One Song - Bob Marley's "Jamming'"

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

Bob Marley’s music is everywhere. And, in a sense, so is Bob Marley: He was the subject of a recent biopic, there are murals painted of him around the world, and his poster is still common in college dorm rooms. But has that ubiquity taken away from his music? On this episode of One Song, you’ll hear Bob Marley’s Jamming like never before. LUXXURY has the stems, the interpolations, and the contrafacts; and Diallo Riddle has the Bob backstory and some hot takes on music biopics.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Luxury, my man, what's up? Diallo, man, I'm having such... Nobody cares, listen. Welcome to One Song. You do not want to hear about my day? Okay, that's fine. I understand. This podcast is not called One Day.

It's called One Song, which is here to talk about a song, not my day. It's not called a Day in the Life, man. Fair enough. Dude, the artist we're talking about today is quite literally everywhere. That's right, Tialho. Lately we have seen this artist portrayed on the silver screen here in Hollywood. Murals of him are painted all over the world. His poster is a favorite in college dorm rooms.

At least when we were in college dorm rooms. To be clear, we haven't been in any college dorm rooms in a long time. I have not recently been in a college dorm room. Probably safe to assume that he continues to be an icon for stoners everywhere. And it's hard to verify his exact album sales, but he's estimated to have sold over 75 million records worldwide. He's one of the most popular musicians of all time, and his music is so universally loved and celebrated,

it can at times seem a little bit too ubiquitous. That's right, luxury. Today's artist is so widely played that I sometimes wonder if we've really stopped hearing his music. Actually hearing it. It's a good point. Yeah. But all that changes today on this podcast,

because you're going to hear Bob Marley and his masterpiece jamming like never before. I was wondering how you were going to say that word, jamming, because it sounds a little funny with the G at the end. There's actually a G at the end. But he doesn't sing it that way. Jammin. I'm showing my respect by not using a fake patois. I'm not doing fake patwa.

I'm going right down the middle, jamming. We can do jamming. Songs jamming today. Let's do jamming today. On one song, we'll be jamming. This is one song. I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And I'm producer, DJ, and songwriter luxury, also known as the guy who talks about

interpolation. You know, shout out to all the people who have tried to give me a catchphrase. Yeah. A lot of people say I say shout out a lot. Do you have a top three? I think right now my favorite is somebody suggested it could be infuriating. Which is good. That's sound like.

A lot. Oh, I thought that was a slam on me. But no, but like it kind of works on many levels. So maybe every time you say interpolation, I'll say infuriating. When I use the sampler. Interpol. Interpol. Yeah, those watching on YouTube can see me visually die a little bit inside.

Visually infuriated. But we'll keep workshopping that. Okay, so luxury, I want to start here. It's our thesis statement about Bob Marley's music and this idea that Marley is so iconic. And it almost distances you from an arm. artist that you think you know, but some of us have just not investigated as much as others. I think it goes back to this. You said it in the opening. In my mind, I always think about being a student at Harvard and going into every dude's dorm room and they've got the legends

poster up. And, you know, and by the way, I'll say, they're smoking weed, right? Disclaimer right at the top. I have tried to do weed. It's just not every chemical's for me. It's not for me either. I don't respond to it. I don't either. I fall right. asleep. I was never a weak guy. But there's an artist there, and there's a reason why his music is globally powerful and globally popular, and I

think we just really need to listen to his music differently as if for the first time. I think that's right. Bob Marley is iconic. He is a global cultural ambassador for Jamaica for the idea of revolution and resistance and politics in music. He almost perfected that. It existed before him, but his entire body of work is a new version, a new level of bringing politics and love and rostafarianism and all of this together in this one

