ROGER STEFFENS: Survival featured a song written by Sangie Davis called “Wake Up And Live.” In late summer of 2006, Sangie and reggae great Joseph “Culture” Hill visited the Reggae Archives. Davis, who had been a staff producer at Tuff Gong, revealed that he was the composer of the unreleased gems “Babylon Feel This One,” a dub-plate commissioned for the Twelve Tribes Sound System, and “She Used To Call Me Da Da.” For years, as part of my “Life of Bob Marley” multimedia presentations, I had been telling people that “Da Da” was written by Bob about Cindy Breakspeare. This was the story told me by a Wailers band member who had given me the tape in 1988, but, said Sangie, “It isn’t about anybody at all. It’s just something I made up.”
Sangie was given credit on the original Survival cover for cowriting “Wake Up and Live.” He received a small payment upon the album’s release in 1979, but nothing since. His name has been removed from the credits on all subsequent pressings.
During our rollicking afternoon together, Sangie and Joe reminisced about their early days in Kingston, keeping us in stitches. The most surprising revelation was that one of Bob’s most militant songs was inspired by a popular Jamaican morning-after remedy. Sangie recounted how, at the end of February 1978, a few days after Bob’s return from his fourteen-month exile, his wife woke him from a deep slumber. “Sangie!” she called. “There’s somebody outside who keeps shouting your name.” Clad in his pajamas, Sangie opened the gate, to discover Bob Marley standing there beside a yellow VW bus. “Rastafari!” Sangie yelled, and embraced his friend. “You get your taxi license yet, Sangie?” asked Bob. “Yeah, mon, just two days ago.” “Mek you come and drive me nuh.” And the two roared off down the road, heading to Nine Mile despite Sangie’s casual ensemble.
“So, wha’ you a write?” Bob wanted to know. “Well, brother” said Sangie, “me have this lickle tune but me not have no chorus yet.” So he began to sing a song about how life is one big road with lots of signs, and not to complicate your mind and put your vision to reality. “But I don’t have a hook for it yet.” After repeating the verse five or six times, they found themselves passing the factory of Andrews Liver Salts, which was dominated by a giant billboard for their product. “What’s that?” I asked. Culture laughed and said, “That’s for when you stay out all night and, you know, get over hang.” “Him mean hangover,” laughed Sangie.
“And up there,” Sangie continued, “on the top of the sign, with a drunk guy on the left and the guy ‘cured’ on the right, were huge letters saying, ‘Wake Up and Live!’ ”
“And they had this commercial,” said Joseph, as Sangie started to sing it, sounding tired and tipsy. “Bwoi me party haaaaaahd last night!” And, in another voice, “What you tek?” And the hungover fellow says, “Andrews Liver Salts.” And then, all languid and syrupy, Joseph drawls their slogan, “Nooooo spooooooon neeeee-ded.”
The song itself was destined to be one of Bob’s final anthems, designed for show- or set-ending crowd-skanking sing-alongs, especially in its extended admonishment to “RISE!! Ye mighty people!”
When the recordings were completed, Neville Garrick took on the job of designing the cover.
NEVILLE GARRICK: Survival was the one I liked the most, and that was the one they promoted the least. It was originally called Black Survival. The decision to remove “Black” from the title, I think it really came from all of us for commercial reasons in one way—that Black Survival might alienate people, saying that, “Well then, it’s a record only for black people so we’re not gonna buy it.” OK? So, it was for me, now, to still say “Black Survival” without writing the words. That was my concept of saying “Africa Unite” by using all the independent flags of Africa on the cover. Then I said, “How do I represent Jamaica, and Trinidad, and the black people in America and Brazil? Which flags do you use for that?” Then I said, “But we all left through slavery.” So the slave ships represent the blacks outside of Africa.
On the back cover we have the Wailers cooking over a rock fire. This was survival—some people cooking and getting ready in army fatigues really. Yeah, this is more than aircraft mechanics or army fatigues. Fancy themselves probably as parachutists, and they were cooking. Basically they were saying a survival scene. They’re getting some food, and then they’re going out to fight.
