Tag Archives: Bob Marley

Lee “Scratch” Perry ► Monday Musical Appreciation

Celebrating his 81st birthday today is the Grandfather of Reggae and the father of Dub Reggae, Rainford Hugh Perry, aka Lee “Scratch” Perry.

Back in the days before the word Reggae even existed — when it was still called Ska, or Bluebeat, or One Drop — Perry apprenticed at Kingston’s Studio One. There he performed a number of chores for owner Coxone Dodd, including selling records. During his short time there he managed to record some 30 songs for the label. However, Perry and Dodd didn’t get along, so Perry moved on to Joe Gibbs and Amalgamated Records. That relationship, rocky as it was, lasted longer. However, Gibbs’ money woes had him strike out on his own and Perry started up his own label, Upsetter Records in 1968. According to the WikiWackyWoo:

His first major single “People Funny Boy”, which was an insult directed at Gibbs, sold well with 60,000 copies sold in Jamaica alone. It is notable for its innovative use of a sample (a crying baby) as well as a fast, chugging beat that would soon become identifiable as “reggae” (the new kind of sound which was given the name “Steppers”). Similarly his acrimonious 1967 single as Lee “King” Perry Run for Cover was likewise aimed at Sir Coxsone. From 1968 until 1972 he worked with his studio band The Upsetters. During the 1970s, Perry released numerous recordings on a variety of record labels that he controlled, and many of his songs were popular in both Jamaica and the United Kingdom. He soon became known for his innovative production techniques as well as his eccentric character.[1] In 1970 Perry produced and released The Wailers track “Mr Brown” (1970) with its unusual use of studio effects and eerie opening highlighting his unique approach to production.


Perry produced some of the earliest tracks for the Wailers, before they signed with Island Records. Chris Blackwell took the original tracks, removed the rough edges, renamed the band Bob Marley and the Wailers, and nothing was ever the same again.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I worked for Island Records Canada in the mid-’70s, where my first contact with Lee “Scratch” Perry and Dub Reggae was the amazing LP Super Ape by The Upsetters. I loved Dub Reggae from the start because it was like Psychedelic Reggae. The fun was trying to identify the original tunes that Perry Dubbed up. It’s one album from that era I still put on and CRANK it up to 11.

Perry’s career has had its ups and downs over the years, including a December 2015 fire at his Secret Laboratory Studio. According to Rolling Stone:

Lee “Scratch” Perry‘s “secret laboratory” studio in Switzerland burned down Thursday, destroying the dub legend’s collection of studio equipment, art, stage costumes and music. “Something very very sad happened. I forgot to [put] out a candle and my whole secret laboratory burned out,” Perry wrote on Facebook, “My whole life collections, arts, my magic hats, my magic boots, all my crazy show outfits and costumes: king, pope, general, magician… All my electronics and studio equipment and my magic mic, books, musik, CDs… Everything gone.”

On Facebook, Perry also posted photos of himself standing in the burnt-out ruins of the studio, which lent its name to Perry’s 1990 LP From the Secret Laboratory. Perry also noted in his letter, “I am so sad and my wife is so mad.” As a result of the fire, Perry is asking fans to provide specially made costumes for his upcoming trek; fans who contribute an outfit will be placed on the guest list and given backstage access when the Upsetter’s trek comes to their town.

This was Perry’s second fire. In 1981 he torched his earlier Black Ark studios himself, the episode eventually blamed on a mental breakdown.

I had the extreme thrill to see Perry perform live at DubFest in Hollywood, Florida, in September of 2009. I never thought I’d have the opportunity to see him because he spends most of his time in Europe. But, I was able to knock him off my bucket list on the same day I also saw Bunny Wailer live.

Lee “Scratch” Perry is still going strong and he’s already tweeted out his own birthday greetings.

You can find many biographical details on the interwebs, but Not Now Silly is all about the music. Here’s a small sample of the hundreds of tracks that Lee “Scratch” Perry has produced and recorded over the years, starting with one of my all-time favourite Reggae tracks:










Bob Marley ► Monday Musical Appreciation

Read: The Day I Met Bob Marley

He was born Robert Nesta Marley in 1945. By the time of his 1981 death of melanoma, he was known worldwide as the Honourable Bob Marley, OM, and given a state funeral by the Jamaican government.

Starting in relative obscurity in Trenchtown, Jamaica, with The Wailers, Marley’s career lasted less than 20 years. By the time he died of cancer as a solo artist — at the far-too-young age of 36 — there were few places in the world where Bob Marley‘s name was not known, especially by people of colour and the downtrodden.

This tribute song makes the point far better than I could.

Scoot Irwin, friend to the Newsroom, reminded this writer of Marley’s upcoming birthday on the weekend, making today’s choice for a Monday Musical Appreciation a no-brainer. Then, as if by Jah, before Not Now Silly even began preparations, a news story came in unbidden over the transom. It turns out that some of Marley’s earliest live recordings were rediscovered and cleaned up. In the Guardian article ‘Spine-tingling’ lost Bob Marley tapes restored after 40 years in a cellar we learn:

The 13 reel-to-reel, analogue master tapes were discovered in cardboard box files in a run-down hotel in Kensal Rise, north-west London, the modest lodgings where Bob Marley and the Wailers stayed during their European tours in the mid-1970s.

The tapes – known as “the lost masters” among elements of Marley’s huge fanbase – were at first believed to be ruined beyond repair, largely through water damage. Yet after more than 12 months of painstaking work using the latest audio techniques, the master reels have been restored, with the sound quality of Marley – who died in 1981 but would have been 72 on Monday– described as enough to “send shivers down one’s spine”.

The tapes are the original live recordings of Marley’s concerts in London and Paris between 1974 and 1978, and feature some of his most famous tracks including No Woman No Cry, Jammin, Exodus and I Shot the Sheriff.

These were among Marley’s first concerts after going solo, recorded with the Rolling Stones mobile unit, said to be the only 24-track mobile studio in England at the time. Shows on these tapes include the London Lyceum (1975), Hammersmith Odeon (1976), and Pavilion de Paris (1978). There’s no word on whether these shows will be released commercially.


Live, with special lyrics name-checking President Barack Obama

Recently one of Marley’s earliest interview was released online. While the sound quality is not that great, it’s still wonderful to listen to a musician just on the cusp of international fame.

Bob Marley also popularized the Rastafarian religion, adopted by so many people who know and care nothing about Emperor Haile Selassie, whose name was Tafari Makonnen Woldemikael. Ras was his title, which roughly translates as “head” or “ruler.”

The shame of Marley having died so young is that we were deprived of the songs and collaborations that would have come.

There’s an entire school of thought (on which NNS is reserving judgement) that Bob Marley was assassinated by the CIA, because his brand of pan-Africanism was perceived dangerous to The Powers That Be. [Read: White people.]

