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[\/et_pb_code][et_pb_text module_class=”article-title” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”||||||||” header_text_align=”center” header_text_color=”#111111″ header_font_size=”68px” custom_margin=”40px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”intro-text” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_orientation=”center” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
In 1976, reggae was peaking \u2013 creatively aflame, and with its biggest star poised for global stardom, fuelled by the positive protest of Rastaman Vibration<\/em>. But with a General Election due and domestic bloodshed rampant, Bob Marley was drawn into Jamaica\u2019s bitter \u2018politricks\u2019 and menaced by the gangsters who enforced them. The year would end in one of the most dramatic and mysterious events in music history. \u201cWe were trying to bring peace and unity in the country,\u201d discovers David Katz, \u201cand they tried to kill us.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2024\/02\/GettyImages-92986590-scaled.jpg” title_text=”Bob Marley And The Wailers Live In Voorburg” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Natty Dread: Bob Marley performs live on stage with the Wailers in Voorburg, Holland in 1976\u00a0<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n It\u2019s the evening of 3 December 1976, and Bob Marley and The Wailers are rehearsing at their 56 Hope Road headquarters in uptown Kingston. The Rastaman Vibration<\/em> album and tour has won them a new wave of fans across the world, and the group is preparing to take it to their compatriots at the Smile Jamaica concert, a free event to be held at Heroes Park in two days\u2019 time. But the gig has just become problematized, since Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley announced a snap election to be held just ten days after the show. With Manley\u2019s government helping to stage Smile Jamaica, the event and the election would be linked in people\u2019s minds, suggesting Marley\u2019s tacit support for the reigning People\u2019s National Party (PNP), which greatly angers supporters of the right-wing opposition, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n After rehearsing for about 30 minutes, Marley takes a break and wanders to the adjacent kitchen at the rear of the property, flanked by his manager, Don Taylor, and guitarist Donald Kinsey; Rita Marley exits the front door as the rest of the band, and an entourage of Twelve Tribes of Israel members, remain in the rehearsal room. Then, as Marley reaches for a grapefruit and begins to peel it, unwelcome guests make their presence known with terrifying swiftness.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we were playing I Shot The Sheriff and then I started hearing gunshots,\u201d remembers keyboardist Tyrone Downie. \u201cI saw a hand come round the door, just firing in the room, and instinctively, we all hit the ground; everybody swam to the bathroom, and when I got in there, Carly [drummer Carlton Barrett] was already in the bathtub. Then we saw Bob come in, bleeding, and I think we were all waiting to just be shot, cause there was no way out. Like, this is it: we\u2019re all gonna die in this fucking bathroom.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was playing percussion with [Wailers\u2019 percussionist] Seeco [Patterson],\u201d adds Twelve Tribes member Sangie Davis. \u201cWhen the shots started, I ran into the bathroom, and someone was inside the bath. Me and Bob end up in the corner and somebody put a gun through the window, but no shots didn\u2019t fire, because the bathroom was very dark. Then a lull passed, and nobody wanted to come out of the house. As a matter of fact, Rita was driving out when the people were coming in, and she got grazed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRita distracted them, and I think she saved our lives,\u201d says Downie definitively. \u201cWe heard a car driving out, and they started shooting at the car; if no one was driving out, probably they would have kept coming in and just finish us off.\u201d<\/p>\n Bob went to the hospital with a bullet lodged in his arm and Rita with one in her head; Don Taylor was airlifted to Miami for emergency surgery and miraculously survived, as did Twelve Tribes member Louis Griffiths, who\u2019d been shot in the back. 1976, which had delivered so many landmarks for Bob Marley \u2013 including a classic album and the prospect of a real breakthrough in the US \u2013 as well as an extraordinary bounty of Jamaican music in toto<\/em>, was ending in horror and confusion. Who wanted Jamaica\u2019s cultural figurehead dead, and why?