body of work and his ove he's very important artists we love him he for all the reasons you just said sometimes can be two people representing an idea very different from what the actual artist is who the actual artist is well can i have throw out one more thing we've said on the show before like i really liked the cure as a kid and because i was in an all black school i didn't know there was a whole, like, clothing style and a, like, an attitude that you had to adopt to be a fan of the character. You didn't know about goth? I didn't know, really. I mean, I saw a couple of movies in the 80s. You're abstracted from goth. What even is that? I saw a couple of movies in the 80s and I was like, oh, that looks a little extreme, but like, I didn't let, because I wasn't

around it, I didn't let the fandom of the artist sort of get in the way of my appreciation of the music. And I think similarly, you know, I also have, and you're going to hear a lot about him in this episode. I don't listen to the podcast. Shout out to my brother. He was a huge, He was a Rastafarian for over a decade and with dreadlocks on the whole thing. And he had such a love of Robert Nesta Marley that there was no way for me to get into it without sort of feeling like, I'm just listening to Tony's music. You know what I mean? So I say all that just to say that that was sort of my barrier to the music. But now we're going to hear the music.

We're going to talk about Bob Marley. We're going to talk about how specific and individual he was as an artist, like literally. even in the genre of reggae to a lot of people, I think what we're referring to is this phenomenon for a lot of people who aren't big reggae fans, reggae may to them mean Bob Marley, but reggae and Bob Marley are not one in the same. There's a big difference.

He is a very specific slice. And he's a major figure. Major figure. Major major figure. We'll talk about several of the major figures in his life, but there's a reason why he broke through to these white audiences in the frat room, door and wall posters,

because that was by design. It's not an accident that Bob Marley, appeals to so many white people in America because that was a marketing plan that succeeded. We're going to talk about that today. Oh, yeah, I can't wait to talk about that because the band themselves were stressed out about that. They would do these sold out shows in America and they'd look out there and they'd be like, where are the black people? It caused the implosion of the first, one of the first versions of the band ended because of

that change. Totally. I would have made one note, though, two people like my brother. Hey, look, we have lots of facts for you as well. We always come into this episode with, we hope, sort of like information for people who don't know the artist that well, but also plenty of fun, uh, wonderful facts that we hope that you have not heard before. We did our research for this. This one consumed so much time. Uh, we knew the movie was going to come out. We're going to talk about the movie a little bit, uh, towards the end of the show. But luxury, before we get into the stems, I want you to give the one song nation the Bob Marley backstory. Let's talk a little bit about,

as you said, Robert Nesta Marley. Um, by the way, first thing, exactly, building on what you just said, this little disclaimer at the top, this is the ultimate episode where, because it's such an oral history where different accounts are all... Different people have different stories. Different people have different stories that change over time. And I have, we've both seen the documentaries. I've read a number of books. There's one in particular by Rogers Stephens. I'd recommend called So Much Things to say. But that 2012 documentary was great too. The bottom line is many stories are told from many angles and many facts are disputed. And we're going to get into some of the disputes later on because they extend to the music itself. and there's a lot of people who are crediting themselves

with having written certain songs, and there's not a lot of agreement about it. You sell 75 million records. There are going to be some lawsuits. Where there's a hit, there's a writ, as they say. Luxury, before we get into the music, I want to give the one song nation, just an idea of Bob Marley's childhood.

He's born February 6, 1945, in the small, just a rural place, nine-mile, St. Anne, Jamaica. It's on a hill, like, he's literally rural on the hillside. First thing I thought I was like, Oh, Eminem 8 Mile, Bob Marley, 9 Mile. If you're going to give Bert 2 a famous musician, a legend, try and find a street with the word mile in the name, apparently.

They said he grew up among the Piniwollies, which I think is like the most beautiful term I've ever heard for fireflies. I'd never heard that way before. They grew up among the Piniwales. There goes a fake patois. I'm not going to do that whole episode, I swear to God. And they called him a red picnic. And I didn't know what that meant.