As we are fond of saying here in the Not Now Silly Newsroom: It’s in the grooves. Here are some Bob Marley tunes you should never be without . . . and they’re not the ones that most people know, nor are they all political. However, the first one should give hope to all opposed to Emperor Trump.

Crank it up and D A N C E ! ! !












The Hit Parade ► A Musical Appreciation

The first issue of The Billboard Advertiser

It was 80 years ago today that Billboard Magazine launched The Hit Parade, a countdown of the most popular recordings in the country based on sales and radio play. While the chart has changed over the years — and has been balkanized into just about every genre of music known — the main list is now known as The Hot 100.

We know Billboard today as a music magazine, but when it was launched in 1894 it was a circus magazine. At the time the circus was the biggest form of entertainment in the country. Atlas Obscura tells all in Number One With A Bullet: The Rise of the Billboard Hot 100:

According to a history written by his grandson, Roger S. Littleford, Jr., the founder of Billboard,
William H. “Bill” Donaldson, built the magazine to serve an entirely
different need. Donaldson worked for the family business, a Newport,
Kentucky-based lithography shop that churned out advertisements and
posters for the circuses, fairs, and other traveling shows that
criss-crossed the country. Donaldson realized that most of his
clients—the managers and owners who ordered the posters, and,
especially, the billstickers tasked with staying one step ahead of the
shows and pasting the posters to every available surface—lacked
permanent addresses, and thus were unable to communicate with each
other.

In 1894, Donaldson started to spend his nights and weekends putting together Billboard Advertising,
a trade publication dedicated to gathering all the news that might be
relevant to his more itinerant peers. The first issue, published that
November, had eight pages of relevant tidbits, laid out in columns like
“Bill Room Gossip” and “The Indefatigable And Tireless Industry of the
Bill Poster.” Now the “advertisers, poster printers, bill posters,
advertising agents, and secretaries of fairs,” as the issue categorized them, could pick up a magazine at a newsstand anywhere in the country and know what to expect on the opposite coast.


This is the first #1 tune on the first Billboard Hit Parade in 1936

Over the years as the entertainment industry expanded, so did Billboard’s coverage of it; from sheet music, to plays, to movies, to musicals, to radio, to recorded music, to downloads. It was all a natural progression to follow what was popular in ‘Merkin entertainment and technology. The WikiWackyWoo picks up the story:

On January 4, 1936, Billboard magazine published its first music hit parade.
The first Music Popularity Chart was calculated in July 1940. A variety
of song charts followed, which were eventually consolidated into the
Hot 100 by mid-1958. The Hot 100 currently combines single sales, radio airplay, digital downloads, and streaming activity (including data from YouTube and other video sites). All of the Billboard
charts use this basic formula. What separates the charts is which
stations and stores are used; each musical genre has a core audience or
retail group. Each genre’s department at Billboard is headed up by a chart manager, who makes these determinations.

For many years, a song had to be commercially available as a single to be considered for any of the Billboard charts. At the time, instead of using Nielsen SoundScan or Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems (BDS), Billboard obtained its data from manual reports filled out by radio stations and stores. According to the 50th Anniversary issue of Billboard,
prior to the official implementation of SoundScan tracking in November
1991, many radio stations and retail stores removed songs from their
manual reports after the associated record labels stopped promoting a
particular single. Thus songs fell quickly after peaking and had shorter
chart lives. In 1990, the country singles chart was the first chart to use SoundScan and BDS. They were followed by the Hot 100 and the R&B chart in 1991. Today, all of the Billboard charts use this technology.


IRONY ALERT: When I worked at Island Records Canada, I promoted this tune

There was a time in my life when I lived — literally — and died — figuratively — by the Billboard charts. When I worked for Island Records Canada as a Promotion Rep, I spent hours with each new issue of Billboard, trying to discern trends the same way astrologists look for signs in their charts.

Trying to get Bob Marley played on FM radio in Canada was a nearly impossible feat at the time. This was when Rastaman Vibration was just released. It was such an uphill struggle because few people even knew who Bob Marley was and Reggae still confused a lot of people. I told people it was just like Rock and Roll, except the beat didn’t go KUH-thunk, KUH-thunk. It went Thunk-kuh, Thunk-kuh.

We badgered one radio station in Canada after another to add Marley to their playlists, with almost no luck whatsoever. Only the odd campus radio station were sold on Marley’s power as an artist.

CHUM-FM was the station we worked on the hardest because it was the biggest station in the country. Consequently it was a leader among Canadian radio stations. CHUM’s music committee consisted of Benji Karsh and Brian Masters. They hated Marley. Week after week, we’d pitch them Bob Marley. Each week we’d send them photostatic copies of charts from around the world, showing which radio stations were smart enough to jump on the Bob Marley bandwagon. Every week they just laughed. Finally one week they said, “We won’t play this until it charts in Billboard.”

Guess what?

A few weeks later Rastaman Vibrations finally appeared on the Billboard chart. We were able to go back to CHUM-FM and make them eat those words. From that day on Bob Marley was heard on CHUM-FM. Later I was amused to hear them pretend to have discovered Bob Marley, even though they had to be dragged kicking and screaming all the way.

Peter Tosh ► Monday Musical Appreciation

Born on this day: Winston Hubert McIntosh, better known to Reggae fans as Peter Tosh, one of the original Wailers. 

At the age of 15 Tosh moved to Trench Town in Kingston, Jamaica, after the death of his aunt in Westmoreland, Jamaica, where he was born. According to the legend, recounted by the WikiWackyWoo:

He first picked up a guitar by watching a man in the country play a song that captivated him. He watched the man play the same song for half a day, memorizing everything his fingers were doing. He then picked up the guitar and played the song back to the man. The man then asked McIntosh who had taught him to play; McIntosh told him that he had.[2] During the early 1960s Tosh met Robert Nesta Marley (Bob Marley) and Neville O’Reilly Livingston (Bunny Wailer) and went to vocal teacher Joe Higgs, who gave out free vocal lessons to young people, in hopes to form a new band. He then changed his name to become Peter Tosh and the trio started singing together in 1962. Higgs taught the trio to harmonize and while developing their music, they would often play on the street corners of Trenchtown.[3]

