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

by Roger Steffens

  Prince Malachi, Marley’s bodyguard “Lips” and Marley photographed under the sycamore tree in Shashamane, Ethiopia. 1978. (Courtesy of Roger Steffens’ Reggae Archives)

  ROGER STEFFENS: Over the years, there have been several rumors that Bob did not actually write “Zimbabwe,” but rather bought it from someone when he visited Ethiopia.

  NEVILLE GARRICK: In Shashamane you had Flippins, one of the first Twelve Tribes members who went there. In the reasoning during that time, I think ideas for Bob’s song “Zimbabwe” came about. Because at that same time when those lyrics came about was when they were trying to sort it out in that Lancaster House Agreement in England, so it was topical in the news. And knowing Flippins and Skill and their liking and awareness of world affairs, I can imagine the situation that led to that song.

  ROGER STEFFENS: Skill Cole has confirmed privately that Flippins was, in fact, the writer of the song and Bob paid him for the lyrics. Its specificity was unique in Bob’s catalog, pointing out a nation in upheaval and the answer to its problems. “Every man got a right to decide his own destiny,” the song declares, approving the fight with arms (a defensive move, from his point of view, in accordance with the Rasta edict that you should harm no one but not let anyone harm you). The song would become the centerpiece of his new album, Survival, and, in one of the crowning achievements of his storied career, Bob would go on to sing it at Zimbabwe’s independence celebrations a few months later.

  * Menelik II reigned as Emperor of Ethiopia from 1889 to 1913.

  CHAPTER 29

  Charity and Survival

  R

  OGER STEFFENS: The original Wailers’ longtime dream of having a home studio was finally realized by Marley in 1978, when he completed one at 56 Hope Road. Survival would be his first album recorded there. His empire was growing nicely, with a pressing plant, distribution company and plans to expand the label to include other artists as well. The studio and label were both called Tuff Gong. Berry Gordy’s success with Motown, a completely black-owned corporation, was Bob’s inspiration and he had broadly ambitious ideas for the future.

  COLIN LESLIE: I knew Bob as far back as the 1960s. At that phase he had moved back to the country. He was a farmer in Saint Ann and he would come into Kingston. I played in a school band at that time, and there’s a girls high school called St. Andrew’s that invited the Wailers to play for a school concert. I was the bass player with the band and I actually backed Bob on that show. In those days a lot of artists did concerts for high schools. This one was very special. This was somewhere around 1968.

  I became involved with Bob after I worked with Third World, for their production company, and when I left Don Taylor approached me to come on board and help with the formation of what was to become the Tuff Gong group of companies. At that time there was the recording studio, pressing plant and the distribution company. This was around the time of the Peace Concert. He had just started setting up the studio. When I actually came on board, the studio was actually being built at Hope Road. I was brought in to assist. They wanted systems set up to run the studio. I was the one who designed the job cards and that sort of thing, detailed and mundane stuff.

  The hardest part of the job was to make sure that the money that was on the road came in on time. Bob was very peculiar with his money. He didn’t want to know about expense vouchers and bills. He wanted to see the money in the bank. He was very clear on that. I had to stay on top of Randy’s account [Randy’s was a major record distributor], which was the big account then; I would go and deal with these people and get the checks in. And the studio: we had to collect the money from different producers. The biggest challenge was making sure the money was flowing in, and there was a positive cashflow.

  In the midst of all that Bob was very focused, very organized. He knew what he wanted to do. Because of his own personality, coupled with the fact that he had spent time in America, in Delaware, and he was exposed to industry and the corporate world, he came back to Jamaica with a sort of sense how things should be ordered in business. So he brought that to bear. He had a structure in his mind how he wanted it. Tommy Cowan was in charge of international distribution, based at Hope Road. Bob was getting ready to export his records, because prior to then he would just sell them around Jamaica. We bought this pressing plant from Mr. Pottinger, Doubletone. We renamed it Addis Ab, Bob took it over. Delroy Wilson’s wife, Cecelia, was actually employed to Mr. Pottinger at the pressing plant and Bob retained her and made her the manager of Addis Ab. And there’s another young lady by the name of Diane Ellis, who was hired to run the studio; she was studio manager. So there were three different heads of different operations. That was the structure. He had people like Sangie Davis in the studio, staff producer. He was the full-time producer.

