Every Little Thing Gonna Be Alright

by Hank Bordowitz

  WHITE: In other words, how his life and his art were all of a piece?

  BLACKWELL: Yes! It’s an audio-biography. Bob has taken on such huge proportions that it’s important to do something of real value in terms of showing where he came from and where he got to as a man and as a musician. Also, next year we’re planning on releasing a boxed set of 30 years of Jamaican music to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of Jamaican independence. First we’re celebrating Bob Mar-ley, and then we’re celebrating the land he came from. That sequence seems appropriate, really, ’cause Bob has always been ahead of his time.

  6

  Wailing: The Musicians He Left Behind

  Is it some sort of curse on the remaining Wailers, or is it just the prevailing atmosphere in Kingston that has seen three of the former members of the band—Peter Tosh, Carlton Barrett, and Junior Brathwaite—gunned down? Or both Marley and his manager dying relatively young of natural causes?

  For those who survive—his children, his wife, his former band-mates—Bob Marley has become a cottage industry, perhaps the greatest Jamaican export outside of bauxite and tourism (and depending on the prevailing social conditions, the latter is iffy).

  The Wailers continue to tour with most of the original musicians—New Jersey native Al Anderson, Earl Lindo, “Family Man” Barrett, Junior Marvin, and Secco Patterson (as Coxsone Dodd points out, the guy who started it all). They also continue to record, albeit with no original Wailers. They are something of a duppy band, with the ghosts of Marley, Junior Braithwaite, Carlton Barrett, and Peter Tosh lingering nearby.

  Then there are artists like noted sideman Dean Fraser, whose Dean Plays Bob may be his most successful solo album. Or the I-Threes— Marcia Griffiths, Judy Mowatt, and, of course, Rita Marley—all of whom have moved on to relatively successful solo careers, and all of whom continue to sing Bob Marley songs.

  Even the rogue Wailer, Bunny, will sing a Marley song every now and again when he can be brought out of the bush to tour. He’s even recorded several tributes to his fallen bandmate and entire albums of Bob Marley songs. And his music has remained remarkably vital, as has Rita’s, Griffiths’s, Mowatt’s, and even the Wailers’. It happens when you’re touched by magic.

  A Good Smoke with Peter Tosh

  by Stephen Davis

  (Source: Oui, 1979)

  JAMAICANS look to Peter Tosh for uncompromising Rastafarian preaching and for moral authority undented by the lead-tipped clubs of the police. Wherever he goes in this world, Tosh brings that righteous aura along with him. At some concerts, steel manacles hang from Peter’s left wrist, symbolic of the social chains that bind a suffering people back home. In Toronto, a reviewer said that watching a Peter Tosh show was like staring the entire black race dead in the face.

  After leaving the Wailers in 1974, Tosh recorded the pro-ganja anthem “Legalize It” and the anti-cop polemic “Mark of the Beast,” as well as Legalize It and Equal Rights, two crucial albums in the development of reggae from local ricky-tick into a planetary sound. But the turning point in Tosh’s career was the so-called “Peace Concert” held in Kingston in 1978, at which Jamaica’s top reggae groups agreed to perform.

  Among those attending the show were members of Jamaica’s political elite: Prime Minister Michael Manley and his cabinet, the opposition leaders, and most of Jamaica’s parliament and judiciary. Tosh sauntered onstage with a ganja cigar in his beak and proceeded to lecture his captive audience for 45 minutes on the evils of oppression, neocolonialism, and the “shitstem.” Pointing a long black finger at Manley, Tosh harangued the prime minister on the sufferings of a poor people deprived of human rights and legal marijuana. The crowd of ordinary Jamaicans in the audience, assembled in the bleachers, cheered themselves hoarse. Tosh and the band then lit into a stinging set that ended pointedly with “Legalize It.”

  Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, who had just signed Tosh to the band’s vanity label, Rolling Stones Records, was at the Peace Concert. He witnessed Tosh’s brilliant folk essay on the Jamaican political economy and the spellbinding music that Tosh and his band, Word Sound & Power (propelled by Sly Dunbar on drums and Robbie Shakespeare on bass) put forth afterward. “I don’t want no peace,” Tosh sang. “I want equal rights and justice!” Perhaps Jagger also got that eerie, impossible-to-resist feeling of staring the entire black race dead in the face while listening to Peter Tosh.