<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2024\/02\/GettyImages-550398399.jpg” title_text=”Bob Marley” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Roots, Rock, Reggae: Marley mania hits the UK, Hammersmith Odeon, London, June 1976.<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \nIN JAMAICA, POLITICS, criminality and music culture had been intertwined for as long as anyone could remember. The island\u2019s two-party system had been born in the bitter labour disputes of the 1930s, the PNP built on Fabian socialism and JLP championing the free market. With party leaders drawing tangible support from a criminal underclass, who ultimately bossed the electoral districts of Kingston, partisan violence was already a problem in the mid-\u201940s, and the bourgeoning street gangs escalated their battles in the run-up to Jamaica achieving its independence from Britain in 1962.<\/p>\n It was a reality that musicians and record business entrepreneurs were obliged to work within and reflect. Joe Higgs, who tutored The Wailers in Trench Town, described the politically-aligned street battles on a 1961 single called Gun Talk, recorded with his singing partner, Roy Wilson. The JLP\u2019s rising star, Edward Seaga, who had opened the West Indies Records Limited recording studio before devoting himself to politics full time, held his constituency meetings in one of west Kingston\u2019s most prominent dancehalls, and ska legend Cecil Bustamente Campbell \u2013 aka Prince Buster \u2013 was even named for JLP founder Alexander Bustamante. Such links would become more explicit in the mid-\u201960s, when harmony groups like The Tartans and The Slickers had gang members pass through their ranks.<\/p>\n The elections of 1967 and 1972 saw increasing levels of violence, and alarm bells began ringing farther afield when Michael Manley declared an era of Democratic Socialism in November 1974, directing the nation further left through closer ties with Cuba. Opposition leader Edward Seaga appealed to the Ford administration in Washington, while political violence spun so out of control that Manley opened the Gun Court, a punitive detention centre for firearms offences whose trials took place without a jury, indefinite detention with hard labour the only sentence. Henry Kissinger would soon cancel loans to Jamaica after Manley refused to denounce Cuba\u2019s military intervention in Angola.<\/p>\n At the same time, Marley\u2019s rising overseas status was helping galvanise the Rastafari movement in Jamaica. The Rastafari had emerged in the 1930s, following the coronation of Haile Selassie as Emperor of Ethiopia, after various Kingston preachers began proclaiming that Selassie was God and that the rightful place for black Jamaicans was Africa. The island\u2019s long colonial phase had bequeathed it a distinct racial hierarchy, where anything seen as too African was deemed \u2018backward\u2019, so Rasta adherents faced open hostility from the authorities, with instances of police brutality all too common. As a rejection of mainstream Jamaican society, the Rastafari movement naturally proclaimed itself to be non-partisan, since the only government it recognised was Selassie\u2019s divine one. Yet, the Rastafari could not always remain impervious to the capital\u2019s heavily demarcated, conflict-ridden boundaries, with rival politically-aligned communities sitting cheek-by-jowl with one another. The divisive landscape affected everyday life in Kingston, regardless of one\u2019s spiritual affiliation.<\/P>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n YET, WHEN THE Wailers returned to Jamaica in July 1975 at the end of their Natty Dread<\/em> tour, the island was relatively peaceful, which was just as well, since the exhausted group members needed a break. The defection of Al Anderson to ex-Wailer Peter Tosh\u2019s band just before Tosh signed to the Rolling Stones\u2019 Columbia label also meant that Marley was seeking a new guitarist.<\/p>\n \u201cPeter had the most amazing group with Robbie [Shakespeare, bass] and Sly [Dunbar, drums], it was more of a power-rock trio,\u201d says Anderson. \u201cI wanted to be a part of that because The Wailers had just broken the sound barrier with money, and here comes Don Taylor, the Dapper-Dan manager, and these were the guys that were stealing the crumbs from the band, taking everything that wasn\u2019t bolted down financially. When we did a Bob Marley album, it was like three or four months straight, in the studio, without even taking a shower; I lived at Hope Road and slept on the floor for a year. It wasn\u2019t interesting anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n In pondering a suitable replacement, Marley turned in the opposite direction: New Jersey-born Anderson was essentially a blues-rock player, but Marley opted for Earl \u2018Chinna\u2019 Smith, a mainstay of the Soul Syndicate band whose playing style was distinctly Jamaican. Chinna had recently been playing on a Martha Velez\u2019s Escape From Babylon<\/em> album for Sire, initiated with producer Lee \u2018Scratch\u2019 Perry. \u201cWhen Bob come back, him hear Dennis Brown and Johnny Clarke, and Bob is a curious man who want to know who are the artists and the musicians,\u201d says Chinna. \u201cSo [Marley\u2019s sometime manager] Skill Cole come check I round Scratch\u2019s studio, when them was doing the Martha Velez album, and Scratch just move the session from there to Harry J with all the musicians that was working.