Last night, I finally started watching a documentary I’d had
in my possession for a few months and then completed viewing today.
(Audio Visual 4) –
Marley
Released last year, this is a documentary of the Bob Marley
life story. Given that it is released
by Tuff Gong Pictures, presumably an offshoot of Tuff Gong Records Marley’s
record label, it is probably the closest thing to a documentary authorised by
the Marley estate. Usually, I shy away
from authorised biographies, visual or written, as these usually airbrush the
subject who usually has had the final say.
However, it is to the credit of all concerned that nothing of substance
appears to have been ignored (which, of course, is easier to do when your subject
has been dead for 31 years). This covers
everything, including Bob’s childhood, his earliest adventures in the record
industry, fondness for soccer, ganja and women, tours, the assassination attempt,
his battle with cancer and eventual death.
There is great footage from key moments in his life including the Smile Jamaica
Concert (held a few days after the attempt on his life), his final ever show
and his funeral. Everyone of note in the
story is interviewed on camera including various Wailers, Lee
“Scratch” Perry, Rita and Ziggy Marley and an honest Chris Blackwell justifying
his decision to “rock up” the soul of the band’s debut Catch A Fire for the
benefit of non-Jamaican audiences. (The
live footage in support of this is musically sensational.) Even one of his school
teachers gets a word in. A number of
clever devices are used to maintain the story without ever needing to resort to
a narrator. These include, radio or TV
accounts, simple statements placed on screen and, in a number of telling
moments, Marley’s own voice. Add this to
some stunning shots of the Jamaican countryside that eloquently explain his
roots and the result is one of the finest documentaries of a musical figure
I’ve ever witnessed.
Although Marley is reggae’s most well known figure, I know
that I didn’t develop an appreciation of the genre due to his mighty efforts. I didn’t know enough about reggae generally
or Marley in particular when he played his only shows in Melbourne during
1979. I knew it was a big deal and,
wanting to develop an appreciation, asked the only person I knew who was into
reggae to loan me an album. This turned
out to his second live album, Babylon By Bus and I didn’t warm to it at all. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, I
suspect this was due to my then hatred of disco which I found monotonous due to
its repetitious nature. Anything at the
time which reminded me of that was automatically consigned to the same fate.
But, bit by bit, I started to develop an understanding and
it was a range of rock acts that helped me get there. At the time I listened to Babylon By Bus,
Elvis Costello had already released Watching The Detectives which I didn’t realise
was based on a reggae rhythm. In the next
couple of years came The Pretenders' Brass In Pocket which employed a subtler
rhythm and the Peter Tosh/Mick Jagger duet Don’t Look Back. (Yes, I know now that Tosh is a reggae act, but let’s face it, if Jagger wasn’t
on the record, it wouldn’t have been played on the radio here.) But it was two acts that really deserve the
credit. The obvious one was, of course,
The Police, whose first couple of albums effectively took reggae and by mashing
it with rock made it palatable enough for me to eventually investigate the real
thing. The other was The Clash, and more
specifically, their criminally undervalued opus, Sandinista! This was the record which opened my ears to
dub. I was fascinated by One More Time,
and One More Dub from that record as well as the third disc of the original
vinyl release. I could hear sounds and rhythms
that I hadn’t heard before and I suspect my curiosity constituted the first realisation
there were beats or rhythms other than the standard rock could possibly exist
that I would like to hear and like (and which wasn’t disco).
Eventually I obtained their Black Market Clash mini album too and gave
that a battering. Over the course of the
next 10-20 years, I started adding basic reggae texts into my collection; Marley’s Live! , Legend
and the Songs Of Freedom box set, The
Harder They Come soundtrack, Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Super Ape, Burning Spear’s
Marcus Garvey/Garvey’s Ghost, the multi artist Tougher Than Tough box set, the
Perry box set Arkology and compilations
by Toots And The Maytals, Third World, Aswad, etc. I appreciated these without feeling the need
to delve deeper….
Then one day I was going through a JB HiFi bargain bin in
the now closed Camberwell store on Burke Road.
I came across a sampler titled Dubwise And Otherwise issued by a British
reggae label called Blood And Fire. The music
was extraordinary; a mixture of prime 70’s roots reggae, DJ and dub. The liner notes identified the albums from
their catalogue which included such soon to be discovered gems as Keith
Hudson’s Pick A Dub and The Congos mighty Heart Of The Congos. It began to dawn on me that a Blood And Fire
album was a guarantee of quality and over the course of the next few years I
accumulated the bulk of their catalogue, including albums by giants such as
King Tubby, I-Roy and Yabby You. I even
lucked out and picked up a copy of their long deleted version of Burning
Spear’s classic Social Living.
Blood And Fire do not appear to have released anything for a
few years now. Fortunately, other reggae
reissue labels have emerged to fill the gap, notably Pressure Sounds, and the
bottomless gold mine that fuels the Trojan Records programme. Trojan has released an amazing variety of
multi artist compilations, thematic two or three disc box sets and two disc anthologies of
key artists such as Horace Andy, The Heptones, Prince Far I and many others. And Tuff Gong has released the two disc Collector’s
Editions of the key Marley albums, most of which contain live material far
superior to Babylon By Bus.
There are some great guide books such as Lloyd Bradley’s Reggae
On CD (now a little outdated but valuable in its time) and his narrative
history Bass Culture. Jon Savage described
the vital role reggae played in the punk era in the text of England’s Dreaming as
well as providing guidance in its awesome discography. These sources have enabled me to isolate yet
other classics; The Abyssinians Satta Massagana, Culture’s Two Seven’s Clash,
Ossie Hibbert’s Earthquake Dub and Augustus Pablo’s King Tubby Meets Rockers
Uptown.
Collectively, this voyage of discovery has made me realise
that there is a great deal more to reggae than Bob Marley. Although his legacy looms large, artists such
as Lee Perry, King Tubby, Jimmy Cliff, Burning Spear, Toots And The Maytals and
many others have produced music that is every bit as vital.
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