His true history is much more complex. He received his MD in 1932 and went to work for a Catholic hospital, which demanded he become a member of the Nazi Party and suggested he join the SS to advance his career. Though he described himself as “politically uninterested,” he resigned from the SS in 1938 when he was ordered to stop treating Jewish patients. He subsequently spent time as a prisoner of war in Russia.
The German medical establishment sought to shut down his clinic in 1960, and he spent three months in prison before being acquitted of all charges in 1964. The outcome of the trial paved the way for immunobiologic treatments to be allowed in Germany. According to his wife, the Issels cancer treatment achieved complete long-term tumor remissions of advanced standard therapy-resistant cancers, and patients led cancer-free lives for many years. In 2000 the Italian reggae writer Marco Virgona interviewed Ilse Marie Issels.
ILSE MARIE ISSELS: In the first months of treatment Bob Marley improved considerably and was again able to play football for fun. This helped, of course, to be optimistic and he also saw other seriously ill patients getting better. He took long hikes in our beautiful mountains and seemed to have fun, in spite of the disease and its treatment. His private physician/friend was always present and Bob Marley was during all the time surrounded by family and friends. Everybody adored him. The inhabitants of our town were proud to have Bob Marley staying with us.
Dr. Issels knew about the tremendous importance of the mind and soul in the development and in the cure of disease—any disease. He tried to teach his patients forgiveness—the first step towards healing. Cleansing the mind and the body, to give the inner physician a chance. Medical doctors and medications are only tools to help the body help itself. These convictions he talked to his patients about and he did the same with Bob Marley. I know one thing: that it was a relationship of respect and trust. Dr. Issels respected highly Bob Marley as a person, his convictions, for what he stood in life, his purpose in life for which he fought. They had many long talks not only about medical subjects, but about life, religion, his music and art.
DANNY SIMS: The problem with Dr. Issels’s Bavarian clinic is that it’s so cold there. I was in the army for two years in Germany. I can tell you that I come out of Chicago where it’s really cold, but Germany and Austria was colder than that for a long time. And they didn’t have sufficient heating. And Allan went with Bob. I had to work, I was busy during that period, I couldn’t go there to stay with him. I never went there.
CINDY BREAKSPEARE: I was there for three weeks in the early part of the year that he died. It was heartbreaking, you know. But some of the brethren were there. Skill was there. Pee Wee was there. But it wasn’t a happy time, and I don’t think anybody really wanted to be there. Well, naturally not, least of all poor Bob. And by then it had begun to affect the side of his face, and the use of his arm, and what have you. And I mean, when you see someone that you love, who has been so vital and so incredibly healthy and physical, physically fit and loving, to be that way, I mean somebody who believes in exercising every day whether it was running, football, some light weights, just love to be fit. And when you see pictures of Bob without his shirt you can see how fit he was. There’s not an ounce of fat anywhere. It was just dreadful to watch him deteriorate like that. And I mean, it wasn’t only hard for me alone. I’m sure it was hard for everyone who knew him and cared for him.
ROGER STEFFENS: Bob had played frequently in Germany. His final concert there, in Dortmund, was indoors in front of a sold-out crowd of sixteen thousand, whose minute-long chant of “Mar-ley, Mar-ley” shook the walls of the building at the end of his opening set. Stefan Paul had filmed that concert, and his appearance at Sunsplash in 1979.
STEFAN PAUL: Bob had learned of this German doctor in New York, Josef Issels. We knew Issels’s son in Germany, his son studied with my producer’s son. So we organized that Bob could come to Bavaria. Every second weekend we would come to see him and bring 16mm film cans filled with herb. He arrived in late October looking completely weak and sick. I remember a period of time in February of ’81 when there was tons of snow. They hated the snow. He had sort of recovered and was playing soccer in the snow, and they were talking about touring in March and April, so it was somehow healing. He did fine for two weeks despite his loss of dreadlocks.
