So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley

by Roger Steffens

  I don’t know if Bob get paid. I don’t know if Bob get money every week, but I know I didn’t get any. I know Peter didn’t get any because Peter—it seems to me when money hand out, if Bunny did hand out, Peter know about it and Peter would get upset and say Bunny and Bob is brothers, so, they’re keeping it in the family. I think this is one of the reasons why Peter leave the group. I never asked about money and I never made any money as a Wailer. We was having fun and whatever. The first stage show, at the Palace, my mother had to make my clothes.

  ROGER STEFFENS: Coxson recalls the show taking place at the Ward Theatre, although Bunny backs up Beverley’s memory that it was at the Palace.

  COXSON DODD: How we got the Wailers launched with the crowd, it was with our sound systems. We had sessions at Success Club with several of my artists, and we used to tour the country parts, taking them also. And the first big show they did for me was at the Ward Theatre, I think it was Christmas. In the beginning they need a lot of polishing but Bob had a gift, you know, he was willing just to get his steps together. He had the makings. Their chief competitors at the time were the Techniques. When the Techniques came out with “Little Did You Know,” man, it was really, really a big struggle for [the Wailers], because [their lead singer] Slim Smith was really a better vocalist than Bob, you know.

  BUNNY WAILER: Our first appearance was at the Palace, Wailers were hot. When we hit the stage it was just fire. The place was packed till people was dripping off the walls. When we came on, half the people left their seats and were down almost to the edge of the stage, ’cause Wailers were like gymnastics. Flickings and splits and snap falls. All Wailers split. We did stuff where Bob would take me and throw me in the air and we’d split. Bob would kneel down, I would go over his back—splits. Peter would come there and bounce us like rubber balls, just comin’ up and goin’ down like that. I would run to him, he catches me, and as my belly cross his arm he just flicks and split.

  The people never seen nothing like that in Jamaica before, a group hit the stage and people just dancin’ and doing all kind of stuff and singin’, ’cause we were really fit, fit. Fit.

  ROGER STEFFENS: In the midst of their performance there was a massive power outage. Thugs descended upon the audience, stealing everything they could and mashing the show. The riot led to the Wailers recording what many consider to be the first “rude boy” song ever, “Hooligans.” The song was written by someone who had entered it in a competition. The track somehow landed on Coxson’s lap and he had the Wailers cover it. Veteran hornsman Bobby Ellis was an eyewitness to the mayhem at the Palace.

  BOBBY ELLIS: When the power cut, nobody could leave. The man say nobody leave because power will come back. Anybody try come out is just a lot of bottle crash crash crash. You haffe get back into your seat. Must have been around one o’clock before they eventually realize it no come back.

  BUNNY WAILER: Me say me never see bottle fling so, and all Palace screen mash up. Certain man instrument mash up. And the chair dem mash up. It comes like the promoter, Coxson, lose back all the money what him make, to fix back up Palace Theatre. Him rue!

  ROGER STEFFENS: Third World’s Cat Coore witnessed another early onstage mishap.

  CAT COORE: [Bob] fell at Ward Theatre one time at Nuggets for the Needy show. I’ll never forget that. He fell onstage, on his back. It was a live televised concert. Must have tapes of that. A telethon.

  SEGREE WESLEY: At Ward Theatre, I remember Downbeat Coxson put on shows and also at Regal Theatre. And the audience acceptance of the group was good because you must remember that when Jamaica first heard about the Wailers they didn’t hear about them as the Wailers entertaining. They heard about them as the Wailers, as a recording artist. So they came [to the live shows] with [hit songs] like “Simmer Down” and music like that. So they were accepted right away. I know they didn’t have to go through the competitive setting where they’ll boo you or whatever because they would just appear on shows, which you appear and you entertain and you go. But they were good. And they worked on their wares.

