Friday, July 23, 2004  

Rita Marley, "One Draw"
from Holding Up Half the Sky: Women in Reggae/Roots Daughters (Shanachie, 1996; rec. 1981)
Rita Marley & the Soulettes, "Bring It Up"
from Trojan Reggae Sisters box set (Trojan, 2003; rec. 1970; producer: Scratch Perry)

Just finished reading Rita Marley's No Woman No Cry: My Life With Bob Marley, and here are my impressions:
-It's short, shallow, and often redundant, but it's oddly compelling.
-Bob was a charismatic, magnetic personality, and everybody---from women to politicians to fans to gangsters---wanted a piece of him.
-Bob was a ho.
-Bob was a real ho.
-Bob was insecure, petty & jealous---and he was a ho.
-Bob could be very generous with his wife & family, even tho he was a ho.
-Rita loved Bob despite him being a ho.
-Rita was a uniquely strong woman, if also a slightly deluded one, in staying with Bob, who was a ho.
-Rastas (like any people of faith to those of us who have none) are, um, unique in their beliefs. This deep insight was also born out of my recent reading of Helene Lee's The First Rasta: Leonard Howell and the Rise of Rastafarianism, which makes the case for the need of Leonard's pro-black agenda (with influence from Marcus Garvey, of course, though the Garveyites did not like the initial Rastas) while also saying Howell was pretty much a cult leader & a ho.
-Bob died because he had melanoma, first in his big toe, which he refused to have removed. Then the cancer spread to the rest of his body. As someone who has had melanoma, and who now has a baseball-sized scar on his right leg to prove it, you get that sh*t removed no matter what your religious beliefs are.
-Bob got caught in the middle of all the eff'd up politics of 1970s Jamaica, which led to him being shot in 1976, the week before he was to perform a unity concert. He was clipped in the wing so he did the show with his arm in a sling. Rita did the show, too, with her cabbage in bandages as she was shot in the head. Doctors told Rita that her thick dreadlocks helped save her life.
-Jamaica Labor Party higher-up Oliva "Babsy" Grange helped make sure Bob had a big official funeral. Babsy is now under investigation for being linked to the gangster Oliver "Bubba" Smith, the recently killed don of the Jamaica's notorious One Order Gang.
-Rita has 38 grandchildren. She had five children with Bob, one with her pal Tacky, and one with another chap when she was 19. Legend better keep selling.
-Rita deserves all she has now due to the Marley name. She's been patient, put up with a hell of a lot of crap from Bob, is devoted to her children (and to many of the kids Bob had out of wedlock), and has attempted to protect & promote his legacy (even as she's licensed his name and image for, say, luggage collections).
-Cowriter Hettie Jones (former wife of Leroi Jones aka Amiri Baraka) isn't much of a editor, and she seems to know relatively little about Jamaica or Jamaican music. For instance, for some reason the Skatalites' name is written as "Skatalites" as if the band's "name" wasn't "really" the Skatalites and it "needs" air "quotes." What is "it" with writers "using" random "air" quotes?
-Jamaica (like its colonizer, England) might be filled with more musical talent per capita than anywhere in the world---at least outside of Silver Spring, Md.
-Jamaica is a crazy, confusing, wholly unique place---and I'm totally fascinated by it. I spent just 4 days in Kingston this past January, but I still think about it daily, hourly. I spent a month in Morocco in 1989, and that did my head in more than any place I've ever been. I can see Jamaica casting that same sort of spell on me had I stayed longer and roamed farther. But the magical sadness of Silver Spring will always be #1.
-Bob, despite his human problems---and you, Jimmy T-Shirt and Bobby von Dorm Poster, should remember that while you puff up and deify the dude before Econ 101---was a talented mofo whose songs and lyrics are worth celebrating, even if his everyday life is not.
-Bob Marley isn't the reason I got into Jamaican music (thank you, the Clash, the English Beat, and Madness), and he's not the reason I stayed there (props to King Tubby, Scratch Perry, and all the rocksteady vocalists). In fact, relative to Bob's status as Worldwide Icon, I don't know his music all that well. Not sure if I ever will, either.

Posted by CP | Link |

---