We showed him Sunsplash ’79 in a theater, and he was covered in rugs. He hadn’t seen his kids in quite a while. He laughed a lot at the film. He couldn’t believe how he danced on stage. We had almost no lights to shoot by, so we had focused on him and Rita. We had the chance to talk to Bob more, but out of respect we never filmed him in Bavaria. We had been glad to come along as friends, and this was such an exorbitant time.
ROGER STEFFENS: American reggae singer Zema, a longtime resident of Los Angeles, found herself in the Bavarian clinic where Bob was being treated at the start of his stay there. She spoke about that experience in 1998.
ZEMA: As Jah would destine, back in November 1980, my mother was receiving cancer treatments at the Issels clinic in the mountain resort town of Rotach-Egern, Germany, when Bob Marley arrived there. She knew I liked Bob’s music and sent me an article on him from a German newspaper that basically said he was the “Rock Superstar of the Third World” who in June had performed to tens of thousands of people in Germany, playing guitar and singing for freedom for people of color. The article stated he was critically ill with metastasized lung cancer to be treated by Dr. Issels when cancer specialists in the U.S. couldn’t help him.
In February 1981, I went for ten days to visit my mom and be on Issels’s anti-cancer program. As with most alternative medicine, Issels’s program was no picnic. By the time most people came to this clinic they had failed treatment elsewhere and were thin and weak from the ravages of chemotherapy, radiation and their disease. Unfortunately, Bob was quite ill and really only spoke when he was spoken to.
The first time I saw him was when he came into the clinic towards the waiting room. He had just gotten his tonsils out, which was part of the program. He was weak from that and was just kind of bouncing off the wall. He had lost his locks and had a knit cap half on in typical roots style. He wasn’t there long before he was called to see the doctor.
The clinic was nearly always full. It was hard to get scheduled for these ultraviolet light treatments, where light was focused to part of your body for about forty-five minutes. One night when there was hardly anyone in the clinic, Bob’s Jamaican doctor had made arrangements to administer these light treatments to Bob and two other patients. On the third floor, there were three beds in the treatment room with half-dividers between so you could see the head of the person next to you. I was next to Bob and asked him how he was coping with everything, since Dr. Issels emphatically told me, “No marijuana! No marijuana!” It’s been so long now and I don’t remember his exact words, but he said he remembered Jamaica. It was almost like he was in a trance. He spoke slow and pensive and described the beauty of Jamaica—the white sand beaches, the warm sun. He spoke with such feeling and love for Jamaica, he made you feel like you were right there in Jamaica even though there was three feet of snow outside.
It was Bob’s birthday, February 6, during that time and they invited people at the clinic to a birthday party at their apartment. Before a lot of people arrived, he came into the room and we started to talk a little. My mom had told him I was a musician and when that came up, he told Mrs. Booker to bring out guitars. She hurried off and brought two guitars. He started to play one and I picked up the other. Bob didn’t play very long or very loud, maybe a half hour, just jamming. Everyone seemed really glad that he was playing the guitar and I got the impression he wasn’t doing much of that anymore. Also present that evening were Rita, Tyrone Downie, Bob’s friend Bird, as well as the ever-present yardies. They had a cake that said “Happy Birthday Reggae King,” but I remember they spelled “reggae” wrong. Unfortunately a lot of the time he was in bed in the next room. It wasn’t long after that when Jah took Bob hom
e. He had a presence even then, when the illness had reduced him to a fraction of what he had been. He seemed so vulnerable and out of his element.
ROGER STEFFENS: In late April 1981, Edward Seaga, newly elected prime minister of Jamaica, called Bob in Germany to inform him that he was going to award him the Order of Merit, Jamaica’s highest civilian honor. Bob’s only reaction was, “Big man, if you can do it, do it.” It was a reflection of his disdain for anything originated by what he termed Babylon. “Babylon,” Bob often said, “have no fruits.”
By the beginning of May, Dr. Issels said there was nothing further he could do to help Bob. A plane was chartered to fly him back to Florida, into the bosom of his family.
