ALVIN “SEECO” PATTERSON: Bob and me was close. Very close. It was a spiritual thing, from he was very young he was planning to sing to people. And then he find me musically and so him say bwoi, he figure I was the best person to take him to Coxson. So we plan for that, you know.
At that time there was a little friction between Bob and Joe Higgs. And between Coxson and Joe, some whole heap a things. So Joe prefer me to take him. But that day, it wasn’t so nice. Because when he went down there Coxson put him off for a next while. But I wasn’t there, I never went. I was cooking. I send him and the boys. And he come back and say Coxson put him off for a couple of more weeks. And he come and say, oh, Coxson is fuckery. You understand? He can’t deal with Coxson. So I say no sir and I ask him what is the tracks he do? So him name the songs what him do. So I say, no you don’t do the right songs. Right? You should do certain songs like “Simmer Down,” ’cause we had just finished “Simmer Down” you know. So him say boy me never think of that you know. So I say come. We go back up there same day, man. And me say, “Coxson you know, you don’t listen to the man good, the man didn’t do all the songs.” Him say, “Then him have any more songs?” I say, “Yes, man, a lot of songs him can do.” So I say “Simmer Down.” And him say “Simmer Down, what is that?” I say, “One of the track dem.” Him say, “Make I hear that one.” And him do “Simmer Down.” And that was it. [Claps his hands.]
ROGER STEFFENS: Bunny Wailer tells a different version of the story.
BUNNY WAILER: We sang about four songs before we actually went to “Simmer Down.” Coxson wasn’t as turned on, so I said, “Why don’t we sing ‘Simmer Down’?” And Peter started playing “Simmer Down” even before Bob even answered. Peter started play the riddim, I started singing. We didn’t even sing the song through, we didn’t even sing a verse before Coxson said, “OK, that one. You come tomorrow and we’ll record that one first.”
COXSON DODD: Bunny Wailer claims they recorded “Simmer Down” the day after the audition. I say, no, no. You know why it couldn’t be the next day? They had songs that was all do-over material, so I instructed them to try and do some writing. So that evening we started and we found a topic. And we set up “It Hurts To Be Alone.” They came in for a rehearsal after that. Then me sent for guitarist Ernest Ranglin, got them together. But it took some time for them because all they had was like their early doo-wop stuff. But I was very impressed with them the first time, because I was hoping to really get a kind of group with that teen feel, young voices and thing like that. People say that Junior had the best voice. Well, that was definitely so. It’s after he left that I demand that Bob do the lead.
ROGER STEFFENS: Cherry concurs with Coxson, recalling that although “Simmer Down” was the group’s first hit, there were a couple of songs before that. Joe Higgs appears to support Seeco’s version. Coxson gave an expanded explanation in an interview at his studio in Brooklyn in 1993.
Clement “Coxson” Dodd, founder of Studio One, the Wailers’ first label, at his headquarters in Brooklyn, February 1993.
COXSON DODD: When the Wailers came for audition, all they had was songs done earlier by groups, American groups. If they were covering a song, they come with a style of their own. I then told them I love the sound of the group, but they need to come with their own material. Well, I played a couple of American recordings, so as to give them the theme, or lyrics, Garnett Mimms and the Enchanters, “Cry Baby,” stuff like that. I’m the one who selected all this stuff for Bob.
ROGER STEFFENS: Throughout this period, Coxson was experimenting with a wide variety of sounds, from deep soul covers to gospel and novelty songs, and he urged the Wailers to cover artists as varied as Bob Dylan and Dion and the Belmonts. The Skatalites’ flexibility and the fact that he owned his own studio allowed him to expose the Wailers to an enormous range of influences.
COXSON DODD: It’s because having my own studio I was able to get it done. “What’s New Pussycat?”—that was done just around the time when stereo recorders started coming out. Because we start through them early from mono.
JOE HIGGS: The Wailers started to lean on the Impressions ’cause of Coxson’s suggestion. Songs like “It Hurts To Be Alone” and all those tunes, they got a lot of Impressions songs to do.