[…] In 1964 Tosh helped organize the band The Wailing Wailers, with Junior Braithwaite, a falsetto singer, and backup singers Beverley Kelso and Cherry Smith. Initially, Tosh was the only one in the group who could play musical instruments. According to Bunny Wailer,
Tosh was critical to the band because he was a self-taught guitarist
and keyboardist, and thus became an inspiration for the other band
members to learn to play. The Wailing Wailers had a major ska
hit with their first single, “Simmer Down”, and recorded several more
successful singles before Braithwaite, Kelso and Smith left the band in
late 1965. Marley spent much of 1966 in Delaware in the United States of America with his mother, Cedella (Malcolm) Marley-Booker and for a brief time was working at a nearby Chrysler
factory. He then returned to Jamaica in early 1967 with a renewed
interest in music and a new spirituality. Tosh and Bunny were already
Rastafarians when Marley returned from the U.S., and the three became
very involved with the Rastafari faith. Soon afterwards, they renamed
the musical group The Wailers. Tosh would explain later that they chose
the name Wailers because to “wail” means to mourn or to, as he put it,
“…express one’s feelings vocally”. He also claims that he was the
beginning of the group, and that it was he who first taught Bob Marley
the guitar. The latter claim may very well be true, for according to Bunny Wailer, the early wailers learned to play instruments from Tosh.[4]

The Wailing Wailers eschewed the rapid, feel-good Ska beat for a slower, slinkier beat, which became known as Rocksteady, One Drop, and eventually Reggae. They dropped the “Wailing” from their name and became The Wailers. Some of Marley’s biggest hits were originally recorded during this time and written, or co-written, by Peter Tosh. It wasn’t until Chris Blackwell signed them to Island Records did they become Bob Marley and the Wailers.

[FULL DISCLOSURE: I once worked for Island Records Canada.]

Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer left Island Records when Blackwell, who had groomed Marley to become a star, refused to release their solo records. Soon after, Tosh released the Legalize It LP. The titular song is still an anthem for the Marijuana Movement worldwide.

A few years later Tosh appeared at the One Love Peace Concert and lit a spliff onstage, lecturing the assembled politicians on the unfair marijuana laws. According to the Wiki: Several months later he was apprehended by police as he left Skateland
dance hall in Kingston and was beaten severely while in police custody.

Peter Tosh was posthumously awarded the Order of Merit by the Jamaican government and while he never achieved the fame of Bob Marley, he never lost his street cred and is considered the most controversial member of The Wailers.

To celebrate his birthday, there will be 2 symposiums, today and tomorrow, in Jamaica. According to the Jamaican Observer:

The first is staged by the Kingston and St Andrew Ganja Growers and
Producers Association and the National Alliance for the Legalisation of
Ganja in partnership with the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation at
Curphey Place in St Andrew.

It reflects on the life and legacy of Tosh, an unrepentant advocate for
the legalisation of ganja. Mayor of Kingston Angela Brown-Burke will
address the forum, which has a panel moderated by her husband Paul
Burke, Tosh’s former manager Herbie Miller, social activist Louis
Moyston, and UWI lecturer, Dr Michael Barnett.

Guest speakers include Tosh’s friend, former Jamaica footballer Allan
‘Skill’ Cole; president of the National Ganja Growers Association,
Orville Silvera, and Minister of Transport Dr Omar Davies.

Tomorrow’s event is the annual Peter Tosh Symposium at the University of the West Indies’ Mona campus.

Arguably reggae’s most militant figure, Tosh (born Winston Hubert
McIntosh) was killed by gunmen at his home on September 11 1987. He was
42.

Headlines Du Jour ► Tuesday, April 8, 2014

NB: Due to a publishing error, all headline links done broke. I don’t have the time to fix it today. So sorry.

Good day, Headliners. It’s the birthday of comedian Shecky Greene, who has made people laugh for decades. He’s never missed the Headlines Du Jour of yesteryear:

Today’s Headlines Du Jour is a big’un — larger than normal — so let’s get right to it:

IN LGBT NEWS:

Pulled Over for Driving
While Black and Brown
. . . and LGBTQ?

The Mozilla fiasco was about far more than “gay marriage”

BarbWire: ‘Al-‘Gay’Da’ And ‘Lezbollah’ Terrorists Brought Down Mozilla CEO


THE “O” IN GOP STANDS FOR OBSOLETE:

According to MSNBC, Jeb Bush
Is Now the GOP’s Only Hope

John Boehner Claims That He
Is Killing Obamacare By Giving Obama Everything He Wants

This GOP House Candidate
Is Running for Office So
His Daughter Won’t Have
to Learn About Evolution

Wisconsin GOP candidate proposes doing away
with weekends, dismisses MLK Day, Kwanzaa

Republican Mississippi Governor
Signs Unconstitutional Law That
Voids The 14th Amendment

Local Republican Caucus Passes Resolution Allowing Wisconsin To Secede

Republican Poll Has Bad News For GOP as Mary
Landrieu Leads All Challengers In Louisiana

The GOP Is at War With Itself. So Why
Are Republicans Poised to Win in 2014?

TODAY IN RELIGION:

Head of Anglican church:
We must discriminate against
gays lest someone think
we’re gay and bash us



TEABAGGED ENOUGH ALREADY:

WATCH: Rand Paul Says Dick Cheney Pushed for the Iraq War
So Halliburton Would Profit

Chuck Schumer Defends
Attacks On The Koch Brothers:
‘I Don’t Feel Sorry For Them’

$COTU$ WATCH:

BREAKING: Supreme Court won’t hear anti-gay photographer case

Will Voters Know Who’s Funding Who by Election Time?

FREE THE WEED!!!

Martin O’Malley Expected To Sign Marijuana Decriminalization Bill


IN INCOME INEQUALITY:

In Book’s Trial Of U.S. Justice
System, Wealth Gap Is Exhibit A

A Chronic Sickness Inside
the US Labor Market


GEORGE W. BUSH WATCH:

Bush crew’s deplorable return:
How their reemergence
sends a deadly message

IN CLIMATE CHANGE:

Right-Wing Journalist Writes a Laughably Bad Article Justifying Climate Change Denial


HISTORY IS COMPLICATED:

The Lost Canals of
Venice of America


NATURE IS COMPLICATED:

Coconut Crabs Eat Everything from Kittens to, Maybe, Amelia Earhart


CHRIS CHRISTIE CORNER:

Exclusive: Christie Prosecutor Gets Its Star Witness to Start Talking

CRACK MAYOR CORNER:

‘Belligerent’ Rob Ford
warned by security at
Air Canada Centre
A “belligerent” Mayor Rob Ford received a warning from Air Canada Centre security staff at the Toronto Maple Leafs game on Saturday night.

Rob Ford, still setting the
bar as low as it will go

Rob Ford ‘Crackathon’ video game lights up the web


BACK TO THE FUTURE:

Figuring out the future: Will we be ready to live in
a world where machines are smarter than people?