The American equivalent would be Redbone. In other ways, he was light. skin. This is because his father was Captain Norville Marley, a 60-year-old British man who worked in Jamaica and met Marley's mom, black woman. You can't call her a black woman. She was 16 at the time. He was in his 60s. She was 16. They only knew each other briefly. But because of his parentage, he was what they would call half-cast. And to a certain extent, that made him an outcome. His uncles gave him more work to do with the horses just because, you know, to a certain extent, they weren't sure how to claim him. And so in this just very rural setting,

you know, Bob has his first exposure to music. They said that from the time he was a child, he would sing, you know, some of his favorite songs for people. And, you know, they would beat on boxes, the Rumba Box and the banjo. Marley's playing all this stuff in Jamaica. And then at some point his mom moves from, you know, the mountains and this rural part, she moves to Trench Town.

And this is a very formative time in Marley's life because, you know, there are more people here. And he talks about, you know, there were the bad guys, so to speak, you know, the gangsters for the lack of the winter. And, but he's soaking all this in. And people liked Barley. And they said that, you know, he was a person who had a lot of charm, you know, right from the beginning, right in the early days of his childhood. Yeah, that's great. I mean, like the story of, Bob Marley is the story of an outcast, and it really, knowing his backstory really helps you understand

his music. He didn't feel like he fit in with the white people or the black people. He didn't fit in with his own family. He was very much an outcast and a rebel not by his own making. And he obviously channeled all that into his music. That's where he put everything, all of his emotion. I also got the impression that it was through his music

that he was able to really connect with people. And it was through music that he was able to find his home in the black Jamaican community. Perfectly put, because we're going to talk also on this episode. There's a number of unsung, I would say, or differently sung. There's a cast of hundreds that made Bob Marley's music popular. A handful of these people, though very much seem like father figures when you read about them. So we're going to talk about

Cox and Dodd. We're going to talk about Joe Higgs, Lee Scratch Perry. We're also going to talk about kind of an overly sung figure, in my opinion, which would be Chris Blackwell. Very controversial. Obviously made him a global superstar, the head of Island Records. But at the same time, you know, possibly took a little more credit than deserved. We'll talk about all these guys on this episode today. So I'm going to set the stage. It's Jamaica, it's 1962. This is when Jamaica gets independence from England. By the way, independence, but colonialism is still kind of the order of the day. Like, racism doesn't end in Jamaica in 1962, just because of independence. But it is the beginning, though, of Ska. We've talked on another episode. Go to our sister Nancy episode. It's sort of

a sister episode to this one. We get into more depth about the origins of Ska into rock steady into reggae. But it's important to mention this because the earliest music, that Bob Marley is making is actually ska music. And I'm going to tell you... And 1962. Starting in 62. So one character I mentioned earlier, an unsung hero in this story is Joe Higgs. He's known as the godfather of reggae by many.

He himself was an early recording artist in the late 50s. He actually had a song in 1958 I'll play it for you called Mani O. This is one of the first records ever pressed in Jamaica. So Joe Higgs, who we just heard, is the gentleman who teaches Marley to sing. and at this point Mr. Marley has met By the way, he's being called Robbie at this point. He hasn't changed his name to Bob. So Robbie meets another young teenager,

their teenagers, named Neville O'Reilly Livingston, who soon changes his name to Bunny. And Robbie and Bunny are taught to sing by Joe Higgs, and they meet a third gentleman, I keep saying gentlemen, these are all young teenagers. They're kids. And his name is Peter McIntosh, but is soon known as Peter Tosh.

The three of them formed the Whalers. And this is the... They were trying to figure out with their version of The Impressions. Right. That's totally right. They got the suits on and everything. The jackets.

