Bob Marley was a special person, and I continue to be sad about his passing to this day. In The Wall Street Journal, Mario Calvo-Platero remembers Marley, who would have been 80 next week. He writes:
There’s a cruelty in marking the birthdays of iconic figures who died too young. Bob Marley would have been 80 next week, on Feb. 6. For me the strange thought of a geriatric Marley conjures up a meeting with him decades ago, when all of his idealistic intensity briefly took me as a target before we managed to find common ground, improbably, on the soccer pitch.
In March 1980, I was living in New York and writing about music for the Italian daily Stampa Sera. I had hopped a plane to Negril, Jamaica, which was then the coolest Caribbean destination, and found myself listening to Marley’s latest release, “Survival,” at Rick’s Cafe, a hangout for aged hippies, intellectuals, artists and adventurers. “Survival,” released in the fall of 1979, marked Marley’s return to a strong pan-African message and dominated the playlist at Rick’s.
I somehow got a number for Marley’s home in Kingston and called to request an interview. Two days later, against all odds, I found a message waiting for me at Rick’s (the only landline for miles): I was expected in Kingston the following day. I was both excited and frantic. My friend Debora, a photographer, agreed to join me, and we found a rough Venezuelan character named Tommy (who I suspect was involved in the drug trade) to drive us. The 135-mile journey took four and half hours, with Tommy driving like a madman through the jungle and small parishes, a hair’s breadth from the trucks that hogged the road.
As a young man of 26, I was dreaming of an idyllic encounter, chatting with Marley about Mento and Ska and Rocksteady, the precursors of Reggae. I wanted to hear about the Wailers and the Rastas and the attack on Dec. 3, 1976, when, two days before his Smile Jamaica Concert, conceived to unify a divided island, seven armed men raided his home, shooting wildly. Marley was hit in the chest and arm, his wife, Rita, in the head; others were wounded. They all survived. A miracle.
The attack had shocked the world, and Marley became a global hero for unity and peace. Except that when we finally met, he was neither peaceful nor friendly. Aggressive and visibly angry, he said: “You Italians are terrible people. You attacked the Negus. You killed to conquer.” The Negus? He meant Haile Selassie, the former emperor of Ethiopia, the central deity for Rastafarian believers like Marley. His fury went on: “You are Catholics. The Vatican, the Pope are accomplices. They reject the Negus’s divine nature.” At his side, two of his men were nodding at his every word.
So there I was, in the same studio where Marley had recorded hits like “No Woman, No Cry,” “Get Up, Stand Up,” and “Redemption Song,” and he was yelling at me, with his tumble of dreadlocks, open shirt and a small golden chain around his neck. I was totally unprepared for this. I saw no way out.
Trying to appease his anger, I pointed to an African connection: I was born in Tripoli, Libya. A mistake: “Another Italian African conquest! Are you the son of colonists? Are you a fascist?” Now sweating, I resorted to my Jewish origins, explaining that no, I was not a fascist. He paused for a moment. Then, changing tone as if talking to himself, said: “The Jews are survivors. The Negus had a good relationship with them. He descended directly from King Solomon.”
Read more here.
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