  ROGER STEFFENS: The first album to be cut in the new Tuff Gong studio at Hope Road was Black Woman by Judy Mowatt, still considered by many to be the finest female vocal album ever made in Jamaica. It was filled with classic tracks, many of them penned by her companion at the time, Freddie McGregor.

  JUDY MOWATT: When I first met Bob I always said to him, I want you to write a song for me, ’cause I never thought I had the ability to write a song for myself. And he always promise, “Yes, mon, I-man have a whole heap o’ song, you know, you must just come down a the gates and come check out the song what I-man have down there.” And Rita and myself used to rehearse together before we work together as the I Three. Every night I used to look forward to finishing my work and go down to Trench Town to sit with Rita and when Bob comes in he would work us out. Just for exercise purpose, not as a singing group. Just for voice exercise. But we used to just sing, just jam, he and his guitar. Because from I know Bob, Bob was never without his guitar. He’s always singing. And then we’d go down there at nights and join in with him and the folks from the area would sing along. It was very beautiful, and I used to look forward to it.

  So Rita and myself used to rehearse this song every night, “Down In The Valley,” and is a song that stand out in my mind, I always loved it. And I say if I ever get the chance to do an album, I would put that song on the album. And it was the first song I thought of when I thought of doing the Black Woman album. And I wrote “Joseph” for him.

  ROGER STEFFENS: In the notes on the Rastaman Vibration album Bob identified himself as a reincarnation of the biblical Joseph, who fed the children of Israel during their seven-year exile from Egypt. Bob’s international touring, Judy has pointed out, was also seven years, giving spiritual sustenance to his audience.

  JUDY MOWATT: As an Israelite, and as a member of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, Joseph, we would recognize him. The other people out there would not recognize him as Joseph, but Bob knew who he is, or who he was. And Bob related it to us that he knew he was Joseph that fed the children of Israel with corn in the time of famine. And not only the children of Israel, but the Egyptians in that time, before Christ; you read about it in the Bible. We see the work that Bob come back to do now, that he has regathered his people, and he’s feeding the people with a more spiritual corn in this time.

  ’Cause the Bible tell us that in this time there’s going to be a huge famine, and it’s going to be famine for the word of God. Well Bob was the one now who came with that spiritual corn for the word of God, to spread it worldwide, to transport it to the four corners of the earth so everyone could be filled, those who wanted to take a piece of it and enjoy the potency of that food. And I recognized this, and I really wanted to show my appreciation because Bob had really inspired me a lot. As I say, we used to rehearse with him, and knowing who he is, I couldn’t go to him and say, “Well, Bob . . .” Words—I couldn’t find words to express how I really appreciated him, for being so close to me. I am really impressed knowing that I—God really chose me to be working with such a great man, you know, I’m really honored. And I couldn’t really talk to him and tell him that, so I decided to jot it down in a song and sing it to him. He loved it, but he was sort of shy like
when he heard it at first. But he really enjoyed it, he said it’s a good song, and he’s not going to tell you how much he loves it, he’s not that type of person. But you can watch him enjoying it, and I have watched him enjoying it, you know, while he was with us in the flesh.

  ROGER STEFFENS: Others were also aware of Bob’s belief that he was a representative of his people. Many of those closest to him recall his unparalleled generosity. Business manager Colin Leslie was in charge of writing the checks.

