by Rita Marley
And this is where my love came in. I looked at him and thought, uh-oh, such a nice guy. And I got weak in the knees. Oh my God, I thought, oh my God.
That evening, he did come by. Sharon was about five months old then. When I brought her out, he loved her. And she loved him. When she learned to talk a little she couldn’t say “Robbie,” so she called him “Bahu.”
From that day on, when you’d see Bob, I’d be his tail. He’d have me by the hand, walking me, come on, Rita. When all this first started, Sharon’s father and I were still corresponding. Bob didn’t like that and made his position clear. In fact, he insisted that I end the relationship—why was I having anything to do with a man who wouldn’t help me or the baby? One day he caught Dream with a letter to be mailed to Sharon’s father and took it away from him! (That ended the correspondence.)
I learned firsthand about his generosity then, this Robbie, the kind of man he was, because whenever he had a little money he’d come by the house with some Cow & Gate baby food and a drink for Aunty. And even she began to give in to his nice ways and manners. “Well,” she said, “it looks like something is going on here.”
And so, though I didn’t expect this, I became his. As in okay now, guys, this is my girl. Even Peter Tosh respected that and learned not to touch, because Peter was very touchy, he would see you and ohh—hug you up and try to squeeze you.
But Bob said, no no no … this is my girl.
It wasn’t long before Coxsone put out a Wailers album with the Soulettes behind them. Released in 1965, it was called The Wailing Wailers. Since Dream was so much younger than Marlene and I, and had a soft, sweet voice, our female voices overpowered his presence, and the main impression the Soulettes gave was that of a female group. I was the lead singer, and eventually, when we started to get bookings for concerts, two other young women—Cecile Campbell and Hortense Lewis—came in, as Dream sometimes wasn’t able to go on the road, either because he had to go to school or because he was restricted by his age from some of the events that we were allowed to attend.
I loved performing live, under the bright lights and inside the music, being onstage. And it was a thrill to be earning a little money independently. But I still wasn’t sure about giving up the security of a nursing career, although I loved music so much and it seemed as if that’s what I was going after. Bob and I were always meeting, rehearsing, talking, giving each other advice. One of the important aspects of our relationship was that we were friends before we became lovers, we were naturally friendly, like brother and sister. He was always teaching me to hold notes and other aspects of music. He was concerned about me. “You’re a nice girl,” he’d caution, “so don’t get mix up, these men will use you and abuse you, and you could be caught up and have many more babies and destroy yourself. So don’t follow them, see about your work. Decide! Decide whether you really love music or want to go back to nursing, but be serious about whatever you do.”
The Jamaican dancehall has been called “nightclub, news medium, gathering place, church, theater, and schoolhouse all rolled into one.” Contemporary Jamaican pop music is known as “dancehall.” A dance “hall” could actually happen anywhere, indoors or out. Sometimes a crowd got together in a building, but just as often the place would be a yard or a field or a parking lot. There was either live music or a DJ playing records, with the music booming out over a sound system through huge speakers. DJs might talk over the music, like American radio disc jockeys, to crank up the energy and keep people moving. Sometimes two sound systems played against each other at the same dancehall, to see who would attract the larger audience, just as in the States, in New Orleans, jazz bands would have “cutting contests” in the street and try to drown each other out.
Although I had always listened to records and to the radio, because of having been brought up so strictly I hadn’t seen much, so I was new to all this excitement. I’d never actually gone to a dancehall until Bob took me. By then the Wailers were one of the top male groups in Jamaica, and their recordings were being played at the dances as well as on the radio. Since their presence at any location always had an impact and could promote record sales, it was recommended that on Friday and Saturday nights the group go to one of the dancehalls. At first Bob didn’t even want to take me. He’d say things like, “You know there’s a dance tomorrow, but I don’t think I should take you because there might break a fight.” And I’m saying, “No, I wanna see the fight!”