  PETER TOSH: You see, when you go up on stage them love you mon, cho! Them stone you with the herb, money. One time I was performing at the Ward Theatre, Wailers. Well now, me start sing, bwoi! Is just all kind of money come up on stage. Poof! Drop beside me some, poof! Blood-claat! [Jamaica’s worst curse, literally “blood cloth.”] Me look at some two-and-six-pence piece lick me head, and all them things. By the hundreds! Why, me say, me couldn’t do that, so I stop sing and just go on and pick them up. You know what me pick up man, pick up me two pocket full! And before I come off the stage, it was begged out! Every man in the audience come beg it out back. Just beg out everything! Man just beg it out, and me look and me have about two-and-six left in me hand, with the two pocket full of money, yeah mon! But those amusing still, ’cause me just laugh.

  Me have some very fantastic experience on stage, mon. One time me was performing at the Palace Theatre and the people was waiting to see the Wailers, and them can’t see the Wailers, and a band named the Vikings was playing and the people were, “We want the Wailers! Wailers!” And them can’t see no Wailers. The time, we was in the dressing room waiting, but we had to wait until that band finish. Well the people was impatient and some blood-claat back like this—WOOF! [Furious pitching motion.] Man haffe run off stage, mon. Yes, mon. Every instrument mash up. ’Cause the people want to see the Wailers.

  BEVERLEY KELSO: My first show with them, the audience react by stoning us. The show started and the next thing we had a blackout. After the blackout, we started like about half an hour later, light came back on. And then when the show started again, Bob coming from one side like he was flying. Peter coming from one side like they were flying, flapping their arms. And when they started to sing, right there, the light went out again. And the place was stormed with bottles, whatever they could throw on the stage. And Bob, they have to run backstage and we were in the backstage for a long time. We couldn’t come out until everything, everybody come out of the theater. But that night the theater was ram-packed, jam-packed. They get a good turnout that night, but we just didn’t sing.

  The second show was actually the same thing in Montego Bay. We drive actually one whole day for the stage show. When we went there they didn’t have no music box. They didn’t have no light. Something was going on. Bob tried to calm down that crowd. He said we would sing without certain things. And I think that was a setup. I was saying I wonder if Coxson want to get the money and then not going to come up and then it just break up like that because we didn’t get to sing. That was the second show we didn’t get to do nothing again. It was a disaster right there again. The next thing, the best show we did was the one at Sombrero. That was a club so they had their own sound system in place and everything else, right? And the audience response was great. Great.

  So I only did three live shows. The first was the Palace. The second was a dance hall thing in Montego Bay. And the third was at the Sombrero.

  CHERRY GREEN: I only played on one live show. Coxson give us five pound to buy a dress. We were going to play at the Sombrero, me and Beverley, we had the same dress. But when they went and take the picture for the album they didn’t carry me, they just sneak away. Maybe I was working that day. I used to work at Caribbean Preserving. They do grapefruit. It was like a season job. So when the season come you got to work. So I can buy my clothes and my shoes. And I had a child to take care of. I used to make seven to eight pounds. That was big money in them days.

  ROGER STEFFENS: As the Wailers started to perform and record more, Cherry had to step away from the group sometimes.

  CHERRY GREEN: You feel good to hear your voice on the radio. I can remember my daughter, she probably was three, and every time she hear “Lonesome Feeling” she say, hear my mother. Hear my mother! When I leave there she probably was four. She was born in ’61 and I was gone. I leave her with my mother and I just go rent a room somewhere in Jones Town, me and a friend, Doreen. So by 1965 I had s
topped singing with them because sometimes they go and record and I’m not there. And they didn’t say to me Cherry, we going to the session tomorrow, next week or when. Cherry gone to work and they just gone. They just leave me. So, I got to go where I make money. So I go and do my thing and they do their own thing. And they was like, they didn’t have any responsibility. I had a responsibility.

  BEVERLEY KELSO: We didn’t do too much show because during that time was like the group was kinda drifting away from Mr. Dodd. Everything started happening so fast.

  ROGER STEFFENS: As the Wailers began to be seen more and more by the public at dances, clubs and theaters, their records continued to dominate the charts. Bob Marley was beginning to be recognized as an important new artist who didn’t just cover foreign music but was capable of composing his own classics.