  COLIN LESLIE: Whenever Bob was in Jamaica the yard would be filled up with people. It would be overflowing into the streets, down the sidewalks. We would go up into the late hours of the night. He would literally have people lined up and he would be interviewing them. Find out what were their particular needs. And there were all kinds of stories, all kinds of people. Women who had lost their baby father through political violence. People who wanted to set up various ventures.

  I give you a little joke. Somebody came to him one day with an idea to set up, to produce and manufacture coconut oil. And Bob found it very funny, he would laugh and say, “I always wanted to be in the oil business.” So he financed this guy!

  People wanted to buy and sell, and he would interview them, literally interview them, and then he would send them to me and say, “Give them X amount of money.” And I would write the checks. This would go up till nine, ten, eleven, twelve at night. And I would just be writing checks, to give these people.

  There were people who would be on a regular thing. They come every month, in the understanding they were getting the money. And it would go on and on. And it’s amazing the great lines. The minute he landed in Jamaica, the yard would be filled with all these people. And he would say, “Speak to the manager,” that was of course me. So it was fun. I had to make sure there was a float of funds to make sure that people would be fed. There were those who depended on hot meals from Bob. And I always had to make sure that there was money there to make sure that these people got something to eat. And to this day a lot of them come and remind me about this. Names who you would probably know. They say, because of you and Bob I used to have a hot meal in those days. This was Bob.

  Blackwell said in a video that Bob was responsible for the support of four thousand people, but I think it was probably even more. Bob, for example, bought the buildings, the Twelve Tribes of Israel headquarters on Hope Road. He supported those people.

  ROGER STEFFENS: Bob’s old friend and personal assistant agrees.

  DESSIE SMITH: Bob tell me that people would line up out into the street to ask favors from him. He actually say that. “Dessie, Hope Road people, and from country! And them carry them entire family!” Like a woman might carry her four children, and them drive from miles. Him tell me in personal talk, like late at night, three, four o’clock in the morning. Him have long lines every day; and not only people in the vicinity but people from far. And he’d help all of them. And not too many of them ever speak about it.

  Dessie Smith, Marley’s personal assistant during his final years, Los Angeles, February 1992.

  ALLAN “SKILL” COLE: The people come from all about. It was like, I don’t want to say it was the Salvation Army, I’m trying to find the right word, but it was like—you wouldn’t believe it, you would have to be there. There were lines, people were coming in and going out. There are people right now out there that have a lot of money because of Bob. And only I alone know the person. I don’t even know that they know that I know, but I know.

  GILLY GILBERT: People come, hungry, and him try fe help hungry people and poor people. Some him help no appreciate it. Some appreciate, some him give no satisfied, some satisfied. He try to help everyone, he try to please everyone. He gave donations to the Ethiopia Orthodox Church, to the Twelve Tribes Foundation, Theocratic Government, everyone as far as I can recall.

  COLIN LESLIE: He always had Rasta elders around him, close by at hand, to advise him. Bob would pull me aside all the time and preach to me about Rasta. In those days I had a heavier beard and I used to wear a lot of tams. And, you know, once a year Bob would fund a Nyabinghi, these gatherings of Rasta elders. He would facilitate these spiritual gatherings. And there at Hope Road there were meetings all the time. This was the political Bob now, unity among them. Bob spent a lot of time trying to do a reconciliation of the various sects, because he was all about unity. He spoke about it all the time and he lived it. Not just words, actions.

  CINDY BREAKSPEARE: People begged him things every day. Every day! Whether it was money or whatever. And he gave whatever to whoever. He didn’t prize material things, you know. And he didn’t prize money. And he would always just say it was just passing through, so it really wasn’t that important. I mean, you know Bob well enough to know that he always dressed in a way that looked like he didn’t have two cents to rub together. He loved his jeans. They were the only thing he cared about. One shoe laced up, the other one open. One tongue hanging out. One sock up, one down. Rude boy! And that was really, too, part of the essence of Bob, that he was so unaffected. I mean, people would give him gold chains, he’d have them on. Somebody would pop them off his neck in a football match, he didn’t even know when it left his neck. Two days later he’d be looking in the mirror, he’d say, “Rahtid, where me chain?” He really didn’t care for what money could buy.

