ROGER STEFFENS: The joy of hearing live tapes of Bob is how different a song’s length could be from night to night.
JUNIOR MARVIN: The key to that was that rehearsal. In the band, everyone knew everyone’s part. I know Family Man’s part, I know the piano part, I know the drum part. Likewise, Carly knows guitar part, he knows vocal part. We knew the song inside out. We still try to do that. We could ad lib because we were so close, we were like one mitt, you felt very solid in this way, very confident, because you knew that if you made a move everyone would move with you. Whenever Bob moved this way, we moved with him, he moved that way, we moved with him. So it became a unique chemistry and I think that’s how it worked. My favorite show was my first, in Paris, 1977. Everything was fine! After the third song Bob came over and slapped five on my hand and I said, “Hey, this is it.” It was beautiful.
FAMILY MAN BARRETT: What I remember of those times is that Bob sometimes goes into like a trance.
JUNIOR MARVIN: Spiritual trance. It’s like we’re instruments of God and things echo through us as musicians. It’s a gift that God’s given you and He’s echoing through you. It’s not something you own, you possess. You channel it. And at times you will find that when everyone is very solid and together, these things will come out as an extra gift. It’s like, you’ve done the homework, you’ve done the practice, you’ve come to the reality of the thing, and God’s decided to give you the extra spice. And it comes out, it happens now to us a lot, it comes out, you don’t plan it, you don’t organize it, it just comes as an extra gift from God, and when it comes it’s magic.
CHAPTER 25
Blackwell, Bob and Business
R
OGER STEFFENS: Life in London, the self-proclaimed World’s Greatest City, was not just about making music and hanging out with his fascinating lover. A gigantic world tour was organized that included not just Europe but North America, Asia and the South Pacific as well. It would be in support of a major statement by Bob, released by Island in late spring 1977, an album filled with anthemic words that would alter and illuminate our times. Crucial additions were made to the lineup of the Wailers, and their sound matured. But misfortune lay afoot too, and Bob’s life would be forever changed by an accident in Paris at the start of the Exodus tour.
Among the additions to Bob’s entourage was Charlie Comer, a florid-faced Liverpool Irish publicist—and my mentor, in many ways. He had run the below-decks gambling on a Cunard liner as a teenager, managed a Mob bar in Puerto Rico, worked for Brian Epstein before he discovered the Beatles, and then flew in the same helicopter with them into Shea Stadium. Charlie’s company was called CB Enterprises, echoing other crucial CBs in Bob’s life: Cedella Booker, Chris Blackwell, Cindy Breakspeare and Carly Barrett.
Charlie’s famous clients included Frank Sinatra, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, the Chieftains, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Richard Harris, Peter Tosh and Bob Marley. He swore he would never speak about them on the record. At the end of 1999, however, the doctor treating his diabetes sent him to warm L.A., where he spent a week at our home. Packed and ready to fly back to New York City, Charlie rather reluctantly allowed himself to be coaxed into an interview. Because he knew them both so well, I asked about the differences between Peter Tosh and Bob.
CHARLIE COMER: Peter always wanted all the journalists to know—did you get my last answer, did you understand my patois? Bob never took that time because he obviously thought that his message was strong enough that they better well get it or they’ll miss it. Peter I liked right away. I think it was his honesty. And the other thing was, he always spoke the truth. And I liked Peter’s humor. Peter depended on me to get publicity, getting television. On publicity he was very, very good. He wanted his words to get out. He wanted to be in the biggest instances, in television, radio, newspapers, magazines, whatever. Because he said people always believe everything that’s in magazines and newspapers, which of course, in Jamaica, it was true.
Marley’s primary publicist, the irascible Liverpool Irishman Charlie Comer, New York City, February 1998.