But apart from the fighting, those first dancehall experiences were to me—whew, astonishing! Watching everybody bumping and grinding—to me that was all new. And of course, just as Bob had predicted, a fight would break out during the dance—that happened regularly in those days. It was the normal thing! We didn’t have gun shooting then, but a guy would break a bottle, or would pull out his ratchet knife, and put it to another guy’s throat, and say, “I’ll kill you if you dance with my girlfriend one more time!”
There were times Bob had to take my hand and pull me out of a crowded area, just to escape the bottle throwing. So he was always saying, “I told you!” at the end of the night. But the scene didn’t bother me, because I found it all so exciting—this was the “real world,” the world I hadn’t been in until I met him.
People have asked me since then whether there were times I had to choose between being with Sharon and being with Bob, something that can happen when you’re developing a new relationship and already have a child to be responsible for. But I didn’t really have to make that choice. We both became parents for Sharon, and I seldom left her behind for long, because Bob was not that type of a daddy. He would make sure to remind me! “Whatever you’re doing, hurry up because you have to go home to the baby.” Or “You think Aunty can manage until we finish the session?” He was very conscientious, and this was something that impressed me greatly—his sharing, his caring for my baby, and really allowing me to show more responsibility. To him I was not just the ordinary girl running around with nothing to do but play and hang out. He’d even chastise me: “You have a baby to look after, now don’t stay here and waste time!” Or if the session was running too long he’d say, “Rita, you sure you can stay longer than this? Your baby don’t want titty? You don’t want to go home and feed the baby and come back?” So he was always there, attentively reminding me, hey, you have a baby …
I was now growing up to be what was called then a nice young lady. The young man I still knew as Robbie had other girls in his life, girls with whom he had intimate relationships; I knew that he was not a saint. But he kept them away from me out of respect.
The first time we kissed, we actually had a real date. He took me to the Ambassador, our local Trench Town theater, which offered concerts and sometimes live performances as well as movies. The Ambassador was where the people went, where parents took their children, boys met girls, boyfriends met girlfriends. But dating was not on Aunty’s list, so I couldn’t simply say to Bob, “Okay, I’d like to go to the movies with you.” I had to make up some story about a special rehearsal, since she didn’t mind my going to rehearsals because she knew and respected the fact that I had that mission, that I was trying to do something. Of course she said okay, but she couldn’t help adding, “Be back by eight or nine!”
“Oh, of course,” I lied. And then it was off to the movies.
I can’t remember the name of the film because after the first few minutes we were only sort of, but not quite, watching it. Most of the time we were looking into each other’s eyes, just looking into each other’s eyes for a good while—which we had a habit of doing, possibly because of working together and trying to get the music cues right. But the eyes say so much—I used to have to watch Aunty’s eyes to take messages, like to go left with a double wink, or right, move fast. It was the same with Bob, our eyes were always our way of communicating, and instead of looking at the screen we were looking into each other’s eyes and then we were kissing and I couldn’t believe it, I was so blown away! And I could see he w
as too, totally blown away, but I was in better control and I realized that this could go on to something else that I really couldn’t even think about, so don’t let’s think about it, let’s just look at the screen!
Those days when we were courting, Studio One was our commitment; we hardly ever went any place else. We would meet there at nine or ten in the morning if there was an early session, and we’d be there until break time, when we’d get something to eat, like a meat patty, with a coco bread and a bottle of soda—that was the daily food, all we could afford, though occasionally Bob’s friends might make porridge or soup (Bunny was a very good cook and made the more daring soup concoctions). Then there were times when we were privileged to be together at concerts. The Soulettes were already a hot female group in Jamaica and the Wailing Wailers the number one male group, with all the girls going crazy over them. And I’m there being Miss Queen, because although all three Wailers made much of me and made me feel special, at the same time I was feeling so sure about Robbie, sure that everybody understood “that one is mine.” Though I didn’t really have to say it because he would never leave me for a moment.
