#marley75

Stevie, Marley & Me

Every fan has a story about discovering the music that changed their life. This is mine....

Over the years my mom had dozens of micro-careers. In the Fall of ‘75 she was trying her hand in the travel business. One night out of the blue, she got a call from a friend of a friend asking if she could arrange quick transport for Stevie Wonder’s band, lights, and sound out of Los Angeles, Miami, and Detroit respectively. They needed to get everybody and everything to Kingston Jamaica for a benefit concert taking place just a couple of days later. She agreed to do it in exchange for airfare, hotel, and tickets to the event for me and my younger sister. as well as herself.

I had just turned 16 and recently started my junior year in high school. In the mid seventies Paterson Catholic Regional High School was equal parts Saturday Night Fever and Dazed and Confused. For every kid “hustling” to the disco of Van McCoy, The Bee Gees and Tavares, there was another ‘fist-pumping” to the arena rock of Queen, Kiss, and Aerosmith. Reggae music was not on the radar. In those days I was listening to everything from Springsteen ( Born to Run had just been released), and Dylan, to J.Geils  and The Allman Brothers. I was also into the west coast singer-songwriters, as well as all the great R&B/funk artists of the day.

But at the top of the list was Stevie Wonder. He was in the midst of one of the great album runs in the history of pop music. Starting with Talking Book in ‘72, followed by Innervisions in ‘73, and then Fuffilingness First Finale in ‘74. It was an unprecedented and stunning streak, as he piled up sales, critical acclaim, and Grammy’s on the way. His fans, record company, and management were desperate for his next album. Finally released in late 1976, Songs In The Key Of Life is widely considered his multi disc masterpiece. Needless to say, my sister and I were pretty psyched to see Stevie perform.

The concert was to be co-headlined by Jamaica’s emerging superstars  Bob Marley and The Wailers. Reggae music was just beginning to get some attention in the press so I may have been aware Marley had written the Eric Clapton hit “I Shot The Sheriff”.  I'm sure my college age sisters were already listening to “The Harder They Come” soundtrack around then, so that may have seeped in. But honestly, I had no idea what to expect.

It promised to be a star studded affair. Philly International’s Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes were advertised to appear but never did due to issues with the promoters, and the as of then, unknown reggae band Third World were set to open the whole thing. In addition, the promoters had put together a package of events in Kingston alongside the concert, including a tennis tournament and a closed circuit showing of Ali/Frazier III which later became known as “The Thrilla In Manila”

The Kingston Sheraton was buzzing when we arrived. Stevie and his band were in the house, along with international tennis stars, (Arthur Ashe, Roscoe Tanner, and Vijay Armitraj), music critics, writers from Jet magazine , Sports Illustrated and People, not to mention all the movers and shakers from the local reggae scene.

The photo above is somehow the only picture I have from that weekend. L to R:  are Ray Maldonado (Wonderlove’s trumpet player), My mom (smoking!), me, and a guy from Stevie’s management team.

One of the first people I noticed hanging around the hotel was Wailer lead guitarist Al Anderson. Probably for two reasons: A. His dreadlocks. I’m sure he’s the first person I ever saw with them, and I  thought he might be Marley. 2. His black leather jacket. Dreadlocks, shades, AND a leather jacket in the sizzling mid-day island heat? I was positive he was the coolest person I had ever seen.

Walking around the hotel, my sister and I met a young musician named Greg Phillinganes. He was probably 18 years old at that time, just out of high school in Detroit, a keyboardist and the newest member of Stevie’s Wonderlove band. This was to be his first gig. Greg later went on to an amazing career as an artist, arranger and band leader. He led Michael Jackson’s band on several tours and played on all his classic albums. In addition to an early 80′s solo career, he has played and toured with pretty much anyone who is anyone in pop music over the past 40 years.

Greg invited my sister and I to come watch Stevie and the band rehearse in the hotel the night before the show. We were beside ourselves. We never had access to anything like this before. To be in the same room with one the biggest stars on the planet was truly unbelievable. Stevie came in and immediately sensed there were unknown visitors in his presence and asked about us. He sat down at his keyboards and he and the band jammed away on a few things before they kicked us out. Jill and I were literally spinning with excitement. We could barely get to sleep that night.

The afternoon of the concert I took a cab by myself into the middle of town to see some of the tennis at the National Arena. The city center was noisy, and bustling. Downtown Kingston is notoriously tough and no place for a 16 year old tourist from Jersey. Despite that, I was instantly taken with its simmering vibe. I had visited a Montego Bay resort with my parents a few years earlier and it was a complete yawn. Kingston couldn’t be more different. Urban and bustling,It hummed with a chaotic energy.