The people of Trenchtown, the poor, they were wailing. And so they become the whalers. The whalers, that's right. I want to play a snippet by The Impressions, a song called Man O Man, because I like to think that both Bob Marley and Young Jeasy like this song. And for those who probably already guessed, that was sampled in the Young Jeezie. Gizi's song. Feetree JZ,

go crazy. Yeah, oh boy, this is the official hustle is anthra. You're getting money? Throw it in the air. Yeah,

I love sampling. I love sampling. Yeah, I love sampling. The best sampling is always goes really hard. So, and by the way, Young Jeezy's talking

about some, you know, street stuff in Atlanta. Meanwhile, we're in Trench town. Street stuff's going down there too. They're listening to the impressions. which is the music that Bob Marley and Peter Tash and Bunny Whaler are working on themselves. And I just got to play this before we leave the year in 1962. This is a snippet of the very first song to feature Bob Marley's vocals.

This is a song called Judge Not and listen to a little bit of the lyrics because what's crazy is even though this did not, you know, failed to achieve a huge amount of success for the group, it does portend. Did I use the word portend right? it does predict what Bob Marley will be singing about later in his career because you'll hear a sort of political message in it. This is Judge Not. Who are you to judge me in the life I live? Bob is 16 here.

He's already feeling the scrutiny of the judgment. He's already looking at society and trying to find the hypocrites. Society's looking at him and he's getting harassed by the police as he talks about and like, yeah, he's feeling it and comes out in his, he's 16 when he writes the song. It's crazy. lyrics. By the way, someone tried to convince him at one point to change his name to Adam Marley.

And he was like, no, I'm Bob. I'm Bob. Well, let's move on to 1963. At this point, Coxendod enters the picture. Coxendod is the legendary founder of Studio One, the first really important label in Jamaican music.

So important to the sound system, so important to the eventual development of the DJ as we think of it today. Like, you know, Coxandad, he's such a legend. He's such a legend. He signs the band, the whaler. and their first single is called Simmer Down. Now, this is a song that when you hear it, you're hearing just the vocals of the band.

It's the three boys, Peter, Bob, and Bunny, along with three other members of the band, six total singers. The music is coming from the Scadalights, who are the Studio One House band, basically. And this is Simmer Down from 1963. I love the story. So joyful.

Oh, listen. I love the story that when this song comes out, It's so popular in the dance halls that like... They keep replaying it over and over again. They just play it over and over. Like other songs can't even get in the mix. Yeah, yeah. You know, that is a, you know...

That song goes to number one in 1964. It's their first single with Studio One. Yeah. And it starts along, actually, five, six year period where they're making records for Studio One, but they're really not going anywhere because the records are huge in the dance hall. They're huge in the dance.

They love them at the sound system, but they're not being played on the radio. Nobody's playing them on the radio. And this is at a time when, like, you know, there's some straight thuggery like literally those guys would show up at your radio station and you know basically say

you have to play this like right now or bad things will happen it's worth mentioning the sort of gangster element both of the record industry and politics which is starting to simmer simmer, simmer down it'll get worse as the story progresses and it is related to the story

the long story short about this era and by the way they're still called the Whalers it's not Bob Marley and the Whalers the Whalers stay with Cox and Dodd in Studio One and they are making according to Bunny Whaler like whopping three pounds a week. They're very frustrated. They're not able to tour.

They don't have any money. At a certain point, they get tired and they leave Studio One. And they go to work with our second undersung or unsung hero. And one of my favorite, if not my favorite, producer of all time, Lee Scratch Perry in 1969, enters the picture. Very important figure in Bob's life as a person. Person you've probably heard about. Even if you're not into reggae, you've probably heard of Lee Scratch Perry. He probably heard of Lee Scratch Perry.

He had a very long career. he just passed away a couple years ago and made probably a hundred, maybe 200 records, very prolific producer. He's an artist himself. You can hear him singing a lot of his artists. I want to say something about the Jamaican scene in general

because you've made me think about this. On this show, we're big fans of, there are very few people walking around saying like, oh, sampling isn't art and, oh, hip-hop, that's something you don't hear very much anymore. But you've got to put it in its context. Like, Jamaica at this time is cranking out their own versions of all these American hits.