I always told Bob and Peter if we were doing press conferences, this is what you should try to tell people—something that you want to tell them. And I told them when you’re doing television shows, don’t give a fuck what the question is, you just say what you’re on there for! A new record, a new movie, a new TV show or a new video. And I said no interviewer can stop you from saying what you’re going to say. They’ve got to actually go on a different track and pretend that they’ve been asking that question, otherwise they look idiotic. But Peter was very determined to get what he felt and what he believed in out to people. Bob could be very devious, especially with the fucking press. And I used to say to the white press, “Listen, if you don’t understand him, ask me. I’ll tell you what he says afterwards.”
ROGER STEFFENS: In light of the money problems experienced by the Wailers Band after Bob passed, I’ve always been interested in memories of the financial arrangements Bob had with the individual members of it. Tyrone explains the feelings of all of them when they are asked about who was responsible for the songs as they appeared on the record.
TYRONE DOWNIE: The Wailers Band were really co-creators of Bob’s music, like “Jamming,” which was my song. All Bob did was say the “jamming, I want to jam it with you,” but every one of those verses were mine. And “Waiting In Vain,” I wrote half of that. “I been waiting on your line / And the waiting feel is fine.” Bob doesn’t write like that. And “Rastaman Vibration.” I came in one day and said, “Rastaman vibration is positive.” Al will back me up on that.
Bob would split the money that he made on tour, 50 percent to the band and 50 percent to him. Record publishing was Bob Marley Music. My name isn’t Bob Marley! Then I didn’t realize, while we were writing the song, I didn’t know what publishing was. And I thought when you played with a band or when you played on a record, you got your money, that was it! You got paid. That’s how naive a lot of Jamaican musicians are.
ROGER STEFFENS: Chris Blackwell was reaping the benefits of Bob’s ever-increasing success as Bob took control of producing his own product—on which, nevertheless, Blackwell was still taking a production override royalty. He himself has said that he and Bob were never friends, just work associates. Yet he found it expedient to use his perceived closeness to the burgeoning superstar Marley to gain entry into the highest levels of international society. To his credit, it is generally agreed that Bob might have never reached his unprecedented level of success were it not for skillful promotion by Blackwell, who was actually taken aback at how big Bob had become.
In 1988 Don Taylor spoke at length about Chris Blackwell’s relationship to Bob during the Exodus period. By 1988, U2, another Island act, had become one of the biggest bands in the world.
DON TAYLOR: Chris Blackwell has gone on a crusade to deteriorate Jamaican music and Bob Marley as the greatest reggae band, strictly on a business thing, to make U2 the greatest thing. It’s a fact! It’s a fact. The guys from U2 told me in Paris, the manager from U2 told me this January [1988] at the Midem convention that the biggest influence, that his group spent eighteen months listening to Marley product before they made their first record. That Chris Blackwell sent the tape and had them study Marley’s records before they made their first record.
You must understand Chris Blackwell. When I met Chris Blackwell for the first time and start to analyze what does Bob mean to Chris Blackwell, Chris Blackwell never intended for Bob Marley to be this big. Because of the way we redid the contract, where we took control, Chris Blackwell had to call me for the OK to do a single for everything he did. That’s the way the contract read.
What happened, what Chris wanted, Bob had become by his third or fourth record for Island, he had become a darling of the jet set, which Chris Blackwell runs it. Kennedy’s young boy, John, he ran behind us the whole tour. Bianca Jagger, Mick. Bob had become a beggar of the jet set. And what proved it more than ever is that when we played Par
is Chris Blackwell threw his big jet set party and everybody jetted in. And Bob was so important to the jet set crowd, that Bob was his way in to a lot of these people. For a long time he didn’t say he owned Island Records; he said he was Bob’s producer. That was his way in to a lot of people! There was a time when the only product Chris Blackwell had selling in Europe was Bob Marley. Nothing else he had selling.
ROGER STEFFENS: As the deadline for the release of Exodus approached, cover artist Neville Garrick felt stymied. His original conception had been rejected.
