Reggae Video and Music from Jamaica

On the very first page of text, a mini-intro titled "Marley: Cultural Icon," editor Hank Bordowitz informs us that Marley is a "cultural martyr who suffered for the sins of his audience."
Ouch. That reminds me of a red-headed singer at a Ft. Worth Bob Marley Festival in 2002 who shrilly declared: "Bob Marley died for your sins!" One could grin and bear such lunacies from enthusiastic fans, but in a book whose editor and writers surely want to be taken seriously, it sets one's teeth on edge.

This Reader is divided into two main sections. The first is titled "Wake Up and Live: The Life and Times of Robert Nesta Marley." Each chapter takes a Marley song to indicate its focus. "Waiting in Vain" is an oral history of the 1962-1972 period.

Chapter Two, "Stir it Up," covers the rise to international acclaim by Marley and the Wailers from 1972-1976. This includes a lengthy excerpt from Lee Jaffe's book One Love. Most of the writing dates from the 1970. We listen in on jaded New Yorkers who know how obvious some of Marley's stage mannerisms were, and yet acknowledge that they found his charisma irresistible.

A rough jewel here is Lester Bangs' "Innocents in Babylon." Bangs, writing for his Creem Magazine (immortalized in Almost Famous), freely confesses that Marley is his least favorite Jamaica artists. That critical distance, and the lack of editorial restraint, leads to some typically Bangsian gems. Bangs felt most at home in Jamaican record shops, rather than waiting around on stars. His time in one deafening store produces this memorable line: "the guitars chop to kill."

Chapter Three is "Top Rankin': The First Great `Third World' Star, 1976-1981." This includes Vivien Goldman's colorful portrait of the Wailers in Europe. In a different register, Carol Cooper's Afrocentric feature in the Village Voice describes Marley's ambition as "to resurrect the political ethic of Garveyism."

Chapter Four, "Blackman Redemption," is about the "Second Coming" of Marley 1981-2002. One can see how quickly reportage turned to hagiography in those years.

The much shorter second section of The Bob Marley Reader is titled "Music Gonna Teach Them a Lesson: The Meaning of Bob Marley." An essay by the late Jamaican Prime Minister, Michael Manley, on "Reggae and the Revolutionary Faith," is worth a read. It's worth repeating that, in contrast to, say, R&B or soca, "THE GREATER PART OF BOB MARLEY IS THE LANGUAGE OF REVOLUTION."

There's a famous anecdote, which Ree Negwenya relates in her account of Marley's visit to Zimbabwe, of the I-Threes fleeing to their hotel after getting hit by tear gas. Bob was coming off stage when Rita, Judy Mowatt, and Marcia Griffiths returned. Half-smiling, he said: ""Hah! Now I know who the real revolutionaries are."

I hope the next Marley Reader grapples with some troubling questions Marley's life raises, such as: is the "revolutionary impulse" best enacted abroad, or at home, and what is "the woman's place" in such movements? And, can we or should we aspire to outgrow the messianic mindset? Idolatry was both Bob Marley's strength (his faith in his "perfect father"), but also a form of mental slavery in both the man and his admirers.

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