CINDY BREAKSPEARE: When he was carried back to Miami in May I was able to see him on May 10th, the day before he passed. And I took Damian with me, so he saw me. And we went into intensive care and he recognized me and say, “Hmmmph, think you never did a come.” Which is to say he thought I wasn’t going to come. So I said, “No, man. I must have to come.” He said, “No you don’t must.” So I said, “Yes, I must.” But by then he looked quite different. Unrecognizable really. Almost like a little boy. And he just touch Damian’s hand.
STEPHEN MARLEY: His last words to me were “Money can’t buy life.” Just that him say. “Just sing that song there, money can’t buy life,” and say, “You fe deal with it.” Yeah, He will do the rest.
ZIGGY MARLEY: His last words to me were “On the way up bring me up, and on the way down, don’t let me down.”
ROGER STEFFENS: During Marley’s final months, his original partner Junior Braithwaite surfaced in Kingston. (Tragically, Junior would die by gunshot in 1999.)
JUNIOR BRAITHWAITE: At times I considered going back to Jamaica to join the group again. Even Bob Marley expressed that. But the time wasn’t right. I was at Tuff Gong when Bob died. Because Bob had talked about us coming together again and singing, right? And it so happened that I was there at Tuff Gong awaiting his arrival, I was waiting for him to come home. And he used to call there sometimes from Germany and I personally would talk to him. I was just waiting and anticipating his arrival, but he just never came home. I spent a week at Tuff Gong. I just hang around Tuff Gong and slept in a room, hoping that Bob would come home.
ROGER STEFFENS: Edward Seaga, the man whose forces had come to kill Bob Marley in 1976 (although it must be noted there is no evidence that Seaga had advance knowledge of the plot), delivered the eulogy at Bob’s funeral. It was the largest such gathering in Caribbean history, with more than a million mourners, half the island’s population, lining the route from Kingston all the way to his burial place in Nine Mile. That day there were seven rainbows over the city of Kingston, on a bright morning when Bob’s work was over and he flew away home to Zion.
CHAPTER 35
Marley’s Legacy and the Wailers’ Favorite Songs
R
OGER STEFFENS: In the summer of 1969, when he was twenty-four, Bob Marley was living in Delaware at his mother’s home. There he befriended Ibis Pitts, who had a small jewelry-making business and gallery nearby, in which he sold African art. Bob told Ibis and his friend Dion Wilson that he was going to die at age thirty-six.
IBIS PITTS: Dion is my buddy. He used to work with me at the shop. And he got to meet Nesta [Bob] too. He was around us a lot. And Nesta told us about him not being on this earth many more years than Jesus Christ was. And I just kind of passed it off, but Dion remembered the details. And when he heard the news about Nesta passing, he said, “Nesta said he was going to be leaving at thirty-six. And he was thirty-six years old when he died in 1981.” And I said, “Wow, yeah, Dion.”
ROGER STEFFENS: Bob’s mother, Cedella Booker, confirmed that both Ibis and Dion mentioned this story to her in the 1960s. Following Bob’s passing, others were eager to speak of his humility and generosity.
COLIN LESLIE: Bob bought many homes, but not for himself. He slept on a little cot upstairs, right above the garage at 56 Hope Road. It was very, very late in his career when some of the ladies in his life decided that it was very bad. We need to get a proper bedroom set up for him and they went up and got this custom-made furniture made for him. Beds and carpets.
Bob never thought about going off and making a nice comfortable life for himself, because that’s not Bob, he never wanted that. He always wanted to help. He used to think that part of his job was to share whatever he had. He was a channel, if you like, from God, and it was his job to do what he could to help people. It was more a private thing.
Bob never wanted to go off somewhere and live like a rock star. Bob wanted to be with his people; man, he loved the people. And he wanted to stay with his people. He ‘s not a person who’s going to leave his roots. He’s going to be there. Regardless of how big Bob Marley got, he’s not going to leave the people.
ROGER STEFFENS: Yet despite the constant stream of people, he always seemed alone.