FOX “NEWS” IN THE NEWS AGAIN:

NEW STUDY: 72 Percent
of Fox News Climate
Segments Are Misleading

Fox Doesn’t Get Why
Breaking Bad Star Supports
Health Care Reform

Fox News floats trial balloon that Mitt
Romney might make third run for president

On Eve Of Equal Pay Day, Fox Host Denies Existence Of Gender Pay Gap

Revolving Door: Fox News Hires Back Ex-Candidate Liz Cheney

FOX “NATION” IN THE NEWS AGAIN:

From “Hip-Hop BBQ” To “Horseman Of Apocalypse”:
5 Years Of Fox Nation


IN INNER SPACE:

Non-Conformity & Creativity Now Listed
As A Mental Illness By Psychiatrists

I cracked the code at the Western University library
Solving the mystery of the Weldon Library letters, a tale of
weird obsession, intrigue and a lesson in the bonds of humanity

IN OUTER SPACE:

‘Star Trek’ actress lends her gravitas to film promoting idea that sun revolves around Earth


BOB MARLEY REMEMBERED:

Local Park Honors Bob
Marley With Name Change

From the vase Not Now Silly Archives:
The Day I Met Bob Marley


VIDEO DU JOUR:

Headlines Du Jour is a leisure-time activity of Not Now Silly, home of the
Steam-Powered Word-0-Matic, and your rest stop on the Information
Highway. Use our valuable bandwidth to post your news comments in
today’s open thread.

Headlines Du Jour ► Wednesday, December 25, 2013 ► The All Christmas Edition

Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the house
Not a Jew was stirring
Not even a meshugenah in a crushed velvet suit. . .

Welcome to the All Christmas edition of Headlines Du Jour.


I GOTCHER PHONY WAR ON CHRISTMAS RIGHT HERE!!!

‘We are winning the culture
wars’: Cenk Uygur mocks Bill
O’Reilly’s fear of ‘secularist left’

9 reasons Fox News thinks there’s a war on Christmas
Fox thinks Christianity is under attack, thanks to non-
white Santas, freedom of speech and the word “holiday”


The Gospel according to Fox News — and their cries of
holiday persecution — make them look even more foolish

Black Santa shot by pellet gun during
D.C. toy giveaway while cameras rolled

Right-Wing Is Filled with Biblical Illiterates: They’d Be
Shocked by Jesus’ Teachings if They Ever Picked Up a Bible

Meet Tex-Mex ‘Pancho Claus,’ An Adored
Christmas Fixture In The Lone Star State

GOP Rep Lamborn Pushes Bill to ‘Save
Christmas,’ Fox & Friends Hosts Thank Him

Christian activists show their love by covering
Chicago atheist display and berating onlookers

The Real War on Christmas: The War on the Poor

Reza Aslan Takes Down the Christmas Myths
That Fox News Has Been Peddling for Years

GOP rep. cites ‘pluralism’ to push ‘save
Christmas’ bill that excludes all other religions

“1913 Massacre” Film Takes a Trip Back to
Calumet a Century After a Christmas Eve Tragedy

Surprise! Fox’s Todd Starnes Is Super ‘Outraged’
by Those Alabama Drag Queen Dancers

The real history of the “war on Christmas”


Headlines Du Jour is a leisure-time activity of Not Now Silly, home of the Steam-Powered Word-0-Matic, and your rest stop on the Information Highway. Use our valuable bandwidth to post your news comments in today’s open thread.

Headlines Du Jour ► Sunday, December 22, 2013

Following yesterday’s insurrection by the Not Now Silly interns, let’s just say you’ll never see or hear from them again. A brand new team of interns were hired, trained, and sent out overnight to collect today’s Headlines Du Jour.

BEST HEADLINE DU JOUR:

Robot Handjobs Are The Future, And The Future Is Coming

LGBT NEWS:

LGBT activist reported missing

In Striking Down Utah’s Gay Marriage
Ban, Judge Gives Scalia Big Bear Hug

When Having Condoms Gets You Arrested

SO GLAD WE’RE LIVING IN A POST-RACIAL SOCIETY:

Wall Street Journal Op-Ed Bemoans The
End Of White Rule In The United States

Barry Diller’s PR Exec Fired After AIDS Tweet Outrage

CONSTITUTIONALLY YOURS:

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Says It’s Unconstitutional For Gas Companies
to Frack Wherever They Want

THE ROB FORD DEFENSE DIDN’T WORK FOR HIM:

General in Charge of U.S. Nukes Fired for Drunken Escapades in Russia

STING NOWHERE TO BE FOUND:

Message in a bottle found 54 years later in Canadian Arctic

GUNS, GUNS, GUNS:

Colorado school shooting plot by two
teenage students thwarted: cops

RELIGION CORNER:

Right-Wing Group Seeks Help Rewriting the Bible Because It’s Not Conservative Enough

VIDEO DU JOUR:

◄ ◄ ◄ I gotcher Rasta Christmas right here!!! ► ► ►

Headlines Du Jour is a leisure-time activity of Not Now Silly,
home of the Steam-Powered Word-0-Matic, and your rest stop on the Information Highway. Use
our valuable bandwidth to post your news comments in today’s open
thread.

The Day I Met Bob Marley ► Part Two

As Part One of The Day I Met Bob Marley ended, I had just been given word by my boss at Island Records that instead of going to the two Bob Marley concerts at the University of Toronto’s Convocation Hall, I was being sent on a secret mission to New York City. You’re on the honour system that you’ve read Part One before continuing.

When Bob Marley and the band arrived in Toronto, the entire Island Records of Canada staff — all 3 of us — headed on over to Convocation Hall for some meeting and greeting, and for me to pick up the audio tapes. These live concert recordings were of the first 5 dates on the tour and had been smuggled into Canada by the band. Now I had to smuggle them back into the United States.

The dressing room at Convocation Hall was about 15’x15′. When we arrived we could barely see across the room due to all the ganja smoke. Marley and the band had a lot of friends in Toronto’s Jamaican community and they had already delivered the sacramental herb. My first shock was that Bob Marley was no taller than I am. I had only seen pictures and videos of him on stage and he seemed like a giant. Yet, he must have clocked in at 5’7″, or so, because we were standing there looking eye to eye. And that’s when the spliff came around to us.

Did I say spliff? This was an uber-spliff. This was the spliff to end all spliffs. Imagine something the size and basic shape of a baseball bat, with the fat end — the business end — — the burning end!!! — as big around as a softball. It tapered to a point and the whole thing was wrapped in a newspaper.

As I stood making pleasantries with Bob Marley, the spliff came around to him. Bob, being polite — or maybe just because he was testing me — passed it to me. Well, I was no rookie at this, and had been know to inhale, so I grabbed that sucker and took a good haul.

IT WAS THE HARSHEST THING I EVER INHALED IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!!!