COXSON DODD: I gave them the idea how to approach “It Hurts To Be Alone,” because they had to come up with some title or a couple of lines. They went home. They didn’t sing “Simmer Down” for me and they didn’t come back a second time that day to sing it. That is after. The reason why I’m saying this, now I can remember, because when they did “Simmer Down,” it’s just around the time when “Little Did You Know” by the Techniques came out. “Simmer Down” was not their first release. “Habits” came early, along with “Hurts To Be Alone,” and then after that came “Simmer Down.”
JUNIOR BRAITHWAITE: The first session [he makes a distinction between the audition and the group’s initial recording session] . . . we did “Lonesome Feeling,” we did a lot of tunes like “Straight and Narrow Way,” we did so many tunes, man. I sing background on “Simmer Down” and “Lonesome Feeling.”
JOE HIGGS: The first song, “Simmer Down,” it have more people than what is there. [He means that more people were singing than were credited for the track.] About seven or more—more girls doing that song. It was more. It was a gossiping kind of song, really a more folkish thing, “Simmer Down.” Someone in the ghetto trying to get too big, telling him to simmer down ’cause the battle will be harder, trying to caution the guy who is too hot. Bob was good at showing words. “Old time people used to say”—all those things are phrases from folk singers or slaves, whatever. Almost every song he sang had at least one of those things in it.
ROGER STEFFENS: Beverley Kelso was one of those many voices on the “Simmer Down” recording. She was a last-minute addition, having joined the Wailers hours before the session. She spoke to me in New York City in 2003.
BEVERLEY KELSO: I was born in Jones Town, April 14, 1948. I got to meet Bob because of a friend, two brothers, Pete and Calvin Richards. We’d go to school together. We were like family; Trench Town people on the whole was like family. Everybody was equal then because in those days, looking back now, I would say there wasn’t no poor people in Trench Town because majority of Trench Town people go to high school.
ROGER STEFFENS: Beverley was an accomplished singer who often performed in church.
BEVERLEY KELSO: Once I sang for the Queen. That day was more than a day. I wasn’t shy because I knew that I was the lead singer to sing that day and all of these official people were going to be there. And when I started to sing the whole church, their back turned to me—and the whole church it was just like twinkling. Everybody was taking pictures when I started singing and I didn’t get scared, I didn’t. I just sing out the tune.
Beverley Kelso, founding member of the Wailers, in New York City, May 2003.
ROGER STEFFENS: How Beverley became an “instant Wailer” is a fascinating tale and contradicts other accounts.
BEVERLEY KELSO: They used to have meeting, like PNP [the left-wing People’s National Party] meeting, Labour meeting, political meeting. They have it for the grown people and they have it for the young kids. The young kids would go out and they would teach them to sing, sew, whatever they want to do. And at that time Edward Seaga [a local right-wing politician who would go on to become prime minister in the 1980s] was the one who give them—because it was a Labour meeting and they used to keep this meeting at Chocomo Lawn.
So, at that time my friends used to bother me and say come to Chocomo and sing, come. I was urged to come on stage and sing “Down the Aisle.” You know, Patti LaBelle? The minute when I said, “Down the aisle I’ll walk with you,” the fence tear down, everybody coming out. I get all frightened. The fence tear down because the people, they couldn’t wait to come inside. The gate was too small so they couldn’t come in. I don’t know where they come from, but a lot of people just burst through and the
fence teared down, everybody coming in to see who was singing. They probably think it was Patti LaBelle. And I get scared and frightened. I get so nervous, I start the song all over again. It’s my spirit break and I couldn’t continue singing. And that was it.
The following evening after school going home, I was doing my little work and things and I hear somebody knocking at the door. And I come out and I see Bob. And I asked him, you want somebody? He said yes, you. I said, me? And he said, yeah. He said I’d like it if you’d do a song with me and I’d like it if you’d sing with me. And I said no, you’ll have to ask my mother if you want me to sing with you, but she’s not here now.