GAYLE McGARRITY: With Bob, I don’t remember too much small talk at all. Sometimes he would get kind of lighthearted and childlike, be in a really good mood, and be really happy, flashing his radiant smile. Bob and I became quite close for a while. I’m trying to remember exactly when; I think it was during the period right before some of his brethren apparently started telling him that he should not trust me, because I might be a spy. However, I have wonderful memories of us going to the beach together, and of us tearing up the dance floor at a roots dance together in Rae Town. He used to tell me that one of the reasons he liked being with me is because I looked like him. He was getting ready to go on tour once, and he really wanted me to come to the airport to see him off. When I told him that I didn’t think I could, I remember him saying, “You think I have so many women and I have so many people I care about, but really I’m very lonely.” It was a very sad kind of thing—the fact, despite all of those people around him, all of the hangers-on from Trench Town and Twelve Tribes, the Bull Bay contingent and the women, along with those who I’m sure genuinely did love and respect him—still the great Gong often felt very alone. Loneliness and being alone are two different things. He was never alone but sometimes with all the people there, he would just go up to his room and sit alone, in silence. That’s when he would pick up the guitar. People wondered when did Bob actually have time to actually sit down and write his music, as he always had a zillion people around. Sometimes he would just escape from people and be by himself. Deep down inside Bob was kind of insecure, surprisingly, and he was very lonely.
ROGER STEFFENS: In an unreleased documentary called Bob Marley: Stay with the Rhythm, director Jonathan Demme interviewed a relative of Marley’s in Nine Mile who declared that Bob told him he had nineteen children. Dessie Smith, Bob’s personal assistant, spoke with me in Los Angeles in 1996 about Bob’s role as a father.
DESSIE SMITH: Their father used to really have a strong hand on his children. Him deal with big men, when them did talk. When he like scold them, he talks to them like grownups, stern and that same kind of mannerism. So they have that toughness and them know right from wrong. He put it forward as forceful as he put it forward to a grownup. So them know, and they’ve got that type of drive, and the knowledge of what’s right and wrong, they have it firmly in them from that time. I can see that in them. They have a strong presence, just like him.
ROGER STEFFENS: In 2012 the long-awaited official documentary film Marley was released. Many viewers were shocked by revelations from some of his children about Bob as a parent. Twenty-one years earlier, I had spoken with Rita and Bob’s children, Ziggy and Cedella, regarding that subject, especially about the fact that Bob was so absent in their lives.
ZIGGY MARLEY: Biggest lesson we learn from Gong is to be strong still. Though not by any verbal teaching, but just by living life and watching things around. Just to be strong. Even in the face of death, as them would say, you haffe be strong.
CEDELLA MARLEY: We had a lot of good people around us. Our auntie was there, and she kind of take up the reins and b
ring us up certain way. Parents being away, they used to write and so on. We didn’t realize they were away until they came back and we didn’t have to go to school today because Bob and Mommy coming home. The lesson I learned from Bob was not to go anywhere! We could not go anywhere. It was like: “Don’t go anywhere. You don’t really need too many friends.” And it’s true. At that time when you’re growing up everybody wants to have thousands of friends, but we weren’t allowed to. I did resent that. You’re a child, you want to be able to run across the street. We had to sneak across the street when Daddy was gone. And it was like, every time he would get back he would know.
Ziggy Marley with the rejected cover for the first Melody Makers album. At the Reggae Archives, Los Angeles, 1991.
ROGER STEFFENS: I wondered if the story were true that Bob had chased Ziggy one time, beat him, and then bought him ice cream. Ziggy laughed and admitted it was true.
CEDELLA MARLEY: You know, he does things like that. I think it’s true, because you can never trust a lot of friends. You know, “Man to man is so unjust—your worst friend,” blah blah. So it’s true. You can be used and abused by friends, and I think that’s what he was trying to let us know from such a long age. So that’s one thing I would teach the kids.
So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley Page 41