Right. Maybe a couple of Britishes, but like so many. And in a weird way, like, that's sampling. You know, in a weird way, that's like a do-over. And it made me think that there's so much to be gained from rampant copyright abuse. Like, if they weren't, no, seriously. Like, if they weren't covering these songs and doing their own versions of these songs, you know, they might have eventually crossed over to the United States and just done what was

happening over there. But because they sort of lived in this weird, sort of like bubble, it led to, it's sad to say, it seems like copyright abuse leads to some of the best stuff because early hip-hop artists didn't know that Sampley would one day be known as art. They just were like, we want to move the dance hall. We want to move this crowd. And you're absolutely right. And it needs to be pointed out that there was literally no such thing as copyright law in Jamaica until the early 1990s. Oh, wow. At the same time, there was something known as we know we're being pirity. There was an awareness at times. And we're going to talk

a little bit later about some of the songwriting conflicts, as was alluded to. And they do exist for Bob Marley songs in a big way. But you're absolutely right. And I think about this a lot, too, how Jamaica is kind of like a perfect little experiment. What happened if we threw copyright out the window for 20, 30 years, and see what happens creatively. Wonderful things happen musically and creatively. Not such wonderful things necessarily on the finances side. The rich get richer. And these musicians, so many of them sort of die destitute. Yeah, the whalers were making a couple of pounds a week. Three pounds a week, according to money.

making money at studio one. Was there somebody like being absolutely rich? Cox and Dodd. Coxon. If you owned a studio, then you made money. If you owned a sound system. Duke Reed, Cox and Dot, all these guys. Chris Blackwell, who's about to enter the picture, it's the record labels and the studio owners who are often one and the same.

So getting back to Lee Scratch Perry for a moment, I want to talk about how Lee Scratch Perry again in 1969 is already an artist. He also has a number five record in the UK. And his band is called The Upsetters. And it's kind of, we were just talking about Motown. It's kind of like the Funk Brothers where there are a bunch of, of artists who come and go from the operation. So the Upsetters aren't just the same drummer, bass player, keyboard player, et cetera.

They rotate. And he's unable to get a band to tour with him. So he finds a couple of brothers, the Barrett brothers, who are two more unsung heroes of the story of Bob Marley. I was just learning about them, but, man, Carlton Family Man. That's right. Aston Family Man, Barrett is the bass player and Carlton is the drummer. And the two of them are in a band called the Hippie Boys.

and when they learn that the upsetters need a new rhythm section, they join up. So Lee Scratch Perry has the upsetters with the Bear Brothers in it. And this is when Bob Marley enters the picture, and he's just left Coxon Dodd. Not only does he need a new producer, he needs a new band. So this next chapter... If I'm wrong, Lee Scratch had also worked with Coxon and was also tired of some of Cox's business practices. He strikes out on his own. They felt like they had been through that ringer together.

and so now they're joining outside of that circle. That's absolutely right, Yale. They're bonded in their disdain, or in their frustration, I suppose, and striking it on their own from the confines of Studio One and Cox and Dodd. So they make a couple of records together, and it's my contention that these are probably two of my favorite Bob Marley records. They are two of the lesser-known records in the catalog, because they are hard to find.

They're actually not on Spotify. Their ownership is caught up in lots of copyright stuff, because this is before Island Records comes in the picture. You can find the record called Soul Rebels. You can find the record called, confusingly, Soul Revolution Part 2. There is no part one. But these are the two records that Bob Marley and the Whalers made with Lee Scratch Perry on the...

