Bob Marley: The Untold Story. Chris Salewicz

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ essence of the message and philosophy of Rastafari: ‘Let’s join together and feel alright.’ Later in the year, the group recorded ‘Put It On’, another anthem to self-determination. According to the Jamaican music critic Garth White, ‘Put It On’ was a pivotal recording: ‘The religious, the romantic, and the sexual are all one – and yet nothing is overstated, one of the keys to Marley’s music.’ On 10 February 1966, ‘Put It On’ was played non-stop for over half an hour at the wedding of Bob Marley and Rita Anderson.

      Alvarita Constantia Anderson had lived for most of her life at 18a Greenwich Park Road, off Lyndhurst Road in Trench Town. She was born in Cuba on 25 July 1946 to a Jamaican father and a Cuban mother, but whilst she was still a babe-in-arms her parents moved to Kingston. After her musician father and then her mother moved to England, she remained in the Jamaican capital with her aunt Viola and an uncle. She became a Sunday-school teacher in the Presbyterian church, but three evenings a week she also went to the more fundamentalist Church of God. Singing and getting the spirit like this was more than enjoyable to her. ‘I thought it was amazing. The first time I went there I watched and thought, “This is sanctifying, this is holy.” It came over me and I realised it was something for real that can take you away.’

      Sometimes when she was out and about, she would see some of the local Rastafarians and feel very wary. She had been taught to be scared of them. But something about these wild men touched her heart. ‘I would also feel sympathy for them. I’d think, “Oh poor people. I don’t believe they are as bad as they say.” Because you’d see them and they’d say, “One Love”, and you would wonder how people saying that could deal with hate. Even though I was living in Trench Town, I was exposed to certain things above the normal living: I felt that these people were innocent, because of their innocency.’

      Rita, to which her full name of Alvarita inevitably became abbreviated, had had a good high-school education. She had been training to be a nurse until a teenage love affair led to the birth of her daughter Sharon on 23 November 1964 – the child’s father, Rita’s boyfriend, had been sent to live in England by his parents to save all concerned from the shame of this illegitimate birth. ‘Auntie’, as Viola was largely known, contributed a great deal to the child’s care. Rita, meanwhile, was wondering whether she should become a teacher. And then she met Bob Marley.

      Rita already knew of Bob as part of the Wailers. To her, when she heard them on the radio, their sound was definitively modern. And, for some reason, it seemed to have a profound effect on her. Then she realised why: ‘It sound like angels … So I say to myself, I shall be meeting these people one day.’

      Studio One was north of Trench Town. Bob, Peter, and Bunny would pass through the Ghost Town area, along Greenwich Park Road where Rita lived, opposite Dovecot cemetery, on their journey to Coxsone’s recording yard. Standing at the gate, observing the world, Rita would see the trio, aware that it was these guys who were mashing up the charts with their hit tunes.

      But Rita was not so impressed: to this strict ‘churchical gal’, they looked like ‘rough little guys’. As an ambitious girl, getting away from Trench Town was Rita’s principal concern; and she had a musical group of her own, the Soulettes, which she had formed with her friend Marlene ‘Precious’ Gifford, a fellow pupil at Dunrobin school, and her male cousin Constantine ‘Dream’ Walker (the son of Vesta Anderson, a sister of aunt Viola and a militantly political follower of Marcus Garvey). Dream would often also be at the gates of 18a Greenwich Park Road when the Wailers were walking past. ‘It was always an event to watch them, because it was like a gang going up the road,’ he said. ‘Like pied pipers, because they would walk, and Peter would have his guitar in his hand, and kids and people start to follow them, because of the vibes the men moved with.’ (‘Dream’ Walker, who developed a fine tenor voice and was a gifted guitarist, was born on 19 October 1951 – the same day, though not the same year, as Peter Tosh. He had acquired his sobriquet when the doctor informed his mother that she was pregnant. ‘Oh, doctor, that’s a dream,’ she had said, not believing she, a woman in her thirties, could be expecting a child; in what could be seen as something of a proprietorial gesture, as is much of the propensity for bestowing nicknames in Jamaica, a friend of the Wailers called Fowlie renamed him ‘Vision’, a term common for dreaming amongst the thinking youth – especially followers of Rastafari – in Jamaica.)

      The Soulettes, a name inspired by Motown’s Marvelettes, copied hit tunes off the radio, often Motown material by the early Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, or Mary Wells, singing most evenings under the plum tree in Rita’s auntie’s yard. Like so many Jamaican acts of the time they had first displayed their talents on Vere Johns’s amateur-hour radio programme, on which they had performed ‘What’s Your Name?’, an American R’n’B classic by Don and Juan. ‘When we harmonied that,’ said Dream/Vision Walker, ‘it used to just knock people out, that sound just like the record.’

      Although she initially had been unimpressed with the cut of the Wailers’ collective jib, Rita decided that she should connect with these local stars – they clearly knew the runnings as to how to get records made. Waving to the three young men as they passed her house one evening, she received a response. As the other two members leaned on the cemetery wall, strumming guitars, Peter Tosh came over and introduced himself, addressing Rita as ‘nice girl’.

      Determined to grab this opportunity, the Soulettes decided to make the Wailers aware that they also were a vocal group. Rita resolved that she, Dream and Marlene should try and sing for them, a blatant effort to move the Soulettes on a stage. When the three young men passed 18a Greenwich Park Road the next day, they were serenaded by the three Soulette members performing ‘What’s Your Name?’ from behind the fence of the yard – since her pregnancy Rita had been forbidden to venture beyond it to speak to men. But Peter and then ‘Robbie’, as she came to know him, stepped across the street to speak to her. It was Peter, however, who suggested that one day Rita and her two companions might want to come up to audition at Coxsone’s studio.

      Although this was precisely what she had been seeking, Rita was aware of the wiles of local men – especially those who considered themselves to be musicians – and took the offer with a pinch of salt. But she had an older male friend called Andy who was also close to Clement Dodd. When, not long after, he took Rita up to the studio on Brentford Road, all three of the main Wailers were there. But they adopted a distinctly distant air until Rita reminded Peter that she was the girl who they would see standing on Greenwich Park Road. The Soulettes’ audition impressed Coxsone; moreover, the mixed-sex group was passed on to Bob for management and to find material for them.

      If anything, Rita now realised, it was shyness that had been behind the offhand manner exhibited by the Wailers, and especially by Bob, towards her: their hit records had not gone to their heads, as she had initially suspected. Now she saw that staying on top of current music and being consistent, with hits one after another, was not easy. Especially when she discovered that though the Wailers were immensely popular, they were making virtually no money.

      Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

      Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

      Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

      Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, СКАЧАТЬ