Later he came back and he asked her and she said yes, but you’ll have to take care of her. He asked me if I could come and rehearse the same evening. So, I said all right. It was the fourth yard on Second Street. That’s where Bunny used to live.
My first impression of Bob was ordinary. Ordinary. I didn’t think of him as nobody special, you know? We were just ordinary, to me, just ordinary young man at that time. Very polite. Never sad. Even that evening he was just smiling. He was just looking at me, like, oh, pretty girl. That’s what I have in my mind. Because he was, like, just staring at me, you know, when he was talking to me.
That evening after he said meet him at the place, I said, “OK, go ahead and I will come meet you there.” I went up and when I went there Peter was there, Bunny and Junior, all sitting on a tree. Bob wasn’t there. So I asked for Bob and they said Bob went to get the guitar or something. And Bob came and introduced me to Peter, Bunny and Junior. But I didn’t call him Bob. Nobody in Trench Town called him Bob. He introduced himself to me as Lester. And after they introduced me to Peter, Bunny and Junior I tell them my name is Beverley and then they started to play.
So we rehearsed “Simmer Down” the same evening he met my mother. I didn’t go to school the next morning because Bob said we’re going to the studio.
ROGER STEFFENS: That morning Beverley, Junior, Bunny, Bob and Peter walked to 13 Brentford Road, Kingston 5, and entered history.
BEVERLEY KELSO: The “Simmer Down” session was in the morning because we went to the studio after I finished tidying up my mother’s house. We walked to Brentford Road. We used to walk on the road where they used to call it Almshouse burying ground. That walk was quick quick, because we lived at the bottom of the road.
That first day when we went to record “Simmer Down,” when we go there we didn’t have no problem. Bunny and Bob probably set up the arrangement with Coxson before because when I go I just go straight into the studio with them. The Skatalites was there, everybody. Siddy Bucknor was the engineer at the time. We never leave there that day. It was just “Simmer Down.” One track. But that day, you know something? I think we had a better cut than the release, because if you notice [on the recording] Peter come in and says “Simmer.” And Coxson say that’s it. Peter wasn’t supposed to say “Simmer,” he was supposed—we was singing when the musician should come in, Peter come in and say “Simmer.” Coxson said that’s it—that was the one that he wanted. It was a mistake, but it wasn’t a mistake.
ROGER STEFFENS: Controversy remains about the precise recording date. Bob, Bunny, Peter, Junior and Beverley have all identified “Simmer Down” as their first recording. The session date was gleaned from the original Studio One tape box containing “Straight and Narrow Way,” dated 6 July 1964. This may be the date a copy was made or it may be the original recording date. Bunny clearly recalls that the Skatalites backed the Wailers on their first session, and he places the session in June or July 1964 because the record got heavy play during independence celebrations in early August of that year.
Some accounts put that final rehearsal on a Sunday evening. Beverley remembers differently.
BEVERLEY KELSO: I don’t remember that we rehearsed on a Sunday night. I know it’s during the week because my mother went to work that day and then when she came home from work that’s when Bob talked to her. Saturday morning “Simmer Down” was on the air.
ROGER STEFFENS: The song was an instant hit.
BEVERLEY KELSO: It was like Trench Town light up when “Simmer Down” come on the air. I was cleaning the house and—“Simmer Down”! Everybody radio turn up blast high: “Simmer Down.” And they played it, they played “Simmer Down” like about six times. RJR. It was like, just constant. They put it on the air and they said it’s brand-new from the Wailers. They played it about six times. I remember that clearly. And Trench Town was like light up like it was Christmas.
SEGREE WESLEY: Oh, man, when we guys heard it first, I mean, we had been hearing the rehearsal on a daily basis, or a nightly basis as we used to say, because we used to do more of the rehearsal in the nights. And when they went to record and we started hearing them on the radio we all felt good. Like it was one of us got out there; I mean, that record took off. It was a big hit, number one.