\u201d<\/p>\n The Rastaman Vibration<\/em> sessions thus began in September 1975 at Harry J, the uptown studio part-owned by Marley\u2019s label boss Chris Blackwell. The core Wailers band were bassist Aston \u2018Family Man\u2019 Barrett, his drumming brother Carlton, and percussionist Alvin \u2018Seeco\u2019 Patterson. Main keyboardist Tyrone Downie shared duties with Bernard \u2018Touter\u2019 Harvey, as well as pianist Gladstone Anderson and organist Winston Wright. Later, the I-Three, made up of Bob\u2019s wife Rita, Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt, would be brought in to overdub their vocal harmony, while Perry was present early on, making his customary leftfield suggestions. Sessions were apparently relaxed.<\/p>\n \u201cBob never really had so much rehearsals as such,\u201d explains Marley confidant and graphic designer Neville Garrick, who had recently moved to 56 Hope Road after a ganja bust. \u201cBob would come up with his songs by writing them with his acoustic guitar and most of the time, the band really heard the song almost for the first time when they went into the studio. Bob used to like a live feel \u2013 more of an impromptu feel.\u201d<\/p>\n The censorious Crazy Baldhead, which features subtle blues licks from Al Anderson, was either left over from an earlier session or was one of the first to be crafted that September. The song speaks to the aeons of social injustice that had cemented Jamaica\u2019s social strata, with the black majority at the bottom, and the white and light-skinned upper echelons forming the elite. War memorably adapted a speech that Haile Selassie delivered in California in 1968, speaking of the destruction wrought by armed conflict in Africa. Perhaps strongest of all was Rat Race, which decried Jamaica\u2019s status as a pawn in the Cold War atop a chord structure adapted from a Philly Soul hit.<\/p>\n \u201cRat Race was just an idea that me and Tyrone jam,\u201d explains Chinna. \u201cActually, it was one of them R&B songs, The Spinners\u2019 Since I\u2019ve Been Gone, and Carly started to feel it, so Scratch say, \u2018Record it!\u2019 \u2019cause him creative like that. Bunny Wailer was there too, and him say, \u2018Add on an intro,\u2019 so that\u2019s my chords at the start. Then Bob write a mad, mad tune; him and Rita Marley come up with the lyrics.\u201d \u201cEdward Seaga walked into the studio during that time, \u2019cause he was a friend of Harry J,\u201d says Neville Garrick. \u201cSo I don\u2019t know if that influenced Bob to say, \u2018Rasta don\u2019t work for no CIA.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t listening to the conversation,\u201d adds DownieDowney, who says that Seaga appeared when they were working on Johnny Was, which depicted an innocent victim of political violence, \u201cbut from what I heard, he came to tell Bob not to support the PNP.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2024\/02\/Screenshot-2024-02-22-at-14.25.52.png” title_text=”Screenshot 2024-02-22 at 14.25.52″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n 1976’s Rastaman Vibration<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n IN THE WEEKS that followed, the band laid the bare bones of the rest of the album. Roots, Rock, Reggae and Positive Vibration kept optimism at their core. By contrast, Want More decried greed, and prophesied the triumph of Rastafari over its enemies. The remaining tracks revisited The Wailers\u2019 voluminous back catalogue, Cry To Me, Who The Cap Fit and Night Shift part of Chris Blackwell\u2019s long-term strategy for Marley to earn royalties for material that was not properly registered in the past. Other tracks laid down in September would not surface for some considerable time, including One Love, Three Little Birds, The Heathen and I Know.