NEVILLE GARRICK: As Bob’s new art director, Exodus now, this one was a real experience for me. Actually, most of the time, all my first ideas are usually accepted, like bring it and show Bob and say, “Skipper, how you think?” and him say, “Show everybody in the band.” And if everybody say cool, him say, “Cool, that’s it, go on.” Well, in England I work three months on this Exodus design. I still have this design. It was the map of the world with Africa showing foremost and the Wailers were playing, like a group shot I took of the band with a fisheye lens, had them all playing drums, they were chanting, inside Africa. And the world had wings, like it was flying through the Red Sea parting. The inside was like comets coming out of space with each member of the group coming through space like that. I don’t want to call no names, but a couple of people, I guess, who Bob considered their opinion that time, probably didn’t like a picture of Bob on it and said they didn’t like it. And Bob say him don’t like it, do a next one. Well, I’d spent about two months, and I really felt frustrated in a way, you know, like whew! What I do now, airbrush work, and you know was a lot of time. Anyway, this was the first one, so I just go to the board again. So I decided to come with no Bob Marley and the Wailers on the cover. Exodus. We just left Jamaica, the mystic is there, no one know where we gone. Exodus, we’re going home. Blank. Just the word. Because I thought, the title is so strong, why try to interpret it? Just write back the word. So I took Amharic [Ethiopian] letters and turned them upside down, sideways, because you don’t have “ABC” in Amharic, to write out “E-X-O-D-U-S.” Well, short time after that I found I almost spelled “Ethiopia” unknowingly. This was told to me by Asfa Wossen, the Crown Prince of Ethiopia.
ROGER STEFFENS: Marley had several encounters with Ethiopian royalty in exile. He felt extremely close to them and protective of them, as he believed they were blood relations of a true and living God, and gave large donations to them. In Ethiopia, three years after Haile Selassie was overthrown, one could be imprisoned for possession of a picture of His Majesty. Bob’s support for freedom movements throughout the continent was in sharp contrast to his unwavering support for the Ethiopian monarchy, whose lineage stretched back to King Solomon.
In London in 1977, he met with the exiled Crown Prince of Ethiopia and was given a ring that belonged to Haile Selassie I.
NEVILLE GARRICK: Asfa Wossen, the Crown Prince of Ethiopia, was the man responsible for giving a ring of Haile Selassie I’s to Bob. I was the only one there with Bob when Bob got that ring, outside of the Ethiopian family. He told Bob he had something for him in recognition of the work Bob had really done for Ras Tafari, his father, in preparing this message. And he gave him this ring with the Lion of Judah carrying the flag on it. And he placed it on his finger. Now, my knowledge of this ring is that the Ethiopian royal family has a set of rings which belongs within the Royal House of Judah, that only members of the royal family are given. I don’t know about it being the direct ring that His Imperial Majesty wore, because he still wears it as far as I know.
ROGER STEFFENS: The spring-in-exile period was a busy one. The recording and release of Exodus, the plans for the biggest reggae tour in history, along with much-needed time to decompress from the assassination attempt and be with the woman he loved best—all this came together at once. Thankfully, Cindy brought a new peace and direction for Bob, lovingly caring for him in the midst of many competing demands on his precious time.
Bob’s spectacular European tour-ending performance at London’s Rainbow Theatre in early June was captured on film and played subsequently as a theatrical feature in European cinemas. The new songs from Exodus were accompanied by arena rock antics led by new lead guitarist Junior Marvin, whom Bob had encouraged to be broadly theatrical for the mostly white audience.
