studio: it was at a multitrack studio, probably Dynamic, the international “Smile Jamaica.” Something that we feel had more refinement there. Almost calypso. It was just widening the audience. One was for a specific audience, and one was for the world. And remember when “Smile Jamaica” was released, what happened after that—Bob was shot.
ROGER STEFFENS: Some people thought it was a simple tourist song. Others felt that what Bob was saying was, “Hey, buddy, you better smile! Smile, you’re in Jamaica, dread!” It’s more of a threat.
NEVILLE GARRICK: Not even more than a threat. Is a time Jamaica is into a lot of political and economical problems, at the time, the ’76 elections. And Bob was always speaking to the problems of the people. I’m not saying that he was saying, “Smile, it’s cool.” Because if you listen to the song, he says, “Pour some water in the well,” you know like drought, we need help. But as long as you’re here, try and smile. You’re in Jamaica, do it with a smile, but move ahead. “Hey, natty dread, flash your dread and smile!” Don’t screw them. Like everybody say, “Oh, [in] all the songs, Bob is a prophet of
doom, and Bob is just saying, ‘Boy, it’s going to get real bad.’ ” So this was really uplifting for the time. A lot of people saw it differently and figured this was a sellout. He did it for the government to promote tourism or something. But it wasn’t about that. In fact, it would be the best thing to use now, I feel, within a tourism thing, to say it. Because I even suggested one time, I said, “Why don’t you have that at the airport—‘Smile, you’re in Jamaica’?” It would be great for the first thing you hear when you get there, and start playing some Bob Marley records when you’re in Jamaica, instead of Connie Francis and Nancy Sinatra.
ROGER STEFFENS: The Smile Jamaica concert was meant to give people a positive sign that Rastafari was a way to unite them for a better life. Many others besides Charles Campbell and the PNP were involved in organizing the event. Bob’s recent connection to the Twelve Tribes branch of Rastafari was cemented by his friendship with people like his football hero Skill Cole and keyboardist Pablove Black, who were key members of the Twelve Tribes.
Black, Rasta elder, acclaimed Studio One player and bandleader, medical student and healer, would arrive at his friend Bob Marley’s side shortly after he was shot, and would spend the next two tumultuous days with him. In 1998, for the first time, Pablove Black gave an eyewitness account at the Reggae Archives in L.A. of that historic weekend. He began by explaining the importance of the Twelve Tribes at the time of “Smile Jamaica,” acknowledging the danger for musicians of being associated with either political party.
PABLOVE BLACK: Twelve Tribes run music business in Jamaica! Because we was the only ones who hold the culture. Everybody else had switched [to us], even Bob had to become part of we. But three months before the election I don’t do anything for any politician on any side ’cause you get marked. Me just say I’m not doing that show [the Smile Jamaica concert], and them carry it to a brother named “Scree” Bertram, Arnold Bertram, who was a government minister. We know him from calypso days. Him used to run music and him carry it now as the government man, and start print up poster. Before Bob agree to do a concert, them a print poster with him [on it]. But every time them call, him say, “Me never make no arrangement fe do no show fe oonoo [all of you], you know.” ’Cause them did print it fe go on at Jamaica House [the prime minister’s residence]. And him say him not going to do it there, him no want it connect him now with that political party [then-prime minister Michael Manley’s PNP]. And them move it now down to the Heroes Park Circle. But up to the night before the show, nobody no know if him a go do the show or not.
ROGER STEFFENS: Dr. Gayle McGarrity, a keen political observer, explained Marley’s political leanings at the time.
GAYLE McGARRITY: He was always seen as, and I think was considered by most who knew him well, as being more on the PNP than the Labourite, i.e. JLP side, as he had lived in Trench Town, and Trench Town was always more PNP. That was the way it was in a society in which tribal politics and warfare was the norm. But he did have some friends in Tivoli Gardens, which is JLP turf. I remember some of those really seedy characters that would hang out at Hope Road, like Tek Life. Lovely name, right? I remember a lot of those guys being Labourites, and, in fact, a lot of people feel that was why he ended up being shot up at 56 Hope Road, because he had both the Labourites and the socialists hanging around there, and it was easy for people to know his movements.
Now, many of the uptown people that Bob started to associate with are people I grew up with. The uptown social elite circle was, in those days, a small one. I’m not being a hypocrite, but many of these Jamaicans were essentially fascists. These were people who did not think twice about shooting to death black trespassers on their estates, secure in the knowledge that they would never even be charged with a crime, let alone serve time in Jamaica’s notorious prisons. We’re talking now about the really ugly side of white–brown Jamaican society—the very Babylon that moved Bob to take up his lyrical ammunition to destroy. And the fact that Bob was beginning to mingle, albeit probably to a limited degree, within these circles, was probably a reflection of his love for Cindy.