<\/p>\n Once the basic backing tracks had been completed, the core of The Wailers and Chris Blackwell decamped to Miami to add finishing touches at Criteria Studios, working closely for the first time with Alex Sadkin, a gifted engineer who brought a new sonic clarity. \u201cHis real job there was doing the mastering, but I needed somebody to engineer and he was the best engineer I\u2019ve ever worked with,\u201d says Blackwell. \u201cHe was a real master at what he did, a perfectionist, and it was really by luck that we used him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf anyone is responsible for the outcome of the sound of Rastaman Vibration<\/em>, it\u2019s Alex Sadkin,\u201d concurs Tyrone Downie. \u201cHe was very precise, had really good ears, and he did a simple mix \u2014 not over-producing \u2014 so you\u2019re gonna hear the rim-shot, you\u2019re gonna hear the guitar. More a blues mix than a rock mix. Alex could have done a Dylan album or a John Lennon album, easy.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n To further broaden the appeal to international audiences, Marley enlisted Donald Kinsey, the Indiana-born, Chicago-based guitarist formerly of Island Records blues-funk act White Lightnin\u2019. Kinsey had recently been playing with Al Anderson in Peter Tosh\u2019s band but was still surprised to receive a summons from the Tuff Gong. \u201cMy dad said, \u2018Somebody called for you, sounded like he had a Jamaican accent.\u2019\u201d Kinsey told me last year. \u201cSo I called the number and they put me on the phone with Bob, and we talked like we\u2019d known each other for years. He\u2019s just really uplifting, real upbeat, real positive, like, \u2018Donald Kinsey, I wonder if you can play some guitar for me?\u2019 It was a new experience for me to hang with those cats, but I found out that we had so much in common, my parents being from the Mississippi Delta, the same types of things that they dealing with in Jamaica, and you can feel that gospel thing in their music.\u201d<\/p>\n The first track they tackled at Criteria was Roots, Rock, Reggae, which gained a new dimension with Kinsey\u2019s blues licks, a ska guitar pattern from Chinna, new percussion parts from Seeco, Chinna and Family Man, and a jaunty sax riff from an unknown local session player. \u201cI told Alex I wanted to get somebody like King Curtis,\u201d says Blackwell, \u201cand later in the day, this small, quiet, white guy turned up, and I said, \u2018Well, he don\u2019t look like King Curtis,\u2019 but his playing was fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n Want More also got the Kinsey blues-rock treatment (cut on the fly, when the guitarist was just doing a trial run), and several tracks were given prominent keyboard overdubs by Downie, with Cry To Me making good use of the then-new Elka Rhapsody, a quaint-looking Italian-built strings emulator. \u201cIt had a little weird piano sound, and it had strings, and then you can mix both the piano and strings at the same time,\u201d laughs Downie. \u201cI used the same thing [later]on Three Little Birds.\u201d<\/p>\n Then it was back to 56 Hope Road to prepare for the forthcoming tour. \u201cWe just rehearse, play ball, eat food, and probably get some pussy, you know?\u201d says Downie. \u201cThat\u2019s what work was about at that time: living together, eating together, playing football, playing music together.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n THE EVOLUTION OF Bob Marley & The Wailers into the kind of group international rock audiences could understand and embrace had reached a crucial stage. Meanwhile, beneath the Marley-generated headlines, Jamaican music was entering a hugely creative, varied phase.<\/p>\n Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston had left The Wailers in the wake of the snowbound UK leg of the Burnin\u2019<\/em> tour in November 1973 and their divergence, musically and politically, from Marley was exemplified by their solo debut albums, both released in 1976. Bunny\u2019s Blackheart Man<\/em> opted for insularity, the track Fig Tree steeped in religious allegory and his experience of imprisonment obliquely reflected in Battering Down Sentence. Tosh\u2019s Legalize It<\/em> took a more in-your-face approach, the title track and Watcha Gonna Do focusing on the victimisation of ganja smokers while Ketchy Shuby recounted his teenage sexual experiences in impenetrable patois. Both contrasted sharply with Marley\u2019s broader themes. On October 4, 1975, the three performed at the National Stadium\u2019s Wonder Dream concert, staged by Stevie Wonder to benefit the Jamaica School for the Blind, but it would be the last time that Marley, Tosh and Livingston would share the same stage.<\/p>\n As 1975 became 1976, reggae was an increasingly broad church. Harmony trios The Mighty Diamonds, The Gladiators and The Heptones joined Burning Spear in widening their audiences through international deals with Island and Virgin. The improvised microphone chatter of sound system deejays such as Ewart \u201cU -Roy\u201d Beckford, Roy \u201cI -Roy\u201d Reid, and Lester Bullock, aka \u201cDillinger\u201d, was becoming an album genre in its own right, as was dub \u2013 originally relegated to the B-sides of singles. Lee Perry\u2019s Super Ape<\/em>, Augustus Pablo\u2019s King Tubby Meets The Rockers Uptown<\/em>, Yabby You\u2019s Prophesy Of Dub, The Revolutionaries\u2019<\/em> Vital Dub<\/em> and Tappa Zukie\u2019s Tappa Zukie<\/em> In Dub were just four of 1976\u2019s outstanding dub LPs.