  Peter Tosh, Sly and Robbie recorded three important albums for the Stones’ label (Bush Doctor, Mystic Man, Wanted Dread or Alive) that showcased updated versions of Tosh classics (“Soon Come,” “I’m the Toughest”) and new avant-garde reggae ideas like “Buck-in-Hamm Palace” and “Oh Bumba Klaat.” With the Stones’ support, Peter Tosh retained his place through the early 1980s as one of the premier reggae singers of his generation.

  This interview took place at the Howard Johnson Motor Inn on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Mass., during the first Word Sound & Power tour in 1979. In the corner of the room, Tosh’s omnipresent “Inicycle” leaned against the wall. Tosh rides the tall unicycle everywhere—backstage, while visiting radio stations, down long hotel corridors at four in the morning. The Inicycle has been all over the world with Tosh and seems emblematic of its owner’s stance in a dangerous world: precarious yet balanced, eccentric, uniquely upright. During the interview, Winston Hubert MacIntosh manhandled and drew upon an impressive cone-shaped spliff. SSSSwwwwwffffftttttttt!!!!

  Stephen Davis

  STEPHEN DAVIS: It must be difficult for a touring reggae band to maintain its herb supply.

  TOSH: Well, herb is all over America, mon. You don’t have to bring no herb here no more. Ssssswwwwwffftttt. Ahhh.

  DAVIS: Is it as good as what you find in Jamaica?

  TOSH: No way. Psychologically, you just have to pretend that it is good—pretend that you smoking the best draw—till you reach home, where the best is.

  DAVIS: As a connoisseur of herb, what do you prefer?

  TOSH: Well, Thai stick not bad. And the Colombian now, the quality varies, but the other day I get a draw of Colombian in Milwaukee. Exclusive!! [Ssssswwwwwffftttt.]

  DAVIS: In many of your songs, you call for legalizing marijuana. But there’s a theory that if Jamaica legalized ganja, the country would be transformed into an outlaw agronomy operating under United Nations sanctions . . .

  TOSH: Bullshit! (He kisses his teeth bitterly.) Nine out of ten people in Jamaica smoke herb. Everyone an outlaw!

  DAVIS: No, I mean the United Nations has these anti-dope statutes . . .

  TOSH [FURIOUS]: United Nations bullshit! Me nuh wan’ hear that argument—dem. Who are them who take counsel against I&I, to see that I&I are separated from I&I culture? He who created the earth created herb for the use of man, seen? If herb was growing in the blood-clot United Nations, you think Jamaica could go tell United Nations what to do? So how come the bumba ras clot United Nations dare to come and tell us what to do? Fuck the United Nations! My Father grow herb, and if my Father know what is right, He would have made herb growing in the United blood-clot Nations, not just in Jamaica for I&I who praise him continually.

  DAVIS: Why do Jamaican politicians pay so much attention to the music?

  TOSH: Well, dem have to listen to what the people say, to know the people’s view. Reggae is telling them what’s on the people’s mind, seen? Because the singers and players of instruments are the prophets of the earth in this time. It was written: Jah say, “I call upon the singers and players of instruments to tell the word and wake up the slumbering mentality of the people.” Seen?

  DAVIS: What about your political speech at the [1978] Peace Concert? TOSH: I devoted my time and my energy to making a speech, because sitting before me I saw the prime minister and the whole establishment approximately. So it seemed the right time to say what I had to say as a representative of the people, because irrespective of the way I would like to live, I still must live within the “shitstem.” I’ve become a victim of the shitstem so many times.<
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  DAVIS: What happened to you after the speech?

  TOSH: Three months later, yes, yes, yes! I was waiting for a rehearsal outside Aquarius Studio in Half Way Tree [a main Kingston avenue], waiting for two of my musicians, and I had a little piece of roach in my hand. A guy come up to me in plain clothes, and grab the roach out of my hand. So I say him, “Wha’ happen?” He didn’t say nothing, so I grab the roach back from him and he start to punch me up. I say again, “Wha’ happen?” and he say I must go dung-so [“downtown” in police jargon]. I say, dung-so? Which way you call dung-so? That’s when I realized this was a police attitude, so I opened the roach and blew out the contents. Well, him didn’t like that and start to grab at me aggressively now—my waist, my shoulder, grabbing me and tearing off my clothes and t’ing. Then other police come, and push their guns in my face, and use brute force on me.