The object that looks like a beehive is not a beehive. This is the ruins—this is what is called Zimbabwe. This is the original town of Zimbabwe. Many people who go to Africa say black people couldn’t build things like this, it was too intricate. The Romans, the Phoenicians passed through and taught them, or something like that. There is one of the wonders of Zimbabwe. You have to see this when you go down. So this is the Zimbabwe ruins. And beneath, there is a Masai warrior and his wife, and actually this is from the first painting that I ever really sold in California, to the director of the Afro-American Studies Center, Arthur Simms. It was from this. It was for me like pulling it from the past and dropping it there. And the next image was His Majesty during the Italian invasion in Ethiopia—His Majesty behind the machine gun really showing resistance. And on the top is the symbol of the OAU—Africa Unite. And the next is a shot of Bob Marley from the Rastaman Vibration campaign.
JUDY MOWATT: The Survival album is precious to me because if you listen to the lyrical contents on that title song it tells you everything that is happening in the world, the system that we’re up against. It expresses everything that is happening, and how we should be guided. Like, Bob declares in the song, “In this world that hold lifelong insecurity, nuclear misenergy.” And it’s a world that forces lifelong insecurity. And then you can really see why the people are on so much drugs, why some people just decide to kill, because they are insecure. Is a world that forces lifelong insecurity, and then he goes along to tell you the detours from that type of life, and shows you where you can find peace and where you can find your outlet for your everlasting freedom.
ROGER STEFFENS: With the album completed, the group embarked on an ambitious thirty-two-show late autumn tour of North America. This included a four-night stand at Harlem’s legendary Apollo Theater, upon whose stage Marcus Garvey had once preached, making it a very special event for Marley personally. The tour ended on December 15 in Nassau, Bahamas, with the Year of the Rasta Child concert.
At the end of 1979, my new partner Hank Holmes and I had just begun the Reggae Beat show on KCRW, and Bob Marley was our first musical guest. [Jeff Walker, his former publicist, had been our first industry guest a few weeks before.] We had been on the air a mere six weeks and were then the only reggae show in L.A., so Bob’s publicity people asked if Hank and I would “mind going on the road with Bob” for two weeks. I was beside myself with excitement.
The first show turned out to be a disappointment. Stuck in the upper tiers of the cavernous, echoing Pauley Pavilion, UCLA’s cavernous basketball arena, we couldn’t even make out the songs that Bob was playing, so distorted was the sound. He still had the presence, though, that was obvious—especially when a huge, burly man jumped onstage from the audience and fell on his belly, holding tightly to Bob’s legs. For what seemed the longest time, no one did anything, until finally security guards pulled the man off and hustled him outside.
The next show was in San Diego, and Hank and I rode down the coast on the bus through Babylon with Bob. Don Taylor, Marley’s manager (with whom he seemed to be in constant argument), told all the reporters present not to talk to Bob because “he needs to rest.” Imagine the mix of feelings when Bob came toward us and sat opposite, one aisle back.
As we drove out of L.A. some kind of dispute broke out between Bob and Taylor. “Drive your Benz, Taylor,” Bob spat. Down the aisle came Taylor, leaning into him: “Bob, don’t embarrass me in front of the press.” Bob sneered and repeated, “Drive your Benz!” Bob was mocking Taylor’s flaunting of the wealth he had gained through managing Bob.
The pressures upon Bob were readily apparent, and you can see the stress on his face in many of Bruce Ta
lamon’s pictures in our book Spirit Dancer. The cancer was coursing unchecked through his bloodstream, eventually finding new homes in his lungs and brain, and he seemed a shell of the man we had met the year before. I remember we drove by San Clemente, and I pointed out Nixon’s house, on a bluff surrounded by enormous signal towers and a shabby helipad. Bob’s only comment was, “What year him president?”
That evening’s venue proved to be another disappointment, as the bass bounced off the boards of the San Diego Sports Arena, and I despaired of ever hearing Bob in decent surroundings. It was the problem of his becoming so big: small clubs were mostly out of the question now. But the audience seemed pleased with the show. On the way home, the band jammed in the back of the bus, guitarist Al Anderson beating time with drumsticks on the bathroom door. I remember writing an article for the new L.A. Weekly about the trip, and commenting that the band members and touring party seemed a surprisingly healthy lot by rock and roll standards, eating only ital food and pausing often, mid-puff, to give thanks and praises to Selassie I. When we got back to L.A. the straight-looking middle-aged bus driver told me that he loved driving Marley “because every time the band gets off the bus, I get to sweep up, and they leave behind about a half a pound of roaches!”