I started coughing — no, choking — and Bob Marley thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen in his entire life. My second shock about Bob Marley: He giggled like a little girl. A happy, infectious, crowd-affecting laugh that had me laughing, even as the tears streamed down my cheeks. He put his arm around my shoulders and rocked at the waist with laughter. So did I. I took a 2nd haul, which was more successful than the first, passed it back to Marley, and then we got on to business.

The tour manager handed me my charges: Five, two inch, 24-track audio tapes in cardboard boxes, making it a loose stack almost a foot high. Today this could be put on a thumb drive. Back then this was the only available storage device. My mission: take these tapes, fly them to New York City on my lap, and put them directly into the hands of Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records. The tapes are to never leave my sight. The tapes are not to be x-rayed. I am to give them to no one other than Chris Blackwell. Most importantly: When crossing the border I must never admit that the tapes contain live concert recordings. No one knew what the duty on such a thing might be and no one wanted to admit these tapes never should have been smuggled into Canada in the first place.

I never like to leave a smoke-filled room, especially one with Bob Marley in it, but there was only so much time to make my flight to New York. I grabbed the awkward pile of tapes and took them my car, one of a series a of Volkswagon Beetles I owned in the day, with the most amazing sound system in it for the day. It was like sitting in a set of headphones. I slipped in the cassette Bob Marley and the Wailers “Live! and cranked it up as loud as I could stand. If I was going to miss the concert at least I could have a concert in the car.


Crank it up!!!

When I arrived at short term parking the shuttle bus was just pulling up. I grabbed the tapes and started running to catch it. The lid of the box on top of the pile caught the wind and flew open, papers flying all over the place. I dropped the tapes I was carrying and started chasing the paper around the parking lot until I got them all. As I grabbed the last one I watched the shuttle bus pull away.

The papers were all 8.5 x 11 photocopied sheets, with all the recording info for each track written in hand. I realized 2 things immediately: 1). There were no other copies of these documents, I had the originals; 2). How can I say I don’t know what’s on these tapes if what’s on these tapes is written on pieces of paper and stored right with the tapes? I opened all the boxes, took out all the paper, folded them up and put them in my pocket, and waited for the next shuttle bus.

Pearson Airport was a lot smaller in those days. Then, as now, travelers pass through U.S. Customs at the Toronto airport. Before you are funneled to your gate, you must satisfy the U.S. Border Patrol in Toronto. Once you pass that checkpoint, you are technically in the U.S. I managed to satisfy the officer on identity and citizenship, but, as you have probably guessed already, got tripped up on the tapes, which I refused to allow them to x-ray. This is an approximation of how that went.

“You’re more than welcome to examine them, but my instructions are they cannot be x-rayed because that would destroy what’s on the tapes.”

He examines them and satisfies himself that the tapes are just tapes, but he’s never seen 2-inch audio tape before, so he’s a bit confused.

“What’s on the tapes?”

“I don’t know. I’m merely a messenger.”

Now he’s really confused.

“Hang on a second.”

He brings another U.S. Customs guy who is higher up the food chain to look at the tapes.

This guy examines them and satisfies himself that the tapes are just tapes,
but he’s never seen 2-inch audio tape before either, so he’s a bit
confused, just like the first guy.

“What’s on the tapes?”

“I don’t know. I’m just a messenger.”

“Hang on a second.”

They both go off to have a private discussion in a room with a window that I can look into. I see them drag a few more Custom agents into the room. A huge discussion ensues and I’m starting to wonder if I need to proclaim my ‘Merkin citizenship to get into ‘Merka with these tapes.

All this time the clock is doing its thing: Tick, tock, boys! Let’s get it on. I’ve got a flight to catch. All the time they’re quite pleasant and I’m quite pleasant, but I’m starting to get insistent that I have to get to New York City by a certain time. I know there is only a 2-hour window before Chris Blackwell has to fly to London with the tapes. If I miss that connection I might have to fly to London to deliver the tapes and I didn’t pack for that. For that matter, I didn’t pack for New York City. All I was carrying were the tapes.

Meanwhile, I missed my flight while these custom agents were arguing amongst themselves. It turned out that what was causing the delay is that they had to charge me duty on the audio tape. However, there were no references to 2-inch tape in the Big Book of Import Duties. They couldn’t let me into the States before I paid duty on the tape, but they didn’t know what to charge me.

Remember when everyone didn’t carry a phone in their pocket? The next argument I had with them was that I had to use their phone to call the office to get further instructions now that they caused me to miss my plane.

“You can’t use the phone while you’re here.”

WAIT!!! WHAT???

I argued that it was their dithering that made me miss my flight. I’m just a courier. I not only need further instructions, but needed someone from the office to rebook my flight if they still wanted me to effect delivery. That was a 15 minute argument that I finally won, as I got louder and louder. Eventually I got Kathy Hahn on the phone in the middle of what was a very hectic day for her. She said she’d take care of it. However, she needed a number where she could call me back.

“What’s the number here?”

“You can’t have people calling you here!”

However, they said I could use the phone as much as I needed while they sorted out their problem. I had just successfully turned the U.S. Customs’ telephone into my personal office. I made several more quick calls and then waited for about 15 minutes more minutes before one of the geniuses at U.S. Customs had a breakthrough of his own. Since the book gave them the duty for a cassette tape, which is an eighth of an inch, why not multiply that by 16 to get the duty for a 2 inch tape? We all celebrated that an answer to our conundrum presented itself. Now came a new conundrum.

“How long is the tape?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know? And, we’re not laying it out on the ground to measure it.”

“Is it 50 feet?”

“Yeah, sure, okay, let’s say it’s 50 feet.”

They took out a calculator and starting hitting the buttons. “Fifty feet, times an eighth inch, times 16 equals . . . “

I can’t remember the exact price of the duty, but let’s pretend it was $34.72. I had $35.00 in my pocket, just enough to pay the duty, but not enough left over for anything else. I paid the duty and called the office. Kathy had managed to book me on another plane to New York. However, what would have been a conversation with Chris Blackwell lasting an hour and a half, would be reduced to a half hour.

My new flight was delayed 15 minutes getting off the ground and I started wondering whether I would end up in London before my next sleep. Toronto to NYC is a mere puddle-jump and no sooner than you get to cruising altitude than it’s time to start your descent. I glanced at my watch and realized it was going to be touch and go. Blackwell’s flight to London was imminent and I am already several hours late. Will he even be at the gate to meet me?

When I got off the plane, there was Chris Blackwell right at my gate, looking incredibly anxious. He thanked me very much and apologized that he had to run, but his flight was on the exact opposite side of the airport and he would be lucky to make it. I fulfilled my sacred obligation and put the tapes directly in Chris Blackwell’s hands. As I did so I stumbled through a sentence that might be interpreted as “I’m so proud to be able to work with Island Records,” but probably came across as total gibberish, and then he was gone.

