bob marley better off dread

Bob Marley: Better Off Dread

Mike Stand, Smash Hits, 7 August 1980

IF THE first time you heard Bob Marley and the Wailers was when ‘Could You Be Loved’ cameskanking out of the radio, you probably thought something undramatic like, "That’s nice". Andprobably quite appropriate too in those relaxed circumstances.

But when I got the chance to do a short interview with Marley recently I can tell you that my knees were knocking and my oneprayer to the journalistic gods was "Please don’t let me make a fool of myself." Because Bob Marley means a lot — in fact I’dventure to suggest that worldwide he’s the most important artist working in any aspect of rock.

I’m sure there are a couple of dozen groups who’ve sold more records in the last few years, but that’s not the point. It’s not evenof the greatest significance that he is the major influence behind the white reggae of The Police, Elvis Costello, The Clash and JoeJackson.

The really impressive thing about Bob Marley is the status he has achieved in the black nations of the Third World as champion ofsocial and political change. He’s acquired this through a succession of songs, summed up in one line from the Natty Dreadalbum: "Them belly full but we hungry."

Just how deeply he’d touched people was proved when he was invited to play at the Zimbabwe independence celebrations thisyear. When I asked Marley about it he smiled and sort of glowed with quiet pride but said very little, as if the occasion had beena private one, although the concert and ceremonials were conducted in front of tens of thousands in a football stadium.

He did mention one jarring note though. Before the historic midnight, a disturbance among the crowds jostling to get in wasanswered by the police firing tear gas. But Marley wasn’t going to let a minor upset spoil the honour and happiness he felt.

"It was an experience for I an’ I y’know, strong feh watch the t’ing workin’ out," he said in his calm, quiet sing-song manner."And we feel good feh taste little tear gas in Zimbabwe, get a little o’ th’oppression there."

Marley is no tourist talking about "oppression" from a safe distance. He grew up in poverty in Jamaica and even when he becamean international ‘star’, he stayed so close to the front line that in December 1976, gunmen in Kingston attempted to kill him twodays before a Wailers concert which was being organised by supporters of Prime Minister Michael Manley. Marley was wounded,but he played the gig.

It’s no wonder he’s become a hero and an inspiring figurehead. But when I suggested this to him, he waved the idea aside as if itwas far too pompous to have anything to do with him:

"No, music is the one that is the hero. We help the music. It is the univershal language and we carry a certain message. ButJamaican people not look on you as ‘star’. Them have love an’ respec’ an’ t’ing. To tell you the trut’ I am not enormous person,me just a man o’ the ghetto."

*

THE PLAIN MAN OF THE GHETTO has been recording for 19 years now, and it’s worth telling his story briefly. He was born in1945, son of an English army captain and a Jamaican woman, and by his early teens he had become involved with the dynamicmusic scene in what Toots and the Maytals christened "funky Kingston".

There is some disagreement about when Marley cut his first disc, but the earliest offering I’ve seen was single called ‘Judge Not’from 1961 which is described as ‘lightweight pop’. The big step forward came three years later with the formation of the WailingWailers, then purely a vocal group, including legendary Marley sidekicks Peter McIntosh (later ‘Tosh’) and Bunny Livingston (later‘Wailer’).

Marley’s initial Jamaican hit ‘Simmer Down’ was a ska number (covered this month by London band Mobster). He also came upwith ‘Rude Boy’, which is reckoned to be the first song about the snappy-dressing gangsters of Kingston’s shanty town. Despiteall the sunny romance the name conjures up, it remains a violent city (over 200 deaths by shooting in the first six months of thisyear).

The Wailing Wailers didn’t sell enough records to feed five mouths and so they split up. Marley then spent a while in America withhis mother before returning to join up with Tosh and Wailer again in a short-lived attempt to go independent with their ownWailing Souls label.

Its collapse led to a confused phase for Marley which had one positive result: in 1967 he began working with Texan soul singerJohnny Nash. Nash came to record in Kingston and later had a series of reggae field singles in the British charts culminating fouryears later with ‘Stir It Up’ which was written by Marley.