  BEVERLEY KELSO: After I was in the group, I used to go see them, but I never see anyone carrying them on their shoulders, standing ovations. They were just another group. They could have been the Heptones. They could have been the Gaylads. They could have been the Maytals. But the Wailers really did stand out as the group on the island. They stand out because of the music, hits.

  ROGER STEFFENS: Among the dozens of artists at Studio One during this period was a brilliant stylist named Alton Ellis. He had started his career in a hit-making duo with Eddie Parkins. Alton became the king of rocksteady, and, early on, tried to give Marley advice about working with Coxson “Downbeat” Dodd. We spoke on the Reggae Beat show in 1983, two years after Bob’s passing.

  ALTON ELLIS: Bob is just something else, you know. It’s going to take up a long time fe I tell you what I know about Bob. Bob is not an easy person to get along with. Bob is strong, very strong. Bob is sure of himself and need no help from when he was a youth. I’ll tell you the first conversation I had with Bob. He came to Downbeat studio and did a couple of records. He was living up Third Street and I was living at Fifth Street. Joe Higgs live at Third Street and Joe Higgs help tutor him, ’cause Joe was out there before even me. I was passing Bob’s house and saw them rehearsing under a tree, and I say to him, “My bredren, I want to tell you something. I love the song you do, but you see that producer what name Downbeat? Watch him.” And to my surprise, Bob stop and say to me, nicely, “Don’t need any advice. I can manage when I get to Downbeat.” And I left there that day spinning, how him just answer me so abrupt. Is years after I realize it was the positiveness within the man, the strength within the man. So all my little advice wasn’t necessary, ’cause him did pass that.

  The author with Alton Ellis, the king of rocksteady, holding a stack of his singles in the Reggae Archives, Los Angeles, June 1997.

  Bob is a man, you go in the studio one morning and say, “Hail Dread,” and pass him, and you come out in the evening and don’t talk to him, he’s angry as if you is the most enemy for months. And big tall guys afraid of Bob, everybody afraid of Bob, and him never fight yet. Him don’t fight. He was so powerful spiritually that even big guys stand back. The right word at the right time every time make even the big mountain guys step back. That’s the man I’m telling you about, not the music. Bob can put a story into words so easy! Things that are around you every day and you would step past it, and Bob would see it as a big story when him put the lyrics together. He can tie the lyrics with the music so the music embrace the lyric so close that it form a melodious flow. This is a problem I find with a lot of singers, their lyrics is so strong and without the combination of it and the music together it sound as if—it doesn’t come over. Something missing, you know. Bob have that combination of embracing lyrics with melody. It’s only the Beatles I put in front of Bob as recording artists.

  ROGER STEFFENS: King Sporty, real name Noel Williams, was an early colleague of Bob’s at Studio One. He moved to Miami in the 1970s and opened a studio there. Bob heard Sporty sing a song he wrote called “Buffalo Soldier,” and made his own version which remained in the vault until after he passed, becoming his biggest posthumous hit.

  KING SPORTY: I recognized Bob as a messenger early on. We grew up together. We know who could take it further. I saw what happened on stage. We saw who got outsung, we saw where the dimension was. I was with the game from it started. I was there in the back room, there was a room that Clement Dodd had at Studio One, and we were the only ones who could go in the back room, me, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, Bob Marley, the Gaylads, B. B. Seaton, Leroy Sibbles. We went in the back room ’cause there was a piano back there. Other than that, the guys had to stay out. I used to audition the singers before they even could come through the door. I did that for Dodd, I did it for Duke Reid. At that time I didn’t know that I had one of the most important jobs that is up for grabs in the United States.

  ROGER STEFFENS: In 1965, the Wailers had the number one, two, three, five and seven songs in the Top Ten at once: “Simmer Down,” “It Hurts To Be Alone,” “Rude Boy,” “Jailhouse,” and “Put It On.” During this time they became friends with Bob Andy, a prolific singer and songwriter. On his website, he shared an intimate interlude with the Wailers.