BEVERLEY KELSO: And then it was like, oh, the Wailers!
SEGREE WESLEY: “Simmer Down” was at that time one of the biggest sales of any records done by a Jamaican.
COXSON DODD: When “Simmer Down” come out, in those days, anything from five thousand was a hit. I would say twenty thousand would be a strong hit.
ROGER STEFFENS: At the height of the success of “Simmer Down” it kept four pressing plants going and sold a reported eighty thousand copies on an island with only about two million inhabitants.
JOE HIGGS: Toots and the Maytals and I were on tour with other artists in Jamaica, [places] like Manchester or Clarendon, hanging out together. We had lots in common; we like to smoke. So we went into some deep bush with some Rastas smoking some herb, when on the radio “Simmer Down” came on, new. Toots turned to his partner, listen to this, this is the group that’s going to give us a hard time, and they can’t even find their key, some are out of key. It was true and I said, Toots, give them six more months now. Six more months you’re going to have to run away. Like a joke I was making. And in no time, the Wailers were kicking ass.
BEVERLEY KELSO: The happiest memory of being in the Wailers was being with them when they’re talking about going to the studio and laughing and talking. They were making fun of everyone they would see and they was just nice. They were just having fun. But I didn’t crack no jokes. I couldn’t keep up with them, really. I didn’t know what to say.
Nobody did bow down to us. I understand and I read it in the paper, that people used to run around the Wailers, coming to the Wailers. Nobody didn’t care who we was because Higgs and Wilson was there singing. Hortense Ellis was there singing. Bunny and Scully was singing. Toots and the Maytals, Delroy Wilson, everybody was right there singing. Bob was just another person to everybody. But they loved the music and people gathered to hear us sing but nobody would really—it’s not like you would have Michael Jackson. But they were proud of us and when we would go to the studio people would just wave. And the Wailers, it was just like ordinary people, you know?
JUNIOR BRAITHWAITE: Who would expect that Bob would become the great King of Reggae and all this? To us, it was just fun. At the time, to the people in society it was like a shame if you didn’t have a trade. If you was a singer, you couldn’t make no money, man. And the people would discourage us, telling us to go learn a trade. Plus I wanted to be a doctor or something, too. I think singing was just something that everybody needed to do, had to do. And it so happened that we were in a situation, we got a chance of recording. Because around us everybody sang, in churches everyone sang, and dance and sing, it’s just a part of the culture. It wasn’t like something special that no one else couldn’t have done.
What it proved was that we were more rootically based, like we were stronger. When you’re living in a deeply rooted cultural environment, then everything flow so easily. We were stronger then, because we didn’t have any problem, we hadn’t journeyed out and had to counteract and encounter racism or anything. I didn’t know anything about the color barrier until I journeyed out of Jamaica
. We didn’t know anything about that, man. So it goes to show them that we were like a people firm, stable, we had stability, and at our best at all times.
CHAPTER 4
Good Good Rudies
R
OGER STEFFENS: At the time the Wailers’ recording career commenced, Jamaica had recently achieved its independence from Great Britain and there was a tremendous surge of nationalistic pride. Politics were divided between the ruling right-wing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the left-wing People’s National Party (PNP). One of the first things the JLP did upon assuming the power of government was to bulldoze an impoverished PNP area called Back O’ Wall, claiming that it was full of criminal elements—including followers of the Rastafari faith. Dr. Clinton Hutton of the University of the West Indies has identified this act as the beginning of “garrison politics,” tribalizing the population, especially the young, and hamstringing the development of a democratic culture. Each party was buoyed by its affiliations with gangs, which ultimately would devolve into drug “dons” controlling the entire political process.
The Wailers were keenly aware of what was taking place. “Simmer Down” was a reaction to the turmoil in the ghetto, calling on the youth to “control your temper.” The group was aware of the controversies surrounding their producer, Coxson Dodd, and his parsimonious reputation. As their popularity grew, people would gather around them as they made their way to the studio.
So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley Page 5