Marley and Bunny Wailer touched bottom with jail sentences for possession of marijuana, then in ’69 emerged into one of theirclassic periods. Recorded by the most famous reggae producer of them all, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, they came up with two LPs andthe singles ‘Duppy Conqueror’ and ‘Small Axe’. (You can find later versions on their Island album Burning’).

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It was at this stage that their Rastafarian religion became the core of their music. I couldn’t pretend to make informed commenton it, but its visible signs are the long, tightly-wound dreadlocks (like Marley’s), often piled up into a red, green and orange wooltammy.

Their beliefs relate to Christianity while including a faith in the late Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia as the Christ reborn. Oneof its major practices is smoking marijuana (‘ganja’ or ‘kaya’, the title of Marley’s 1978 LP), which they see as having a mysticalhealing power.

Of late The Wailers have been trying to express their Rasta goodwill in action by investing some of the group’s profits incommunity and youth projects, such as farms owned by Jamaican people rather than vast, foreign (particularly British)companies.

"It won’t solve all problems, but is a beginning," said Marley. "Is something the government shoulda done, but them don’t do itand them won’t do it."

So their religion has its political side. However, when I asked him about this, Marley was keen to stress its spiritual strength:

"Politics — it dirty, y’know. A politician never know you till you ol’ enough to vote."

*

DESPITE THE HOSTILITY THEIR FAITH attracted from some of their fellow countrymen, the group’s career was on the upwardcurve which is still pointing skywards. They launched their own label, Tuff Gong, in 1970, successfully this time, and enlisted theBarrett brothers, reputedly the hardest rhythm section on the island.

Speaking of which, their breakthrough to recognition outside the Caribbean followed when they singed to the British label, Island,who promoted them through the albums Catch A Fire and Burnin’ (including ‘I Shot The Sheriff’ which Eric Clapton made into ahit single).

In 1975 the Wailers went through their last great upheaval with the departure of Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, who both wentsolo. Then the key album Natty Dread was released.

Marley, one of those small men who somehow look huge on stage, followed up with two stunning concerts at the Lyceum inLondon and triumphantly burst through the supposed barrier between British and West Indian musical tastes. Pop was never thesame again.

Marley says quite frankly that he couldn’t live in this country because he feels so strongly drawn to his African roots and "I like tobe able to just walk upon the concrete and be a dread," but he loves the music scene here. With a chuckle he acknowledged, "Itrockin’ in Englan’. Englan’ is the place, man. And Natty Dread was a special album for us, the feelin’ of it. Sayin’ children get yourculture, won’t win no battle if you just sit there."

Those Lyceum concerts were recorded for an excellent Live! album which produced the group’s first UK hit single, the tender lovesong ‘No Woman, No Cry’. With their ideals and seductive dance rhythms, The Wailers captured minds and souls everywhere.

*

WHILE THE CHART RATINGS ON five albums and numerous singles since Live! have never looked back, and despite himremaining the favourite in Jamaica, British critics have gradually come to accuse Marley of various forms of ‘sell-out’ because ofhis moves away from Jamaican strict roots reggae style.

I asked Marley how he felt about the occasional slaggings and he said with the gentlest of smiles: "We love them?"

Me (taken aback): "And do you agree with them?"

Marley: "Sometime. It not always really true, but we understan’ why people say these t’ing. I figure is great help (chuckle). An’yet music can’t stick to the same t’ing otherwise it become mechanical: music have to have fluent, music have to have somekinda adventure, enjoyment, it go and you come."

I wondered where he placed the new album, Uprising, in his 19 years of recording.

"Uprising come like the first album," he said, "the first from now. It recorded in our own vicinity, it going forward. We work at allour records with full energy an’… full self. So when we finish it we know wha’ we put on it, we respec’ it. We don’t record a songif we don’t love it."

© Mike Stand, 1980

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