  DAVIS: Did they know who you were?

  TOSH: No. Well, I don’t know. But you don’t have to know a man to treat him the way he should be treated. But, because I am humble, and don’t wear a jacket and tie, and drive a big Lincoln Continental or Mercedes-Benz, I don’t look exclusively different from the rest. I look like the people, seen? To dem police, here’s just another Rasta to kill. Now, eight-to-ten guys gang my head, with batons and weapons of destruction. Dem close the door, chase away the people, and gang my head with batons for an hour and a half, until my hand break trying to fend off the blows. I run to the window, and dem beat me back with blows. I run to the door, and dem beat me back with blows. Later, I found out these guys’ intention was to kill me, right? What I had to do was, play dead by just lying low. Passive resistance! And I hear dem say, ‘Yes, him dead.’ But I survived dem, by intellect. Yes I.

  DAVIS: Why did they pick on you?

  TOSH: It was because of my militant act within the society, because I speak out against repression and the shitstem, seen? Yes mon! I know it is a direct connection. I have been threatened before in Kingston; the superintendent of customs drew his gun, and said he had wanted to kill me for years.

  DAVIS: Why are militant artists such a threat to Jamaica? TOSH: Because their works are corruption, and where there’s corruption, there must be an eruption. Yu nuh see? Politricks! The politician been promising the most good, but dem doing the most dangerous evil. And all the people get is . . . promises. A generation come, and a generation go, and nothing is accomplished.

  DAVIS: What about your relationship with the Rolling Stones? TOSH: Well, even their name alone is a great input. I see it as a blessing, seen? One of my Father’s blessings, because I determination to spread the word. Finding Mick [Jagger] and Keith [Richards] to spread the word, and deal with the music—knowing they not only are interested in the music, but love and respect the music—is a great, great blessing.

  DAV I S : Is there an affinity between reggae’s outlaw roots and the Stones’ outlaw image?

  TOSH: Well, I see it, and know it, so because I see and I know—who feels it knows it. Yeah, mon!

  DAVIS: Why did you and Mick choose to showcase an old Motown song (“Don’t Look Back”) on your Bush Doctor album, instead of one of your more militant songs?

  TOSH: Well, that is a psychological procedure, because I am a scientist, seen? ’Cause I am a man who has studied human psychology,and knows what two-thirds of the world loves, seen? If you are trying to get across to two-thirds of the world, you proceed—psychologically— by giving them what they want. After they dance to what they want, they must listen to what you got next, seen? And also, I like the title—“Don’t Look Back”—because I don’t intend to.

  DAVIS: Why does preaching play such a strong role in reggae, especially in your music?

  TOSH: Well, mon, that is coming from my Father’s message chamber, seen? I preach, yes mon, but I do not judge. No man is here to look upon what another man is doing. “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” I say, make sure your doings are right, so that when the payday comes around, what you get in your envelope will be satisfactory. You nuh seen?

  DAV I S : Why have so many cultural explosions—reggae, Rastas, ganja—come from Jamaica?

  TOSH: Because we are the prophets of this Earth. We are they who were executed by Alexander the blood-clot Great and those great pirates who used to go round and chop off the saints’ heads. All these things are revealed between the lines, through the Third Eye. I&I see ourselves as the reincarnated souls of those carried off into slavery.

  DAVIS: Are you suprised by the dramatic acceptance of reggae over the last few years?

  TOSH: It was prophesied, my brother. Only fools are surprised at the manifestations of prophecy. Seen? Only those who cannot see between the lines will be surprised.

  DAVIS: What about the future of reggae?

  TOSH: Yes mon. Fifteen years from now, there will be a different dispensation of time. The shitstem will no longer be. All the places that are built upon corruption shall be torn down and shall be no more upon the face of creation. Yes mon! Five years from now will be a different age! Five years from blood clot now—will be totally different. No wicked left on the Earth. By 1983, Africa will be free!