Pre-Illand Records. Pre-Ireland Records, he's the producer and co-writer on a lot of the songs, and this is the beginnings of the Barrett brothers on bass and drums who stay with him his entire life, his entire career. So I'd highly recommend you go out and check them out. They're much grittier. If you're a Lee Scratch Perry fan already, you'll find that they're very much in line with his catalogs,

like minimal stripped-down approach. I love the video footage of him, Lee, in the studio, because, like, you just get this, he's having the greatest time. Like, he's bouncing around. They said he was like... I know exactly the footage you're talking about. As a lifelong fan of the band,

there are only, like, two, like, clips of him, unfortunately, that seem to have survived from that era, from the early 70s. It's like me, like at Harvard. I swear, they're, like, two pictures. be happy kids that you can document every facet of your life because I'm always trying to find pictures of me at Harvard I swear I went you guys I totally went to Harvard I believe you I am going to need to see a diploma though I don't have it so one more important thing to point out about Lee Scratch Perry's connection to Bob Marley now Bob Marley lived with Lee Scratch Perry for a while who sort of treated him like a son and we talked earlier about the whole father wasn't around thing marley's mom moved to the states Marley's mom moved to Delaware I know Bob joined him for a while I could move anywhere in the United States I'm going to Wilmington, Delaware. Bob came out to try to join her for a while.

He's like, I'm not having this. I'm going to go back to Jamaica where there's sunshine and I don't have to work at the factory floor. I found a quote from, so David Katz is the name of a writer, a reggae specialist and writer. He's written a couple of books. One I highly recommend called Solid Foundation in Oral History of Reggae, but he's also known as Lee Scratch Perry's biographer. There's a book called People Funny Boy. It's 400 pages long and I read the whole thing.

He has this great quote, which is very important about what's happening right now in 1969, 1970, with both Lee Scratch Perry, Bob Marley, and reggae as a whole.

So he says Lee Scratch Perry changed the reggae beat, and he used the whalers as the vehicle for that.

And here's the quote from Lee Scratch Perry himself, which I will not do the patois, but picture

patois. When the people hear what I manna do, them hear a different beat, a slower beat, a waxy beat,

like you're stepping in glue, them hear a different bass, a rebel base, coming at you like sticking a gun.

This is Small Axe by Bob Marley and the Whalers with Lee Scratch Perry. So this is a moment where we went from Ska in 62 to rock steady in 6668, which is a little slower than Ska, but it's not quite reggae. And in this moment, Lee Scratch Perry with Bob Marley and the Whalers is helping to craft what becomes known as reggae proper or Roots Reggae. And this is what carries us through the 70s. and it's all happening right here in this moment. And one more thing that Perry does, which influences Bob Marley, is his voice. This is a quote from Clancy Eccles, another famous Jamaican singer-producer who said, Bob Marley never used to sing like how he sings now.

He used to sing a different way, but Perry used to sing that way. Perry is how Bob Marley sounds now. And it's true. If you go back and listen to some early Lee Scratch Perry, you'll absolutely hear the connection between how the two of them sing. So they make these two records with Lee Scratch Perry. Perry, and then there's a falling out over, guess what, money, as always. Bunny in particular is really fighting for getting paid fairly. Bob has sort of got a different mission in life, and this is,

carries through his entire life and career, where he has a message to deliver. Yes. And he ends up making money, but it's never the primary thing. Bunny just wants to eat, poor guy. So there's a big fight. They have a dispute at the, I've read this story several times from all of the different party's angles. And apparently, Bunny threatens to punch Lee Scratch Perry. They're at a restaurant. They run out, they're running down the street,

screaming at each other, wailing at each other, no pun intended. There's a second meeting where they try to make things right. But then Peter Tosh thinks that there's like a bottle of acid that Lee Scratch Perry has brought, and then he knocks it to the ground and apparently starts smoking. So it confirms that it was acid? Well, these are all different accounts of this interaction. I don't know what really happened, but there was a very accurate.

harmonious and possibly dangerous split that takes place. Who brings acid to a business meeting? I guess in Jamaica. Maybe Lee Scratch Perry. If you know about Lee Scratch Perry, it's not that shocking. He may have actually done that. So that's the end of working together with Lee Scratch Perry. And it's right around this moment that Chris Blockwell enters the picture.