I noticed him beginning to make different kinds of decisions about how to spend his spare time, which was precious to him as he was always very disciplined and hardworking. I overheard some white Jamaican uptown types talking in Jamaican patois about how Bob was going to be made to pay for hanging out with this white girl. And when I told him, Bob just laughed. He said, “You know, I never thought of you as the type to be jealous and I-man no fear no one. Jah protect I.” But I continued trying to convince him of my fears, saying, “You know, they’re talking about this and that.” He would just brush it off, with comments like, “Miss World! I could have Miss Universe!” But I kept on trying to tell him what those who simply wanted him to disappear were saying. It was only about a week after the last time that Bob and I spoke about such matters that the assassination attempt at 56 occurred, so the whole thing began to feel very scary to me, too, and I didn’t want to be caught in the middle.
ROGER STEFFENS: It wasn’t just Dr. McGarrity who was feeling the scary vibes. Norman St. John Hamilton was the manager in 1976 of the I Three and solo star Marcia Griffiths.
NORMAN ST. JOHN HAMILTON: Although Bob Marley’s music was an integral part of my life and “uplift-bring-ment,” I never met him until the summer of 1976. It was after his concert at the Beacon Theater in New York City while he was on the Rastaman Vibration tour. The “natural mystic” that evolved from the stage that most memorable night changed my life forever. My plans to attend the London School of Economics to pursue a law degree were dashed; I became manager to Marcia Griffiths and thereby became intimately involved in the business of reggae.
Bob and I had a mutual respect for each other—as did Don Taylor, Bob’s manager. I stayed out of their business; they stayed out of mine. I set up Marcia’s tours without conflicting with Bob’s, with one exception. When I learned that then-Prime Minister Manley had insisted that Bob do a concert in Heroes Park, Kingston, I was very apprehensive, I smelled trouble. I told Marcia that I had scheduled her for two shows, Friday and Saturday night of that weekend. I told her she had to come to New York on Wednesday for rehearsals. Reluctantly she arrived on Thursday, stating Bob’s annoyance that I had never created a conflict before.
I explained to her there was no show arranged and I wanted her out of Jamaica because I was afraid for her safety. She was relieved and mentioned that she dreamed “that a hen was walking with three chicks; someone was throwing stones which hit the hen and one of the chicks.” The rest is history. One of the victims at Hope Road that night was a young man named Griffiths, no relation to Marcia.
ROGER STEFFENS: Friday, December 3, dawned hot and humid. Members of the Wailers Band gathered at Tuff Gong late that afternoon to rehearse for the upcoming concert.
STEPHEN DAVIS: Tuff Gong House was an old tropical mansion on Hope Road which is in uptown Kingston, and it was owned for years by a Mrs. Gough. She was apparently a very interesting woman who was a white Jamaican lady who was married to a black Jamaican man, and apparently ostracized by Kingston’s white community for that transgression. So she sold it to Chris Blackwell. It became a set of flats where a lot of people I knew, like Dickie Jobson, lived as apartment dwellers, until Bob sort of took it over around 1974. Now it has a big concrete block wall around it that Rita Marley built. But then it just had a sort of iron gate around it. It was fairly accessible, anybody who really wanted to drive in could just drive in. And it had a big mango tree in the back. And the front yard was paved. It was a large place. It must have had a dozen bedrooms; it was that big. Just a big tropical mansion. At that point, Don Taylor had taken out the sash windows and put in sort of louvered windows to replace them. The whole place had been gutted and was being rebuilt.
ROGER STEFFENS: The openness of Tuff Gong House was well known. Musicians and others would come and go at all hours.
PABLOVE BLACK: The week before I see two guys come to Tuff Gong, come a Hope Road, and me
know two gun-hawks [hit men]. Them come the week before. One of them never know it was me, and him come in and say, “Wha’ppen Bob?” And the next one a draw him away. But the next one know me and him say, “Wha’ you a do here?” Me say, “Wha’ you a mean? Me is a musician, you know. Me there anyway.” After the two of them leave me feel a cold spirit, and me just take me time come out and walk go up Hope Road, walk up to Twelve Tribes. And from that, me never go back there.
JUDY MOWATT: I had a vision a few days before the shooting. Marcia left; she didn’t feel too good about that concert. Like she had a premonition that something could happen, or she heard something and she left the island. Rita and myself had been going to rehearsals. So one night I went to my bed and I dreamt that this rooster, it was a rooster with three chickens, and the rooster got shot, and the shot ricocheted and damaged two of the chickens. I even saw like one of the chicken’s tripe inside, the intestines come out. And I didn’t like it, and I told it to Rita and Rita knew about it. But we were looking out for something. Because usually, how the Africa woman understands, a lot of times we depend on our dreams. We know that when you dream, if it’s not so, it’s close to what it is. So we were expecting something to happen. And then again, I went to my bed. I never mentioned this—but I went to my bed again and I saw in the newspaper where Bob sang that song “Smile Jamaica” and that was the song that created a controversy because of certain lyrics that he had in it that was like a then political slogan: Regardless, you control your state of being, so smile, because the power’s ours. The victory’s ours.
So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley Page 23