A few days later Bob played what would prove to be his final show in L.A., a benefit for the Sugar Ray Robinson Foundation at the Roxy. We were invited along for the sound check, and Hank and I and our wives sat virtually alone in the club for three hours while Bob played all the instruments and Family Man Barrett went up into the little sound booth just above the stage and balanced everything. I was impressed by a new tune that he was working on, something about redemption, which he sang over and over and over again that day. Think of it: five months into a world tour, assuredly a superstar, Bob still managed the sound check almost all by himself, painstakingly ensuring that everything would be perfect for this important audience of music business and Hollywood heavies. It would be the last time I ever saw him.
CHAPTER 30
From the Apollo to Gabon
R
OGER STEFFENS: Survival was released in late 1979 to mixed reviews. A New York reviewer called it “the album of the year,” another pronounced it “a triumph, with Bob’s best material in years.” Yet many British reviewers were fierce in their denunciation, using words like “undynamic” and “lethargic.” Another said that Marley had “become another ageing rock star living off an illustrious past.” Bob himself told a Philadelphia writer that it was the album he liked best, because its message was “more forceful.” One of the album’s biggest fans was John Lennon. Photographer Bob Gruen revealed that Survival was one of the only records the ex-Beatle played during his five-year house-husband exile in the Dakota building in New York. “Babylon system is the vampire,” Bob sang with renewed vehemence, words far from the dismal pop of the end-of-decade rock world. Yet despite its brilliance, Island gave the record scant promotion, and its sales were not impressive.
To support the album, a tour was arranged, with the band expanding to nine members, now including a horn section, to broaden the sound for the larger venues the group was increasingly booking. The massive touring party provided an opportunity for some unscrupulous dealings among its members, particularly manager Don Taylor, who created a travel agency just so he could take an extra slice from the Wailers’ airline tickets and other expenses.
Close observers on the 1979 tour noticed that Bob’s energy seemed diminished; the strain of a life of constant motion, little sleep, and myriad pressures was evident. Meanwhile, the threat of cancer lurked in the shadows, unknown to all but his closest confidants.
Bob’s tour-mate on Survival’s American dates was not a reggae artist. At the age of sixteen, American R & B child star Betty Wright had played in Jamaica with Byron Lee, King Stitt and Judy Mowatt. Nine years later, following her massive 1978 hit “Clean Up Woman,” the Miami-born soul singer was chosen to open for Bob, who hoped she could draw a blacker audience to his shows. The fact that Don Taylor was her manager, taking a percentage of her fee each night, helped cement the gig for her.
BETTY WRIGHT: I was very familiar with Bob by the time I had heard his music. As a matter of fact, I was drenched with Bob Marley music because Noel Williams, who was a dear friend of mine at the time, who we call King Sporty, was a childhood friend of Bob’s. And not only a comrade, but musician, friend, like a brother. And he always would re-record Bob’s music. In those days, because there wasn’t a real market in America for roots reggae, Sporty would put just a little bit of something else into the music and unlike playing straight-out reggae, he had reggae, but he had something different. I never really have been able to explain it in words. But when you compare songs, you hear Bob’s and you hear Sporty’s, but you know that Sporty’s was geared to an American audience. And he’d cut the same records: “Concrete Jungle” and different ones. But it would always be a Bob Marley song.
Regarding my going on the road with Bob, let me say first of all that at the time I was very bronchial, as far as the smoke. So in order to get to my dressing room at the Apollo, what I used to do, I used to wet two towels and wrap them around my entire face and just try to breath through the towels to get upstairs. Because you know when you’re at the Apollo and you’re like the opening act, you’re like on the hundredth floor. No, I mean, you’re like the fifth floor! It’s way up. And I had to pass through to get there. And smoke rises! And it came right up to me! So, I mean, I would be red-eyed and I’d be praying, I said, “Lord, I can’t breathe, and I need to sing,” and I’d be choking. Eventually, one night I prayed and I was like, “I’m gonna overcome this.” And I just prayed, I said, “Whatever the offense is in it, I gotta be around it. I’m working, I’m gigging. Thanks be to God I have a job, and I’m gonna learn to walk through this.” And it didn’t bother me anymore. It was like I tuned it out. ’Cause it was more like I knew it was coming. It’s like, you see smoke, it’s like, “Here it comes.” A cloud!