That night we went to The National Stadium for the show. we had seats up front  among local dignitaries, tennis pros, and journalists. Third World was playing their uptown reggae fusion as we settled into our chairs. It wasn’t long before Marley and The Wailers entered from the rear of the stadium with a group of Nyabhingi drummers performing “Rastaman Chant” as they approached the stage. Completely lost on me that night was the fact that we were witnessing the last ever performance by The Original Wailer’s. Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer had both left the group over a year prior to pursue solo careers and had not appeared publicly with Marley since. That night they performed a rare set of vintage Wailer’s hits and solo tunes. I can remember everyone singing and swaying along to “No Woman No Cry” Marley’s beautiful ghetto yard anthem. I’ll never forget Peter Tosh performing “Legalize It” to the delight of the crowd and my aspiring stoner self.

I couldn’t take my eyes off Marley. I had never seen anyone like him before. I vividly recall him dancing about the stage, locks flying, eyes shut, trance like, his guitar slung over his shoulder, connecting with a rapturous hometown crowd. I was thunderstruck. The songs of rebellion, revolution (and weed) with an impossibly slinky beat and booming bass, moved right through me as the lyrics exploded in my head.

Hit me with music. 

Later on Wonderlove took the stage in their 70′s space age outfits which seemed kinda corny coming after Bob and his rootsy ensemble. But Stevie was one of the globe’s biggest stars and the Jamaican crowd went wild as he master blasted his way through his hits. Bob returned to the stage joining Stevie to perform ”I Shot the Sheriff“ and sit in on ”Superstition“.  The audience left ecstatic and I would never be the same.

I’d been to my first funky reggae party, I was all in and ready for more. At the Kingston airport I bought a Jamaican pressing of Bob’s Natty Dread album. As soon as I got home I dropped it on the turntable and never turned back. Before long I was dragging buddies to midnight showings of The Harder they Come  in New York City and out to My Fathers Place in Long Island to see touring reggae artists.”. I started to search for all the reggae music I could find, reading everything printed about it, unconsciously becoming North Jerseys biggest (maybe only?) reggae music evangelist in the process.

Pass it on.

Listening to artists like Dylan, Springsteen, and Neil Young, I started  to understand the urgency and power of great lyrics and storytelling. The Trench Town reality on songs like  3 O’Clock Roadblock, or Burnin’ and Lootin’ gave Bob’s music a gritty, authentic dimension that set him apart. My musical sensibilities shaped in a post Woodstock world were totally intrigued by both his music AND message.

On the song “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”  Bob Dylan imagines he’s a fallen gun-slinging sheriff in a classic western. Conversely on “I Shot The Sheriff”,  Marley guns down his local law man because he’s convinced he was going to kill him first. This was not a song from Hollywood western soundtrack, but a story from his own Kingston experience. The distinction was made even clearer in December 1976 when Marley was ambushed in his home by gunmen while rehearsing with his band. The assassination attempt was never officially solved. Was he targeted for political, personal, or business reasons? We may never know. But the photo of him seen round the world, bloodied and bandaged in the Kingston emergency room, gave him the kind of universal street cred a hit song could never buy. Two nights later he defiantly performed at The Smile Jamaica Concert (the event the gun men tried to derail), literally shielded onstage by friends, security and a make shift Wailers band. He finished his short triumphant set by unbuttoning his shirt revealing his bullet wounds to the crowd. A genuine rebel soul who won’t give up the fight.

Over the years my interest in Jamaican music and culture never waned. I’ve been a reggae fan and collector for  50 years and Marley remains one of my all time favorite artists. in 1978 at Emerson College in Boston I started a weekly reggae radio show on WERS called “Strictly Rockers” (later renamed “Rockers”). It became so popular it was soon airing daily over 35 years becoming one of the longest running reggae radio shows in the US. I had somehow become a a roots music pioneer, something I remain enormously proud of.

In retrospect that weekend trip proved pretty seminal. Music from an island a universe away from my Jersey high school had connected with me like nothing else before and kick started a life long obsession. More importantly, the opportunity I had to peek behind the scenes into the world of show business would have a lasting effect. I returned home excited and inspired by what I heard, saw, and felt. Ironically I would be thunderstruck again just a week later back in the states watching the premiere episode of Saturday Nigh Live. (a story for another time). I didn’t have any real idea of what I wanted to do with my life back then, but I thought that if I could figure out how to get close to some of what I had just experienced and saw, then maybe, just maybe….

”everything's gonna be all right.”