  Bunny Wailer, Reggae Survivor: Last of Wailers Returns to Reggae Road

  by Mitch Potter

  (Source: The Toronto Star, August 24, 1990)

  He is the last living Wailer and, to hear Neville O’Riley Living-stone tell it, he always expected fate would treat him so.

  For Livingstone—better known for the last two decades as Bunny Wailer—there is something almost prophetic about having outlasted Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, the vocal partners with whom he rode reggae music from the government yards of Trenchtown, Jamaica, to international stardom in the early 1970s.

  Now 43, the diminutive singer has passed a full 17 years since taking his leave from those original Wailers for largely unexplained reasons, at a critical moment when Marley and band were in the process of becoming World Music’s first serious incursion into the realm of Western pop.

  Time has been kinder to Marley, whose legend as a musical flash-point against global oppression has grown exponentially since he died of melanomic cancer in 1981.

  Tosh, too, aggressively sought and achieved solo fame with his own strident reggae spin before being gunned down by a gang of motorcycle bandits at his Kingston, Jamaica, home in 1987.

  But if Wailer’s ensuing work has amounted to something of a footnote to that of his more celebrated colleagues, it is a footnote of considerable and consistent influence.

  Named one of the three most important musicians in the Third World by Newsweek magazine shortly after Marley’s death (Brazil’s Milton Nascimento and Nigeria’s King Sunny Ade shared the honors), Wailer’s post-Marley music, if sporadic, has held firmly to the same moral high ground from whence the socially conscious group came.

  Interestingly, Bunny Wailer’s own songs of freedom are ringing loudly these days; louder, some would argue, than the music’s heir-apparent Ziggy Marley, the eldest of Marley’s sons, who has himself been groomed by Virgin Records to resuscitate reggae’s waning influence over Western pop.

  Last year—following a stunning headline set at Jamaica’s 1987 Reggae Sunsplash festival that by all accounts stole much of Ziggy’s thunder—the reclusive Wailer galvanized his audience with a new album, Liberation.

  The release was hailed as an uncompromising return to roots-conscious reggae, anchored by lyrics that foretold eerily of such events as the tumbling Berlin Wall and the release of jailed African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela.

  A rare live airing of the singer’s music will be available tomorrow night at Toronto’s Varsity Arena, as Wailer delivers his first-ever concert in Canada, complete with a 22-piece “Reggaestra”.

  During a press conference this week at the Bam Boo club and earlier, in a telephone interview from Jamaica, Wailer reaffirmed a pledge to make his “long overdue” Canadian debut “something greater than tongue can tell.”

  All of Wailer’s words, it
should be noted, come couched in the rhetoric of Rastafari, the Jamaican movement that recognizes the late Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie as the black messiah, but delivers its Word in elliptical patois that will regularly confound the linear Western mind. Asked if he lives in Kingston, for example, Wailer responds with booming portent, “I live inside of myself . . . anywhere.”

  Asked if he has ever been to Africa, his answer is an elusive “I am Africa.”

  Wailer speaks more directly to the reasons for his renewed interest in performance, after so many years of hermitic living.

  “I believe that the one who lives longest will see the most, and tell the most, and now is my time.

  “I see that every nation is struggling for liberation of some sort.

  “We saw the wall of Berlin fall, we saw Mandela freed, we see apartheid being dismantled, we see ladies struggling for liberation from abortion, from the instruments of destruction that take away their purpose for being here.

  “There is an international liberation going on, and we’ve come too far to turn back now.”

  Born in the country village of Nine Miles, St. Ann’s Parish (province), Wailer and Bob Marley were casual pals almost from the time they could walk.

  Their friendship flourished—and took on a musical dimension—in the early ’60s when the pair moved with their parents to the impov- erished government housing project Trenchtown, a squatter settlement on the western outskirts of Kingston.

  By 1964, as Jamaican pop music was slowing down from the clipped rhythms of ska to rock-steady (straight 4/4 time, with percussive emphasis on the second and fourth beats), Wailer and Marley had taken to harmonizing versions of early American R & B hits by groups such as the Drifters, the Moonglows and the Impressions, accompanying themselves on a homemade acoustic guitar.