<\/p>\n Neither were Jamaican artists short of subject matter that year. The government declared a State of Emergency in June, with a curfew in effect, and prominent opposition leaders were detained under the pretext that they were trying to overthrow the government. Fires raged downtown in targeted arson attacks. As cannabis growers increased their clandestine exports, there was rapidly declining official trade and a grave shortage of foreign exchange, while unemployment rocketed, leading the island\u2019s business community to increase its steady exodus to Miami \u2014 a destination gunmen on both sides of the political divide were also eyeing, pending the result of an election whose date had not yet been set.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2024\/02\/GettyImages-146247023.jpg” title_text=”Bob Marley In Amsterdam” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Easy Skanking: The Wailers take an Amsterdam cruise, 1976.<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n ONE JAMAICAN EXPORT, at least, was thriving. With Rastaman Vibration<\/em> finished and Neville Garrick\u2019s burlap cover art approved, Bob Marley & The Wailers went straight on tour, kicking off at the historic Tower Theater in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania on April 23, and reaching 18 North American cities over the course of five weeks. The dual-guitar format gave an added textural dimension, with Kinsey\u2019s fiery rock lead lines offset by Chinna\u2019s understated reggae licks. The two nights at New York\u2019s Beacon Theatre drew rave reviews (thanks in part to a well-executed PR campaign by New York-based Liverpudlian Charlie Comer), and when the band rolled into Chicago on May 11, Kinsey discovered they were indeed \u201cbubblin\u2019 on the Top 100\u201d, as Marley had predicted in his lyric to Roots, Rock, Reggae.<\/p>\n At the Roxy in Los Angeles on May 26 the stars came out to anoint them. \u201cI remember liking that show because it was very intimate,\u201d says Downie. \u201cAlso, it had star-studded guests: Herbie Hancock, Joni Mitchell, Billy Preston, Buddy Miles. I think Jerry Garcia was there too. Who wasn\u2019t<\/em> there?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was kind of remarkable,\u201d adds Neville Garrick, \u201cbecause he had people like Ringo Starr and George from the Beatles, and Doctor Hook, all kinds of mega-stars. I think that\u2019s when they said Bob Marley had arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n A press campaign aimed at introducing Marley to the US college audience had paid off. Rastaman Vibration<\/em> reached Number 8 on the Billboard charts \u2013 the highest US chart position any Wailers album would achieve during Marley\u2019s lifetime. It charted in Britain as well, just as The Wailers travelled to mainland Europe for the very first time, starting that leg before a massive crowd at the Sunrise Festival in Offenburg on a shared bill with Wishbone Ash, Stephen Stills, The Kinks, War and Van Der Graaf Generator. \u201cThey had a curfew and they actually turned off the sound before we finished,\u201d says Neville Garrick. \u201cThat\u2019s the only time I can remember the plug being pulled, and the audience rioted.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n They went on to three more German cities, followed by dates in Stockholm, Amsterdam and Paris. Then, in Britain, there were four nights at the Hammersmith Odeon, where the band met Eric Clapton, followed by dates in Wales, the Midlands, Leeds, Exeter and Manchester.<\/p>\n \u201cCardiff was a mad show, because the rain ah fall and Bob just played inna the rain,\u201d says Chinna. \u201cWe were afraid he was going to be electrocuted.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLeaving Hammersmith, there were people climbing all over the bus,\u201d adds Downie. \u201cIt was dangerous, and I really felt like, \u2018Damn, we\u2019re rock stars!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy memories of that tour was that everything was just fresh and all the energy was there, because here is a man who is determined to take his message to the world, and he would do it, any form, any way, as long as it\u2019s going over positively,\u201d says I-Three stalwart Marcia Griffiths. \u201cLet me tell you, nothing came before his music; Bob\u2019s music was his life, and he was overwhelmed.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2024\/02\/11.