The first and only time I was ever in Chris Blackwell’s presence.

Now what?

I had the company credit card. I could go have a bacchanalian night in New York City on the company’s dime. However, I just happened to look up at the departure board and saw that there was a flight back to Toronto leaving almost immediately. If I made that flight, it might not be a total loss; I might be able to catch some of the 2nd Marley concert after all. Amazingly there were still seats on that plane. I paid for the tickets with the Island Records credit card and boarded almost immediately. The flight got off the ground on time and there were no other delays. For the first time all day things are going smoothly.

We landed at Pearson Airport. where I caught shuttle bus back to the parking lot, jumped into my car, and cranked up the music. Then I raced down the 427 to the QEW, shot across to the Gardiner and then over to Spadina, screamed north, dodging streetcars and pedestrians in Chinatown, and over to the U of T campus. I drove right up onto the sidewalk to the side door of Convocation Hall.

I no sooner pulled up to the building than the doors opened and the audience rushed out, trapping me and my car for the next 20 minutes while a cop argued I couldn’t park there. I missed both Bob Marley concerts. What’s worse, I spent less time with Chris Blackwell than I had Bob Marley and I only spent 5 minutes with Marley.

And, that kiddies, is the story of the day I met Bob Marley. Island Records was very gracious and paid to have me go see Bob Marley and the Wailers in concert at Detroit’s Masonic Temple. I also hooked a vacation in Detroit, my home town, visiting family and friends before I went back to Toronto.

The Day I Met Bob Marley ► Part One

I’ve dined out on this story among family and friends a few times over the years. However, I never told it in an official forum until interviewed for the wonderful documentary podcast How Jamaica Conquered the World. While Roifield Brown did a terrific job editing my rambling into a coherent story, I knew I could do better in print. However, first I want to put in a good word for Roifield’s great site. In its own words:

For a nation that gained independence from the British only 50 years ago, Jamaicans have left their mark on music, sport, style and language around the globe and have become an international marker of ‘cool’. Jamaican music has colonised the new and old world alike, its athletes break world records with impunity and youngsters the world over are incorporating Jamaican slang into their dialects. Despite this the country has reaped no economic reward in return, unlike empires of old, and Jamaica still remains an economic pygmy. Jamaican influence has unconsciously spawned creative innovation around the globe and to this day it remains a country to be studied, celebrated, and demystified. Through the help of linguists, artists, musicians, and historians we take a closer look as to how Jamaican culture conquered the world. 

How Jamaica Conquered the World is a class act, and I’d be saying that even if I didn’t appear in a couple of segments. As both history and a jukebox of Caribbean music, How Jamaica Conquered the World is worth as much time as you can devote to it.

Okay, kiddies, pull up a chair and pour yourself a cup of coffee, because this one’s going to be long . . .

On the day I met Bob Marley I was already working for Island Records Canada as a Record Promo Guy. It was one of my first jobs out of college and I was the low man on the totem pole in an office of 3 people. We three were required to cover the entire country of Canada, the 2nd largest country in the world. 

It’s worth mentioning how I came to work at Island Records because that also involves Bob Marley. A year earlier I had been the first full-time paid manager of Radio Sheridan. It was one of the few campus stations that received personal visits from the Record Promo Reps from all the major companies. Campus radio was much maligned in those days by the record companies, and deservedly so. A company would take the time and expense to package records and send them to a campus station, where they would rarely find their way into the library. They’d disappear into someone’s record collection.

By this time Radio Sheridan was 3 years old. It wasn’t an official part of the college; it was merely tolerated by Sheridan College. A small group of us, some attached to the student government and others in the Media Arts program, designed the concept of the radio station broadcasting on a closed-loop antenna system. We pitched it to the student government, which fell into line behind it. They presented it to Administration, which not only approved it, but gave us 2 very small rooms on the 2nd floor of the new wing. The station was entirely student-funded, student-built, and student-operated. I started off as Assistant Manager and later became the first (and as far as I know only) full-time paid Station Manager. I ‘hired’ Lorraine Segato to be one of my DJs and like to feel I set her off on her path to brilliance. 

Unlike other campus stations, from Day One, we felt it important that every record Radio Sheridan ever received was cataloged and shelved in the library. No genre or era was off limits and the only time a record was shelved with the words NO PLAY on it had to do 4-letter words, not musical styles. It was still shelved and everyone of us played George Carlin’s 7 Words You Can’t Say at least once. The rules were as flexible as any DJ wanted to try and get away with. It was the great era of Free Form Radio. We were all trying to emulate David Pritchard and David Marsden of CHUM-FM, when those guys were crazy MoFos on the air and playlists hadn’t been tightened up by the Radio Consultants, who were the real villains that ruined the medium of music radio.

However, Radio Sheridan had 3 things going for it, as far as the Majors (as we called the record companies) were concerned: 1). They could find every record they ever gave us in our library; 2). We would play music the other stations wouldn’t; 3). We were just off the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) between Toronto, where they all had head offices, and Hamilton, the next largest radio market in Ontario (if you ignored Windsor and lots tried). More than one Record Rep remarked how it was a nice stopover during a Hamilton swing. And those of us who worked at Radio Sheridan were eager acolytes for their records, posters, and concert tickets.

Kathy Hahn, a dear friend to this day, presents Bob Marley with a Canadian
Gold LP for Exodus in Jamaica, the 1st and only time a Canadian Gold
LP awarded outside the country; circa 1979

By the time I became full time Radio Sheridan Station Manager, we were getting so many records sent to us in the mail and hand-delivered by Record Reps that there was always a slush pile. Each record had to be listened to, categorized by genre and artist, duplicate file cards made, and then shelved in the record library. There was a pile of about 50 records on the day I first heard from the head of Island Records Canada. I was impressed that the head of the company was calling. I didn’t know the office consisted of just him and his assistant, Kathy Hahn, who I later discovered actually ran the office and made everything operate on schedule. The head of Island Records Canada was on the phone asking me whether I had received the latest records Kathy had sent in the mail. I assured him that I did, but had not had a chance to listen to them yet before shelving them. Then this guy started in on the hard sell (paraphrasing), “Oh you gotta listen. This is the next big thing. You need to jump on this. You’re going to hear a lot about Bob Marley.”

I hadn’t heard of Bob Marley before. More importantly, as far as I was concerned at that exact moment, I had never had a Record Promo Rep using such hard sell on me. The Promo Guys that serviced Radio Sheridan were all casual. They’d toss a record in our direction and say, “Give this a listen.” If we came back and said, “Hey, we like that artist,” the Rep might arrange to have the entire back catalog sent to us, or posters and concert tickets if those were available. The one thing they knew better than to do was to try and “sell” us on an artist. The music was either in the grooves, or it wasn’t.

