Opinion:
How to save lives with songs
Eduardo Fabregat
Sent on
Friday, May 12, 2006 (21:10:09)
http://laventana.casa.cult.cu/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3184
(Website of Casa de Las Americas, Havana, Cuba)
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann
He
barely lived 36 years but is the flagship of a genre that conquered the
world. Robert Nesta Marley became a universal rallying cry.
“The only one in the planet who can lay claim to the words world music
is Bob Marley. He’s a passport in the whole world: in Africa, Algeria,
anywhere; in any Latin America neighborhood where you can be stabbed, a
Marley pin can save your life.” (Manu Chao, 1997)
Doing a calculation proves a little upsetting. The man was born in Nine
Miles, St. Ann’s, Jamacia, on February 6, 1945 and died in Miami, United
States, on May 11, 1981, twenty-five years to the day. He was too young,
despite having changed his name three times by then: only a few months
before his death he had converted to, and been duly baptized into, Christian
Rastafarianism at the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Kingston. That is, he
came into the world as Robert Nesta Marley and left it as Berhane Selassie.
And of course, in between there was Bob.
What turned that boy, born and raised in such an unfortunate environment
into the universal passport Manu Chao talked about to this daily? Music,
needless to say. Bob is one major reason why people love music. Bob is a
friend: bringing him to the team means an immediate ‘feel-good’ effect, one
that goes way beyond smoking grass. Reggae, according to Bob, is good for
the soul, period. It comforts spirits, those of that one there and the other
one over there, the spirits of both that little girl in the garden and her
grandma, who’s crazy about Valeria Lynch but can’t help moving her feet to
the beat of One Love or Natural Mystic. Bob can do that to
you.
However, not even his music, that legacy of about ten records he made for
Island records, albums from the Jamaican era, and a stack of song
collections this tall, can explain why Bob is Bob.
Marley is far from being the only reggae artist there is, nor was he the
first, but he catalyzed as no one else the essence of a universal musical
language. In fact, there were several Marleys in his artistic life. There
was a pre-Cambrian Bob who was raised in Trenchtown, a village in Kingston
always threatened by political riots, raids, ghetto fights and, above all,
misery. Yet, his shanty-like cumbia spoke of no girls whose thongs
are showing or with milk on their breath; he tried instead to modify his
surroundings, built a civilization based on faith, love, understanding,
unity… and ganja.
Together
with his buddies Neville O’Riley “Bunny” Livingston and Peter McIntosh (the
same Peter Tosh who would later record the marijuana-user hymn Legalize
it), Bob went through an initial stage devoted both to the strenuous
ska which prevailed on the island, and American influences coming from
New Orleans radio stations. Thus, he recorded a hymn like Simmer Down,
and gave shape to a first chapter of his work with producer Clement “Sir
Coxsone” Dodd, who squeezed the potential of those original Wailing Wailers
(later The Wailers) to the max.
But ska was running out of resources very fast, and changes took
place in young Marley’s life which had a bearing on his art. He got close to
the philosophical guidelines expressed by Marcus Garvey –the return to
Africa of the exploited black race– and enriched by Ras Tafari Makonnen
(aka) Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, and Bob’s lyricism took new roads
as a result.
Legendary producer Lee “Scratch” Perry took care of everything else by
ultimately giving The Wailers two key members of his Upsetters: Carlton and
Aston “Family Man” Barrett. Counting on the best bass player / drummer pair
Jamaica ever gave as well as on a couple of hints provided by Perry (Marley
was told to stop his throat from overstraining with unnecessary high tones,
and also make his band play as if it were on gummed paper), the second Bob
fed from steady rock and laid the basic foundation of what everybody knows
as reggae nowadays.
Little by
little and modeling both their approach to music and the message it was
supposed to convey, The Wailers started to stick their heads outside
Jamaica: a contact with African American singer Johnny gave rise to an
European tour that got stuck in London, where Bob met Island Records’ owner
Chris Blackwell, who would not only take care of disseminating reggae around
the world but also arrange for the group’s first recording in a professional
studio, an advance payment of 4,000 pounds... and turn it into Bob Marley &
The Wailers. From Catch a Fire (1973) onward, the third Bob was the
one who became a seal and the driving force of everlasting classics such as
No Woman no Cry, Is this Love, Get up, Stand up, I
Shot the Sheriff, Lively up yourself, Redemption Song,
Stir it up, Three Little Birds, Exodus...
Incredibly, a cancer sparked off by something as trivial as a toe injury he
got while playing soccer cut short one of the most remarkable music careers
in world’s history. Nevertheless, from wretched and proud Trenchtown, Bob
influenced famous British figures like Joe Strummer (The Clash) and kids
from around here then, in the 1970s, and last week. For scholars,
adventurous spirits or simple fashion-observing, T-shirt-wearing onlookers,
Bob has just to be reckoned with.
In Kingston, Robert Nesta
Marley, Berhane Selassie, simply Bob, was accorded the funeral honors
befitting his fame and taken to his hometown, although he was not buried
there. At a church in Ethiopia, deemed sacred land, his mausoleum is placed
two meters above the ground. Excessive? Could be. But there’s the prophet’s
body, and visitors stand at both the sepulcher’s and Bob’s feet. It was not
necessary: the world has long been hooked by that magnetic music that
conquers ears, minds and bodies in a matter of seconds.
Reggae is never ill-timed, and always a good chance to feed the soul. In
Africa, Algeria or elsewhere, in any Latin American neighborhood where you
can be stabbed, Bob can save your life. And also in your living-room.
Marley lives.
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