-%EF%BF%BCBob-Marley-The-Wailers-Exodus.png” title_text=”11. \ufffcBob Marley & The Wailers – Exodus” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n 1977’s game-changer Exodus<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n MARLEY\u2019S RESERVES of positivity would be sorely taxed in the months to come. When The Wailers returned to Jamaica in July 163 Jamaican citizens had already lost their lives to political violence since the start of the year \u2013 including 19 policemen \u2013 and by the end of 1976 the headcount would top the 300 mark. The mounting pressure was a theme in the island\u2019s music that summer and autumn, explicit in Bob Andy\u2019s War In The City and Johnnie Clarke\u2019s Stop The Tribal War.<\/p>\n Courted and cajoled by both of the main political parties, Marley himself was careful to offer no endorsements, though some had not forgotten his longstanding links with Michael Manley, The Wailers having participated in the political bandwagons that helped bring him to power in 1972. Kudos for Marley at home came with expectations of support: personal, financial, or political.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, following Rastaman Vibration<\/em>\u2019s international acclaim, Jamaica\u2019s main newspaper, the conservative Daily Gleaner, began portraying Rastafari in a more sympathetic light and lauded Marley as an international ambassador for Jamaican culture. Yet that appeared to make no difference to the gunmen that burst in at 56 Hope Rd on December 3.<\/p>\n \u201cI heard the first gunshot, and then I saw this guy come up through the back door,\u201d remembers Donald Kinsey. \u201cHe had on a leather glove, with a gun, and just let loose. After I seen that gun pull back out through the door, I ran out the kitchen and ducked behind one of my Ammo guitar amp cases, and when I peeped around, I could see guns going \u2013 just gunshots, man! It sounded like war. Then Bob ran out the kitchen and came through the rehearsal room and went on down the hallway. Don Taylor finally came out and blood was just coming out of him like ketchup. He collapsed right there in the rehearsal room, and I just sat there and waited to not hear any more bullets.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n ON DECEMBER 15, Jamaica\u2019s General Election returned Michael Manley\u2019s PNP with an increased 34-seat majority, and promises not to kowtow to foreign influence, but the plummeting economy forced him to sign a deal with the IMF within a year. The 1980 election would prove the bloodiest in the nation\u2019s history, with over one thousand citizens killed through election-related violence (including an MP), and candidates shot at while on the campaign trail. The splintering of the PNP and the unravelling of Manley\u2019s administration ultimately yielded a massive victory for Seaga and the JLP. Meanwhile, Marley\u2019s exile brought him into contact with UK musicians \u2013 inaugurating the so-called punky reggae party \u2013 and the short-term result would be June 1977\u2019s Exodus<\/em> album. His music would forge forwards, and look increasingly to the world, the assassination attempt part of his ever-augmenting aura.<\/p>\n \u201cI have no doubt that all of it was ordained by Almighty God,\u201d says Donald Kinsey, with absolute finality. \u201cEverything that happened, the way how it went, it was for a reason and a purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n This article originally appeared in MOJO 274<\/em><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-names” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”14px” text_orientation=”center” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Images:<\/strong> Getty<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is the story of one of the most dramatic and mysterious events in music history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mojo-presents"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"kschwarz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=893"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":986,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions\/986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u201cWe saw Bob come in, bleeding, and I think we were all waiting to just be shot. Like, this is it: we\u2019re all gonna die in this bathroom.\u201d<\/h2>\n
Tyrone Downie<\/h3>\n
Politics was unavoidable. In fact, politics came looking for him.<\/p>\n\u201cBob was really uplifting, real upbeat: \u2018Donald Kinsey, I wonder if you can play some guitar for me?\u2019\u201d<\/h2>\n
Donald Kinsey<\/h3>\n
\u201cThe LA show had star-studded guests: Herbie Hancock, Joni Mitchell. I think Jerry Garcia was there too. Who wasn\u2019t<\/em> there?\u201d<\/h2>\n
Tyrone Downie<\/h3>\n
\u201cLeaving Hammersmith, there were people climbing all over the bus. I felt like, \u2018Damn, we\u2019re rock stars!\u2019\u201d<\/h2>\n
Tyrone Downie<\/h3>\n