However, this guy from Island Records was already irritating me and it was only our first phone call. I assured him I’d listen to his records just as soon as they floated to the top of the slush pile. However, that wasn’t the end of it. A few days later he called back, asking whether I’d listened to them yet. I explained the Hobson’s Choice system I developed: New records go on the bottom of the pile. I listen and shelve from the top of the pile. His records were mid-way in the pile, but they’d eventually make it to the top.

That’s when he started on the hard sell again. No other Promo Rep had ever tried to “promote” their records at me this vociferously and it was beginning to piss me off.

A few days later I go through the whole thing again with him. That’s when I flipped out at him. “Hear what I’m doing? I’m putting your records on the top of the pile. They will be the next records I listen to.”

I hung up absolutely prepared to hate the records almost as much as I had begun to hate the disembodied voice from the Bedford Road offices of “Island Records.” I put the first record on the turntable and dropped the needle. What happened next was four minutes and 15 seconds that changed my life. This is not hyperbole. Listen:

The first 30 seconds of Concrete Jungle were absolutely magical to me. It starts off with two guitars just noodling around, almost as if they are tuning up without structure. A single organ note sings in the background. At about 8 seconds in a drum beat sputters and then locks in. A bass guitar drops in a few notes here and there, while a lead guitar plays a few sustained chords and then a meandering lead line. Another keyboard is adding random notes. These instruments swirl around each other making no music I has ever heard of before. Then, at the 30 second mark, this kaleidoscopic swirl of what sounds like random instrumentation locks into place with the One Drop, bass and drums. Riddem!

I was hooked!!! Immediately!!!

For the first time in my life music SPOKE to me in a way that none had previously. Reggae penetrated my very soul. I felt it deep, deep within me. Within 6 months I was working for Island Records as Record Promo Rep and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer of Island Records Canada. One of my first surprises was that the head office for Island Records Canada was two front rooms of a beautiful house at 93 Bedford Road. The house was semi-famous, having appeared in two movies: The Last Detail and The Paper Chase. The rest of the house was residences, with a family living on the 2nd floor and a bachelor on the third floor. I eventually moved into a basement apartment in the house where I only had to walk upstairs to get to work, until I got hired away to United Artists in Scarberia.

My second surprise is that in a 3-person office, I would be called upon do do anything and everything, as we all did. One day I would be stuffing envelopes with the press release I had written the day before and picked up at the printer’s that morning. The next day I might be the limo driver taking Robert Palmer and his 2 singers to a concert at the CNE grounds, while they practiced the difficult “doobey doobey doops” back-up vocals of Hey Julia and Sneaking Sally Through The Alley in the back seat.

The most exciting and busy time in the life of a Record Promo Rep is the period immediately preceding one of your artists coming to town for a concert. Bob Marley and the Wailers had announced a North ‘Merkin tour for April to June of 1976 to promote the new release, Rastaman Vibration.

When one of your acts is coming to town, there’s a lot of prep work to be done. While the promoter will take out advertising to promote the concert, the record company will also take out adverts to promote the music currently available in stores. Sometimes those ads are designed in-house, but most of the time head office supplies camera-ready artwork, which still needs to be placed where the local office feels the most eyeballs will see it. In the case of Bob Marley, an artist barely known outside his native Jamaica in 1976, we did a lot of non-traditional advertising, naturally targeting the small weeklies and record stores that served Toronto’s large Jamaican population, much of which was strung along Eglington West, around Oakwood.

One of the jobs of a Promo Rep is to put up displays at the record stores and cajole the staff to rack the LPs up front. You see, kiddies, in the olden days of mortar and brick music machines, music could still be an impulse buy, like gum still is at supermarkets. When one of your acts is coming to town, this is done on steroids. At least a month ahead of time you would start putting up displays at all the record stores, beginning with those downtown and working out to the suburbs. The displays would include concert posters and racks for the various LPs the artist had out.

While it’s not exactly Payola, three things a Record Rep has in abundance are free LPs, free posters, and free concert tickets. These are spread around where they will do the artist the most good, as is access to the artist by radio and tee vee people. Artists will let you know in advance what their press availability will be. It’s up to the Promo Rep to apportion that time where it will do the artist the most good. These interviews won’t help concert sales (unless sales are slow, for which last minute interviews can be helpful), but will help record sales, which was the primary goal. The interviews will also be used ‘down the line’ as promo material for the upcoming shows on the tour, which could help ticket sales in future cities, which will lead to record sales.

While all tour arrangements (travel, hotel, meals) are handled by someone else, once the band arrives in town it’s the job of the record company, and most often the Promo Reps, to ferry them around town, make sure they get to any interviews and/or signings on time, and, most importantly, make sure they arrive at the concert venue in time. This often requires precision timing. Itineraries broken down into 15 minute increments are prepared, photocopied, and passed out to everyone who will need them.

The month before an artist comes to town is the most frantic time in the life of a Promo Rep, which only gets more frantic every day as the calendar counts down to Concert Day, which is the most frantic of all. One only gets to breathe a sigh of relief when the artist becomes the responsibility of the next Promo Rep in the next town on the tour.

The day I met Bob Marley was the most frantic day I ever had in the Music Bidnezz. It began in the Bedford Road HQ of Island Canada as we sat around going over a checklist of things that still needed to be done when the boss said, “You won’t be able to go to the concert, Headly.”

WAIT!!! WHAT???

I pretty much exploded.

“I’ve just spent a month working my ass off for this concert. I’ve papered dozens of record store walls in posters and empty LP covers. I’ve cajoled the alternative papers into doing articles in advance of the concert. I convinced some alternative radio stations to play some Marley, even though they’ve never heard of Reggae before. I’ve set up interviews with Bob Marley and made dozens of arrangements with people who will be at the show tonight. And, now you’re telling me I can’t go to the show?”

That’s when it was explained that I would be on a special, secret mission for Island Record International!!!

Here was the master plan: the two concerts at the University of Toronto’s Convocation Hall were the sixth and seventh on the tour, with Montreal the night before. Prior to that were four dates in the States: Upper Darby, Pennsylvania; Washington, D.C.; Boston, and New York City. The tour was being recorded and the band had smuggled several 2-inch reel-to-reel, 24-track recordings of the previous concert dates into Canada. They knew better than to try and smuggle ganja into Canada, knowing there were enough Jamaicans who wanted to present them with the sacramental plant upon their arrival. However, audio tapes? Those they smuggled into Canada without declaring them or paying any duty on them.

My secret mission was to collect the tapes from the band when they arrived, smuggle them back into the United States, and put them directly into the hands of Chris Blackwell.