  He gave a lot of money away. I mean, he had money still when it was all over, but he gave a lot of money away. He gave his dinner away. He gave whatever, whatever it was that people required of him, he gave it, ’cause I think he felt that that was part of his role in life, was to do for others and to give to others, and I think he felt very blessed because of the level of inspiration and the work that he had been called to do, and I think he just knew that selfishness just wasn’t his way. He allowed people to take full advantage of him. Full advantage.

  ROGER STEFFENS: Following the mixed reviews that Kaya received in 1978, many saying Bob had “gone soft,” Marley set out to make his most militant album ever, Survival, the only one until then with all-new songs. It was a profound statement of his mature philosophy, turning away from the meet-fire-with-fire urgings of Natty Dread to a realization that if the world were going to change, that change must begin with the individual, and the only way to do that was through the healing power of Love, One Love, I and I.

  To mix the album, he called upon Errol Brown, one of Jamaica’s unsung heroes of the mixing board. Brown had experimented with dub instrumental effects around the same time of King Tubby’s early efforts. His career began with his uncle, Duke Reid, founder of major local label Treasure Isle. He went on to work with producer Sonia Pottinger and others, recording a veritable Who’s Who of Jamaican musical giants. He joined Bob Marley in 1979 as he was recording his Survival masterpiece.

  ERROL BROWN: In 1979 I got a call from Marcia Griffiths. She had told me, “Errol, anywhere you go, I’m coming there with you. Nobody can record me like you.” Marcia said that Bob Marley wanted to meet me, and to meet him at 56 Hope Road at Tuff Gong. And I go there and I walk in the record shop and while Marcia and I were talking, Bob walks in and asks, “Marcia, who is this brother?” And Marcia say, “Bob, you know the engineer what I talked about, my engineer, this is him, Errol Brown from Treasure Isle.” And Bob, with a cheeky smile, said, “Yeah? Nice, nice to meet you,” and he shake my hand. Next he said he have a new console in his studio and have an engineer in the hotel waiting because the sound not right in there. That is Alex Sadkin, he was there to work on this new album and can’t start ’cause there’s no bass in the room. So I went in and lift up the cover off the console. I was frightened! That was the challenge I had to go through. Anyway, I told him I had some two-track tapes that I mixed some songs on at Treasure Isle. I drove out, went for the tapes, played them and definitely didn’t hear no bass—and trust me, any song I mix have bass. Something definitely wrong. I said to Bob, “Let’s try some JBL woofers. By the next morning, new speakers came. The studio engineer, Chaio, replaced the woofers wit
h the new ones—still no bass. The speakers looked perfect flush in the wall, that’s how the studio was built, so I suggested to Bob, nervously of course, “You know something, I think we should take these speakers out of the wall and try to build something up, make them face me, make them come over the console toward me.” To my surprise, he call a carpenter from out in the back with some two-by-two and make some stands right across up there above the glass. Thank God it worked. What happened, they designed the control room with no riser. Chaio build a platform after, so the bass was going behind the console. I guess from that day Bob had confidence in me. As they say, the first impression is the best.

  So I became the assistant engineer to Alex Sadkin on the Survival album. Alex was hired by Chris Blackwell to do the Survival album. So though I was the engineer for the studio, I was the assistant to him.

  COLIN LESLIE: Between Bob and Chris Blackwell now there was very, very positive mutual respect. Bob would always listen carefully to what Chris had in terms of ideas, and vice versa. It was reciprocal. I remember once there was a meeting scheduled in Miami, where Bob was at the time. Chris was flying from his base in Nassau to meet Bob. Chris missed his flight and he got a later flight. When he got to Miami, Bob was at the airport, still waiting for him. So that would give you an idea of what mutual respect they had for each other.