CINDY BREAKSPEARE: I went to the Rainbow shows in London, one or two. But to be honest with you—I’m going to tell you something funny—those were not the times when I enjoyed Bob musically. I used to enjoy him when he was just writing songs and they were just coming together and he’d be sitting in a room with a guitar and somebody else would pick up a pack of matches and somebody else would pick up something and start to knock the dresser and somebody else would start to hit the bottle in their hand with their ring and music would just come together and happen. And those to me were the moments that were special. Actually, we were lucky in that we did have a lot of time in Oakley Street, for some reason. I guess because we were both based there and we would come and go. You know, I can remember cooking liver at three in the morning. Now and then he would have a bit of calf liver. Because it’s good for you. It has a lot of vitamin B in it, a lot of pregnant women who are vegetarians become anemic and they are told to take desiccated liver pills, so why not sit down and eat a nice piece of liver? So ridiculous to be extreme about things. He wasn’t dogmatic.
CEDELLA BOOKER: One time he told me, he said, I never go to bed till three o’clock this morning. And I said, and you get up early. He said more time is only two or three hours’ sleep he take and that is enough, because he was always busy doing what he have to do. Because if you have work to do you can’t put sleep before, you have to go and do what you have to do.
ROGER STEFFENS: Despite having a personal cook, who maintained a strict ital diet, Bob’s health took a blow as he prepared for the world tour in May 1977. He began to look tired from the stresses he faced in the aftermath of the assassination attempt. In retrospect, several of those closest to Bob felt that constant attention from people helped kill him.
GILLY GILBERT: I think he needed some space too. I myself sometimes I wondered why he don’t even take a vacation and go somewhere and just hibernate. And have just certain amount of tranquility. But I mean, he was for the people and I guess he wanted to reach to the people. He didn’t want to stay away from people. He never talked to me about death. He just got his work to do, and Rasta never die. Rasta live. Although we know we gonna die someday, we just chant that chant at all times: Life.
CHAPTER 26
The Bloody Toe in the Paris Match
R
OGER STEFFENS: The first leg of the ambitious globe-circling Exodus tour planned for the summer and fall of 1977 began in France. Bob suffered a serious injury when a French journalist accidentally stepped on his foot in the heat of a soccer match. This would lead to an awful discovery that would eventually stop the tour in its tracks.
GILLY GILBERT: Right before the Exodus tour began he hurt his toe in Paris in ’77. For a couple of years before at least, he had a bloodshot toenail that he never did anything about. Until he was stepped on, he never limped or anything like that. It was the guy stepping on him that aggravated it. Then he toured for about a month, six weeks. He was hopping and skipping and doing his thing with his bandaged toe during the ’77 Europe tour. He was like a raging lion. They gave him a cap to put on it if he was going to play soccer, like a sponge thing. He played after, he played hard soccer. Then while he was recuperating Bob got his foot messed up again, he was playing soccer right in front of his house, like scrimmage.
JUNIOR MARVIN: Bob first had the injury in Jamaica, playing soccer. And, he looked after it himself, and it started to get better.
CINDY BREAKSPEARE: Well, the foot was just a simple case of stubbornness where he would not give it time to heal. I remember all the time we were there at Oakley Street in London he was soaking it in various solutions, and applying ointments, all of which were supposed to help it to heal.
And it was coming on okay, and then I think he went to Paris and played a football match there, and somebody stepped on it with the damn football spikes. That just set it off again, and I think it’s just purely and simply a case of the cells not getting a chance to heal.
JUNIOR MARVIN: They had a soccer match in Paris, and one of the players stepped on his toe with a spike, and it went right through his nail. He had to have it bandaged, and he had to wear sandals for the rest of the tour.
ROGER STEFFENS: Dr. Carlton “Pee Wee” Fraser was not only one of Bob’s closest friends during his international touring years, but also his personal physician.
DR. PEE WEE FRASER: Essentially it was a past injury. The first history of that injury was associated with a football incident at Boys’ Town. I guess everybody just take it as a simple superficial injury and sometime, probably about three years after, we had a reoccurrence where he had pain and swelling. I think the first instance subsequent to that was in Delaware, where it was mentioned. I think the doctors misdiagnosed it as a fungal infection, erroneously of course. It went on, knowing that its return was imminent and its symptoms.
So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley Page 29