CHRIS BLACKWELL?!?!?!

At that time in my life Chris Blackwell would have been the only person who I would have missed Marley for. Chris Blackwell was my musical hero. Chris Blackwell was the man who started up Island Records and still the head guy. A slight tangent is in order for A Short Biography of Chris Blackwell:

Although born in London (in 1937), Chris Blackwell spent his childhood in Jamaica. His mother came from a prominent family, said to be one of the 21 families that controlled Jamaica during the 20th century. After his parents divorced his mother took up with Ian Fleming and is said to be the inspiration for Pussy Galore. These days Chris Blackwell owns Goldeneye, where Fleming wrote all the James Bond novels. However, if that were it, there would be no reason to write this tangent.

At the age of 21 Blackwell had a boating accident off Jamaica’s southern coast when he crashed his sailboat on a coral reef. He swam to shore, collapsing on the beach in exhaustion. There he was rescued by some Rastafarian fisherman, who took care of him until he was healthy enough to leave. However, if that were it, there would still be no reason to write this tangent.

A year later, Chris Blackwell started Island Records, naming it after the Alec Waugh novel “Island in the Sun.”  Blackwell started releasing Jamaican music in 1959 and had limited regional success. In 1962 Blackwell moved Island operations to London and started making inroads in the Jamaican community with some early Ska and Bluebeat tunes that he had either recorded or licensed. One of those early licenses was for “My Boy Lollypop” by Millie Small, the cover of a 1956 tune by Barbie Gaye, one of the first hit songs in the newly emerging style of Ska.

Compare Millie Small’s version of My Boy Lollypop with Barbie Gaye’s:

As the WikiWhackyWoo quotes Blackwell:

I didn’t put it [the Millie Small single] on Island because I knew it was going to be so big. Independent labels in those days couldn’t handle hits, because you couldn’t pay the pressing plant in time to supply the demand, so I licensed it to Fontana, which was part of Philips. It was a big hit all around the world, and I really wanted to look after Millie, so I went everywhere with her, which took me into the mainstream of the record industry. I was lucky enough to see Stevie Winwood with the Spencer Davis Group, at a TV show in Birmingham. So then I started to spend more time in that area. This whole new music was emerging.

By “new music” Blackwell wasn’t talking about Reggae; that came later, after Island had already signed a few acts.With the proceeds of the smash Millie Small hit, he started signing bands to Island Records. After Spencer Davis Group and Steve Winwood came other Island signings: Traffic; Emerson, Lake and Palmer; Cat Stevens; Jethro Tull; Free; Fairport Convention; Kevin Ayers; Georgie Fame; Sparks; John Martyn; Spooky Tooth; Nick Drake; Roxy Music, Brian Eno; John Cale; The Chieftains; Richard and Linda Thompson; U2; Pete Wingfield; and many more. While many of these artists were signed to Island Records, Blackwell licensed some of these acts to other record companies in North America. To confuse matters even more, there were times the recordings were licensed to a different record company in Canada than ‘Merka.

And, that’s where I came in. I had been listening to music from Chris Blackwell for years, much longer than I had been listening to Reggae. Sure I’d be willing to miss two Bob Marley concerts at Convocation Hall to meet Chris Blackwell. He was one of my heroes.

Read Part Two of The Day I Met Bob Marley.

One of the Holiest Days in Rasta ► Grounation Day

It’s somehow appropriate that the day after Four Twenty is Grounation Day, one of the holiest days in the Rastafarian religion. Today is the anniversary of the day in 1966 when their living God, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I, visited Jamaica.

The WikiWackyWoo sums up Rastafarianism nicely: 

Many elements of Rastafari reflect its origins in Jamaica, a country with a predominantly Christian culture.[4][5] Rastafari holds to many Jewish
and Christian beliefs and accepts the existence of a single god, called
Jah, who has incarnated on Earth in the form of Jesus and Selassie.
Rastafarians accept much of the Bible, although believe that its message has been corrupted.[1] The Rastafari movement encompasses themes such as the spiritual use of cannabis[6][7] and the rejection of the degenerate society of materialism, oppression, and sensual pleasures, called Babylon.[8][9] It proclaims Zion, as reference to Ethiopia, the original birthplace of humankind, and from the beginning of the movement calls to repatriation to Zion, the Promised Land and Heaven on Earth.[10][11] Rasta also embraces various Afrocentric and Pan-African social and political aspirations,[6][12] such as the sociopolitical views and teachings of Jamaican publicist, organizer, and black nationalist Marcus Garvey (also often regarded as a prophet).

This would make a tremendous scene in a movie: When Emperor Haile Selassie I landed at Palisadoes Airport in Kingston on April 21, 1966, his plane was immediately surrounded by 100,000 Rastas, singing, playing drums and smoking sacramental ganja. When their living God appeared on the top step of his plane the crowd surged forward, pushing security back to the red carpet. Selassie waved, turned on his heels, and went back into the plane.

After what must have been a very uncomfortable wait, the Jamaican government convinced Ras Mortimer Planno, a well-known and respected Rasta elder, to go up and see what was keeping His Majesty. Planno had a private confab with Selassie and came out and announced to the crowd, “The Emperor has instructed me to tell you to be calm. Step back and let the Emperor land.”

Once the crowd had settled down Planno escorted Selassie down the stairs. The Emperor refused to walk on the red carpet, hence Grounation, with an emphasis on the ground.

This is the best part of the WikiWackyWoo entry on Grounation Day:

As a result of Planno’s actions, the Jamaican authorities were asked to ensure that Rastafarian representatives were present at all state functions attended by His Majesty, and Rastafari elders, including Planno and probably Joseph Hibbert, also obtained a private audience with the Emperor, where he reportedly told them that they should not immigrate to Ethiopia until they had first liberated the people of Jamaica. This dictum came to be known as “liberation before repatriation”. At a dinner held at the King’s House, Rastas claimed that acting Jamaican Prime Minister Donald Sangster had stamped his foot at Lulu, Haile Selassie’s pet chihuahua, who, they swore, had responded with the roar of a lion.

Defying expectations of the Jamaican authorities, Selassie never rebuked the Rastafari for their belief in him as the Messiah. Instead, he presented the movement’s faithful elders with gold medallions bearing the Ethiopian seal – the only recipients of such an honour on this visit. Meanwhile, he presented some of the Jamaican politicians, including Sangster, with miniature coffin-shaped cigarette boxes.

I get the feeling The Emperor was trying to send a message. Ras Mortimer Planno later went on to be the spiritual teacher for Rita and Bob Marley, whom you may have heard of.

Which leads us back to the music, which is what I always think about when I think of Rastafarianism. Here’s a Rasta Jukebox for Grounation Day.

CRANK IT UP!!!

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