Yep. Chris Blackwell is a wealthy white gentleman who's from Jamaica. His mother is apparently Ian Fleming, you know, James Bond author's muse. So he grows up and he's got like some bit part in Dr. No, I think, which is filmed in Jamaica in 1962. Chris does? Chris does, yeah. I think he's like a child in that movie. Check it out.

So Chris Blackwell signed Jimmy Cliff, by the way, which was his first effort. This is really interesting parallel. He tried to make Jimmy Cliff another Jamaican star into a global superstar by sending him to Mussel Scholes in Alabama to kind of inflect some American rock into Jamaican reggae. didn't quite work for a lot of reasons. There is a great movie that comes out of this connection, which is the harder they come. The harder they come.

Not just a great-traged-making movie, but a great movie-movie. So in 1973, Bob Marley and Peter and Bunny go to England, and they end up taking a meeting with Chris Blackwell, who signs them. So the way they get connected to Chris Blackwell is that apparently Bunny Whaler tells the story, again with the money.

He believed he was owed money because he was aware of Island Records and Chris Blackwell, the owner and founder, only because he understood Lee Scratch Perry had been selling their records in England, and somehow that was connected to Island Records, and somehow he'd never seen a dime out of it. So he's like, let's go meet this Chris Blackwell character and shake him down. Hopefully he's not bringing any acid to the meeting, but like all these record labels, you know, Bunny's already starting to get a little beaten down and frustrated.

This is three times in a row he's hearing about somebody else taking his money out of his mouth, between Cox and Dodd and Lee Scratch Perry and now maybe Chris Blackwell. So they go to this meeting. They actually end up signing. This is the beginning of this next era of what we kind of, maybe the beginning of what most people know Bob Marley and the Whalers to be musically. Because Chris Blackwell starts to change their sound. He adds what he tried with Jimmy Cliff before.

He's adding American musicians. He's adding cleaner production 24 track. The difference in sound before and after Island is like two different bands. It really is. It really is. And when I think about Bob Marley's music, I do think about that sonically. separated, super clean, low bass. Like, you know, it's not, it's not the, you know, sort of

scratchy, no pun intended, Jamaican ska sound. Like, no, it's that, it's that stuff that sounded great. That's right. I'll play a perfect example. This is one of my favorite songs, the original, I should say, I prefer to the re-record. There's a song he did with Lee Scratch Perry called Kaya. This is Bob Marley, Kaya, the original version with Lee Scratch Perry in 1970. And here's that same song again as it was re-recorded. for Island Records in 1978 for the album of the same name. This is Kaya, the much different, same song, extraordinarily different production. I mean, what's interesting there, there are a couple of things.

Obviously, it's mastered very differently. Yeah, it's recorded and mixed on a 24 track. Yeah. And you have a lot of separation. There's multiple takes were probably made. I would imagine knowing Ali Scratch Perry how quickly he produced records, they were probably like, boom, maybe one to two. takes it the most and then we're done and move on the next track.

So by 1973, they're on island records. They release Catch a Fire. Amazing record, but their market is a Black Rock Act. That's basically what Chris Blackwell thought would be the best way to sell them overseas. And they go to England and, you know, they're a little underwhelmed by the audience's reaction. They're playing the club circuit. They're playing these tiny little underground clubs. They're playing these tiny little clubs.

It's important to note that, you know, by the audience. for all his, you know, Afrocentric views, he still wants the music to go out and go wide and spread. Bunny and Peter are a little bit more militant than that, quite a lot, just for lack of a better term. They're just like, I don't know if I get this. And right before the U.S. tour, Bunny Whaler leaves the group. And because he hears like, you know,

some of the places they're going to be playing, he's like, oh, he uses the term freak show. He's like, I don't want to play these freak clubs. you know, he's like, I'm a religious man. Like, I don't do that kind of stuff. I mean, like, you could even make the case that, like, a lot of the things that the hippies were into, like, you know, Bunny Whaler was not with him.