Among my favorite memories of that time is an event involving Lee “Scratch” Perry, one of the funniest characters to come out of Studio One. Early on, Scratch was the man who did the cleaning up for Coxsone. But like everyone else around the place, if he’d seen any special talent and had an idea that this or that person might make it, he would recommend them. Coxsone was always open to that. Just about the time the Soulettes had begun to think of ourselves as the top background vocalists for the studio, he called us in one day to do some work with Lee Perry.
I said, “Lee Perry! Scratch? But Scratch is like the yard man, you know?”
And Coxsone said, “No man, lately he’s been auditioning talents for me, and now he has a hit tune called ‘Roast Duck,’ and it will need some background vocals.”
So I asked Bob what he thought, and he said, “Well, you don’t need to do it, but it’s not a big thing, if you feel you want to.”
And I agreed that I wanted to do it out of gratitude, because Scratch was so nice to us, preparing us for concerts and being the roadie guy. So we gave him that respect and went over to do the sound for him. It worked out just fine and everybody got excited and hey! Scratch’s recording came out and it went on the sound systems! Everyone was hyped! Go Perry!
Soon a big stage show was planned at the Ward Theatre and Scratch was to be on it, and he was walking on his head—he couldn’t believe that this was happening to him, that his dream, which he’d kept quiet, was happening! The Wailers, the Soulettes, Delroy Wilson, the Paragons—all of Studio One’s best-known artists—were performing, and Scratch was to be the opening act.
And so he went onstage first, and as backup we followed him. Scratch started his song, “Me say me wan roast duck,” and there we were, on the side, echoing, “We wan roast duck, we wan roast duck.” And it was like … a comedy! Scratch was that kind of a person anyway, a real comedy, he wore a lot of glass and things on himself, and as he went on singing the audience started to throw things—not stones, luckily—but paper cups! Paper cups rained onto the stage, and then bottles! And I’m saying to myself, now why did we get ourselves into this?
But to us it was fun—fun to see him running off the stage and realizing that it was not his time, just not his time, though he had tried. (His time would come much later, when in 2003 his album Jamaica E.T. won a Grammy Award in the Reggae category.) Back then, though, I respected Coxsone for giving Lee Perry that opportunity, to say to the man, “If you feel you can do it, go do it!” But you also have to see that it takes more than doing it in the studio, that when you go out there and face five hundred or five thousand people you have to deliver—or else they’re going to deliver paper cups and bottles! And that was the first—and only—time I’ve been stoned off the stage.
Clement “Sir Coxsone” Dodd played a great role in Bob’s life. It was he who offered that initial encouragement so important to any young musician. Bob told me Coxsone had said to him, “Now, young man, be strong. Think. You can make music. Write. Sing.” So even though little or no money was coming in, Bob was getting that crucial support from someone he respected, someone who had the power to help him.
The situation was different where he was living. One day he said to me, “Rita, I can’t take this.”
I looked at him; he seemed especially tired and very sad. I asked, “Take what?”
He said, “When Mr. Taddy come home in the nights, he wake me up to have his dinner. He don’t wake his son up. No matter what time of the morning he comes in, it’s ‘Nesta, Nesta, wake up, hot up me food.’ And I have to serve him his dinner. Be the houseboy the next morning.” Taddy’s woman had been mistreating him too—“like a little slave boy,” Bob said. Because she was still carrying a feud over his mother having had a baby for Taddy.
That night, after we talked about it a while, he decided to leave Taddy’s house. He went to Coxsone, whose first response was, “If you feel it’s right, Robbie.” But then he must have seen how miserable Bob was and how Bob relied on him, because Bob told me Coxsone just smiled then and said, “Well, Robbie, there’s the audition room at the back of the studio, you can use it in the night.”