  BOB ANDY: There was a room at Studio One where we used to listen to records. Coxson would give artists music to listen to on this turntable and speakers, but there was another room between Coxson’s inner office and the music room where you could go and lock yourself in and no one else could enter. The Wailers had access to that, and I did too. One particular day, I was the witness to a very special performance. It was like being let into a secret. I was very high from smoking, and they were always high too. It was the first time I had seen each of the Wailers with a guitar, and each time I remember this, it’s like remembering a dream. I sat there, and they were just messing around with various songs for a while, but finally it climaxed with a song called “Ten To One,” which I later found out was a Curtis Mayfield song.

  Bob Andy, composer and singer, in Kingston, Jamaica, displaying his page in the catalog of the author’s Reggae Archives exhibition at the Queen Mary, July 2001.

  Bob sang the first line, then Bunny came in on the second, and all three came in on the next line. Peter sang a line, and then all three sang in harmony, then Bob and Bunny sang solo again. When they started that song, I saw a side of the Wailers I felt no one else had seen. It was like my own personal revelation. I’ve never heard music so beautiful, and I’ve never seen such love and camaraderie in all my life. I knew then that the Wailers were special people, but they were special by being the Wailers, as a unit. When I reflect on that occasion, it was divine. It was like being on a spaceship, listening to the music of the spheres. I was spellbound, and that memory will stay with me forever.

  CHAPTER 5

  Love and Affection

  R

  OGER STEFFENS: The young woman who would become Bob Marley’s wife, Rita Anderson, was raised alongside a cemetery on the edge of Trench Town. When she became pregnant out of wedlock, the baby’s father was sent to England. After she gave birth to her daughter, Sharon, she went on to sing in the Soulettes, a Studio One group mentored by Marley. She would give birth to three of Bob’s children, eventually becoming something of a protector to him and suffering his many extramarital liaisons.

  According to her autobiography, No Woman, No Cry, Rita’s relationship with the Wailers came about because they would pass by her house en route to work. When one day the trio she had put together sang for them, Peter suggested they come along to Coxson’s studio and audition. The producer liked what he heard and asked Bob to help coach them. At first it was all business, but the more time they spent together, the closer she became to Bob, although Peter had been the first to make some shockingly bold advances toward her.

  Rita’s cousin, Constantine “Dream” “Vision” Walker, is one of the unheralded “original” Wailers whose voice can be heard on some of the most moving of the group’s works. Beginning with Rita Marley and another young woman in the Soulettes, Vision stepped in for Bob Marley for several months in 1966 when Bob left to work in Delaware. His
distinctive tenor is featured on such Wailers classics as “Sunday Morning,” “Let Him Go,” “I’m The Toughest,” “Rock Sweet Rock,” “Dancing Shoes,” “I Stand Predominate,” “Dreamland,” and “I Need You.” I caught up with Vision at the One World Music Festival in Aspen, Colorado, in September 1994, where he was performing as part of Bunny’s backing band.

  VISION WALKER: The way my nicknames come about, when my mother went to the doctor and he told her she was pregnant, she said, “Oh, doctor, that’s a dream.” Because she didn’t believe that she could get pregnant, she was in her thirties. So when I went to Trench Town and started to sing with the Wailers, a brother named Fowlie one day said, “Not a dream, man, a vision.” Because old men dream and young men see visions. That’s how the name Vision came into play.

  I was born the 19th of October, 1950—the same date as Peter Tosh. I started singing at thirteen. My whole family was musicians. One day Rita had a song named “Blood Stain” and she said, “Come and help me sing harmony on this.” And we started singing. It sounded like something that had been done before, professional. Marlene “Precious” Gifford went to the same school as Rita, Dunrobin. Rita came up with the name the Soulettes. The first time we did something with people listening on the airwaves was with Vere Johns [a radio amateur hour program]. We sang “What’s Your Name” [a cover of the American R & B classic by Don and Juan]. When we harmonized that, it used to just knock people out, that sound just like the record! Our inspirations included Glenn Miller, the Impressions, Curtis Mayfield. He’s a good writer. I respect him.