“Buffalo Soldier” composer and producer King Sporty at his studio in Miami, February 1995.
The band, they all were so friendly and so helpful to me, and the I Three—at the time Marcia I think was pregnant. But Rita and Judy, and everybody was just really getting along. And that’s what I really loved about that tour. We had none of the bitter strife and envying that goes on on a lot of tours. But they were very, very kind, and I always believe that you get love and give love and some people don’t have the capacity to give as much love as you. But I say we got love for love. And Bob began to open up more.
ROGER STEFFENS: The Apollo gigs ran over four nights in October 1979. Eight shows were scheduled, but only one was held on the opening night because of the chaos in the surrounding streets, with throngs seeking tickets.
BETTY WRIGHT: Bob was drawing an audience that I wanted to get to, and I was drawing an audience that he wanted to get to. And one of the places, the people cheered so loud the windows broke! Maple Leaf Garden in Toronto, a hockey rink, it was incredible.
The good part was, everyone was getting along, and Bob was really nice. You know, we’d sit down and he wanted to talk about him and Sporty when they were kids. And he began to tell me, “Talk to me about your man.” And I thought he meant, talk to him about my husband at the time. And Bob said, “No, no, no, your man. Sporty is your man!” I said, “No-ooo-ooo. No! That’s my friend! That’s my friend.” But what was happening, he was prophesying. Because he said that to me in ’79. And then 1984, I began to date Sporty. And in ’85 we were united. So, it was the most incredible prophecy.
After my set I’d stand by the speakers. I had never seen this before. To be on tour with Teddy Pendergrass was like watching women faint from the sexuality aspect. But I had never seen the power of a prophet mystify people and make them pass out. I stood by the speaker and he would point some kind of way with his finger and throw his head back and folks would faint! They would just be caught up, mystified. I’d look at the aud
ience, and you find yourself getting caught up. I was trying not to watch Bob, I was trying to watch them. And if I ever looked at him, I could never look back at the audience, so I would purposely walk to the side of the speaker and begin to look at the audience. ’Cause once you looked, you’re hooked. And he was so unrehearsed, almost want to say sloppy. Just fall out there, just mash up people. And I said this man is so bad, he is just tough, he just walk out there in that little fatigue, no flash, no jewelry, one little ring I think he wore on the middle finger. You know, nothin’, man! No bombs bursting in air, no pigeons flying, people swinging from trees, just pure little music man. Music man! Jamming with his guitar, singing Zion song.
Bob lived to be a king. From very shabby, humble beginnings, but to be able to go and sing his songs all over the world. And I remember his energy. That dance! Oh!
ROGER STEFFENS: One inspiration for that boundless energy was discovered during the Apollo shows by hornsman Dave Madden. In his forthcoming memoir, fellow saxophonist Glen DaCosta described the devastating effects of Marley’s private elixir.
GLEN DACOSTA: And then there was the matter of “Bob’s special jug,” which remains mysterious to me to this day. David Madden and myself, as hornsmen, we’re always close buddies, and we’d share whatever we could whenever—food, whatever—and we got in late for a show and decided to raid the Wailers’ fridge. So I had some orange juice (I think) but David went for the more, shall we say, “exciting” drink. It was Bob’s jug of—whatever it was, I don’t know. Something he took to get onstage, a blended drink especially prepared for Bob.
David had a glass full of Bob’s drink and immediately realized it had a very negative effect on him. Onstage, David is always the most responsible and focused musician all the time. He’s very thorough and he does a good job so when he was feeling the effects of the drink and told me, “Glen, if I’m making any mistakes tell me,” I was truly shocked. I couldn’t believe what was happening.
So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley Page 34
