Every Little Thing Gonna Be Alright (32 page)

WHITE
: “Is This Love” was meant as a sign of strength, not weakness.

BLACKWELL:
Exactly. That’s what I felt, and that’s why I always defended that record. But often when people list all of Bob’s records, they mistakenly diss that one, but I love it. What’s also interesting is the evolution of a rock sound in Bob’s albums. I consider the first record,
Catch A Fire
, to be the least reggae-like, because it had overdubs from a rock guitarist I was working with named Wayne Perkins, and I edited the backing tracks in order to double the length of the songs and create space for solos, which reggae never had much of. These ideas were unique for reggae, yet these techniques later influenced Bob and the band’s thinking when they recorded
Rastaman Vibration
and
Exodus,
and you can also hear the rock-inclined performances on the
Babylon By Bus
live collection. Bob combined R & B and rock and reggae in a way never done before.

However, once Bob had experimented with these things, he turned inward again and concentrated on developing new avenues for reggae—with “One Drop” on “Survival” for instance. So that the last normal studio effort,
Uprising
, was the least rock-influenced of his albums. He’d come full circle, but was an innovator every step of the way.

WHITE:
There’s always been Bob Marley’s music, and then there’s been reggae. The former proved so original, it became a genre apart from the latter music, influencing it while continuing to pioneer on its own terms. Where is reggae now? What comes after dancehall and modern conscious reggae?

BLACKWELL:
You know, there’s two acts I’ve got in Jamaica now that I can’t get to square one with, yet I think they’re both fantastic because of their soulfulness. One is a guy called Donovan, and the other is a group called Foundation. Theirs is a country, rural sound, and if I had to predict a worthwhile trend in reggae, I would call it rural soul. These guys have great harmonies, soulful songs, and simple lyrics that are a kind of naive art. This stuff is the best thing I’ve heard since the early Wailers. But all anyone wants to know about in reggae now is dancehall. There’s a great excitement to dancehall, it’s like the Wild West, but I don’t know that it’s very lasting or very rich musically. This rural soul stuff is rich. Dancehall music tends to eat its young; it feeds on itself to a negative extent.

That’s one of the problems, you see. When ska and reggae started, people in Jamaica would be listening to Miami and Jamaica radio stations which were playing American R & B, and all these outside influences would come in considerably more than today and have their nurturing effect. Now, since Bob died, people are trying to copy Bob or recycle some old rhythms and lyrics in attempts to emulate or imitate the past in a different way. As you say, the whole Jamaica scene has fed on itself. When there’s a hit, everybody wonders what it was that made it a hit and copies it exactly or samples it.

WHITE
: Dancehall is stimulating but not creatively important.

BLACKWELL:
But you have to remember that Jamaica has a population of only two and a quarter million people, and it’s almost astounding how the music from there has expanded to reach the world. These days, there’s almost more reggae being played live now in clubs than rock. I was in Miami recently and every single band along the oceanside club strip was playing reggae! Island is planning this autumn to put out a boxed set of Bob’s best singles over the decades, including those never released in America, like “Screw Face,” “Craven Choke Puppy,” and Bob’s version of “Guava Jelly.”

WHITE:
Artistically and philosophically, what do you hope to cement in peoples’ minds through the new boxed set?

BLACKWELL:
The idea with that is to put together a really good document of the different recordings to reflect what was going on with Bob at each personal stage, and back it up with a kind of storyline of what was going on in Jamaica during each period. Bob worked with a lot of people in Jamaica; he worked with Leslie Kong, with Coxsone, with Lee Perry, and all these different people also had an influence on him. I think it’s time to show how his music and his reputation were formed. In this boxed set we want to get across what caused all this to emerge, and all of Bob’s travels, including the thing of him going to America to live [in Delaware] and then coming back—all those different elements played a part.

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.

I
s 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.

J
AMAICANS 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:
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.

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.