So that’s how our life together started—from nowhere, from nothing. From the days when Bob was sleeping at Coxsone’s, alone, on the floor or on a door. When I thought of him, it was still as nice boy, and Coxsone probably saw how much Bob was hanging on to me, too, saying nice girl as well. But I think Bob was ahead of me and Coxsone both; I think he was thinking way ahead, he wasn’t just thinking for a girlfriend, he was thinking for a woman, for a wife, what a woman should be. Maybe like his mother, who left him only because she wanted more for him.
I think that’s what he wanted from me. Because I’ve always had this ambitious thing about me, I was hooked to that too. And soon I sensed that, well, with my intentions and my ambition and the way I had grown up, if he really wants me, then he’s got to be ambitious himself. But anyone could see that in him. So I began looking over his head, too, thinking that there must be something he can see in me to make him feel this way about me. Because I know how I feel about myself. I know what I’m gonna try in life, I know this Trench Town thing is not gonna be my last days. Sometime, somehow, I’m gettin’ out of here.
From then on, it seemed, Bob put his trust in me. I began answering his mother’s letters to him, sending the information she needed to file his U.S. papers, and writing my own letters to her to tell her what was going on. We spent even more time together, and we usually talked a lot. And sometimes, when we rehearsed until late, and love was wakin’, he’d say, “Why should you have to go?”
And I’d have to tell him, “But Aunty’s waiting, and it’s ten o’clock and you don’t come in after eight for Aunty.”
After eight she’d stay at the gate! Before eight you can stop at the gate and talk and kiss a little or so, but … ten o’clock, she’s there. Standing her ground now, waiting! Oh Aunty! Her being like that would amuse Bob so! And if we had money, he had to take her something, like the Wincarnis wine she loved.
One night he was walking me home—it was within walking distance, so we’d always walk (slowly!) from Coxsone’s to Trench Town—and he said to me, “Something is happening at the studio, it’s happening every night.” He explained that he’d usually go to bed when everything was over in the studio, when only the watchman was there, but that lately, as soon as he went to bed, a cat had started coming every night, making some weird sound, as if it were talking.
He looked pitiful. “And the cat cries, Rita,” he said. “Like it’s calling someone’s name.”
The next day, and every day after that, I’d ask what happened overnight, and he’d say, same thing. The cat came at a certain time every night and it was haunting him. It killed me to know that this was happening to him while I had a home to go to and my own room and a bed to sleep in. So
one night I said, “Bob, I’m going to leave that window right over my bed open and tonight after you take me home you just walk through the window, come stay with me.” And it wasn’t about coming in to have sex, it was just to give him shelter.
But he said, “You sure? ’Cause Aunty miserable …?”
And I said, “It doesn’t matter, I can’t bear to think of you with that cat. Let’s try it.”
That night he waited outside while I walked in the door. “Good night, Aunty, good night,” I said.
“Why you come in so late?” she demanded. “It’s nine and you remember you have the baby and you don’t want to have no more baby because the baby father gone to England and …”
“Aunty, you know this isn’t about babies,” I said. “I’m trying to work at the studio, I’m trying my best, I promise …”
And she locked the door and I went to my room and as planned Bob came through the window. But just after he got inside she reappeared, bringing the baby to me, because she usually kept Sharon in her room until I got home. And there she is, with the baby in her arms, and Bob is creeping under the bed! And she looks … and—“Who is under there? I see something moving!”
I said no it wasn’t … it must be Dream …
“No!” she shouted. “Dream is in his bed!” And she looked again and she said, “Jesus Christ, Rita, why you bring Robbie in here? You want to breed again? You want to have another baby? My Lord, no no, not in here … Let him come out—come out!”
I had never … I’d never felt … the blood from my body went … tschoooooo … all the way down to my toes!
Poor Bob. I wasn’t even sorry for myself like I was sorry for him. And she kept insisting that he had to leave. I tried to explain, “Aunty, really now. I never intended for him to sleep with me, I was gonna make him sleep in Dream’s room … but then I didn’t want him to come in the door because you wouldn’t allow him to. But he has nowhere to sleep, Aunty. He’s sleeping on a door at the studio!”