So he leaves the group. And then they do the tour, and for most of the tour, Peter is unhappy. And so as soon as the tour is over, Peter leaves the group. Yeah, he just wants to be home in sunny Jamaica. He's tired of these wintery, you know, the British winters and such. Oh, yeah, no, they hated the British winter.

So, Bunny and Peter, two very important members of the whalers are now gone. And what does Bob do? Well, Bob builds a new group. He builds a whole new band. He recruits very importantly, the I-3s, which is the name of the backup group. And they are a number of themselves an important part of the story.

This is Marsha Griffiths, Judy Moat, and Rita Marley herself are in the band, which means that Bob is touring the world with Rita. Yeah. He replaces, the Barrett brothers are still there. He replaces the other members. We'll name them when we get to the stems in just a moment. But this is the beginning of their rise to global

fame. From 74 to 77, they go from these dinky clubs where Peter and Bunny are not having it, and they quit, to rising to the top of playing 50,000-seat stadiums. Ironically, it's after Buddy and Peter leave that they start playing the venue that they would have probably enjoyed playing. This is the global stardom that Chris Blackwell and Bob Marley together had strategized. It worked. The crossing over, they reached a white audience. They reached a global white audience. They're still not reaching a huge black audience. That's part of the story. We'll get to in a little bit. But this brings us into the song story. So if we're ready to jump into jamming, now is a good time as any.

Let's do it. After the break, Bob Marley is jamming like you've never heard it before. Welcome back to one song. We're about to play the stems for jamming. But first, luxury, this song was written and recorded under tumultuous circumstances for Bob Marley and for Jamaica. Let me walk us through that really quickly. So, in short, Jamaica had two political parties. One was called the Jamaican Labor Party.

They were the conservative party under Edward Seaga. And there was Michael Manley who had the more leftist people's nationalist party. I know that throws people off because like labor seems like that would be the left. That was the opposite. JLP versus PMP. And they basically had gangs. I mean, like they had these, you know, organized groups of people with guns, you know, shooting at each other in the streets, lots of political violence in Jamaica.

And Bob sees all this. and so he organizes the smile concert, 1976, you know, to help bring, you know, people together. Now, unbeknownst to him, and Bob Marley, look, you know, I think we can figure out a little bit of what his politics were, but he often would say, like, I don't necessarily support the government of Michael Manley. I think that both sides tend to use the people and sort of get what they want without truly helping the people. But he wants unity. He organizes this concert. it happens in December

and you know I think sort of taking advantage of a situation Michael Manley moves the election up towards the concert to make it seem like

maybe Bob Marley is giving tacit endorsement to the PMP. Tensions are riding high and it should... That increases tensions a lot. At the time Bob Marley had

what was the equivalent of the Secret Service which was called the Protective Service looking out for them one night the Protective Service suspiciously doesn't show up

and gunmen run in to his very famous home at 56 Hope Road and started firing off shots. Here now is a special item of news. Entertainer and reggae star Bob Marley, Rita Marley, and the manager of the whaler's Don Taylor are now patients in the university hospital

after receiving gunshot wounds during a shooting incident tonight. And there are all these people pointing fingers. Like the JLP is like, oh, they were shot but not injured because, you know, the PMP once sympathy, and the PMP is like, no, the JLP is working, you know, with Henry Kinsinger and the CIA, and they're trying to kill Bob Marley. Bob Marley, bravely, takes the stage just three days

after being non-fatally shot and takes the stage. And he says he's going to do one song. He ends up doing a 90-minute performance, and it's supposedly one of the greatest performances of all time. They're just 80,000 people, 80,000 Jamaicans listening to Bob Marley, you know, in his prime, I can't imagine what that must have felt like. And after that concert, Marley's gone. He leaves the country.

He starts off in Nassau, and he eventually goes to London. Because, you know, to hear his friends say it, they were like, you know, he was injured, and he was just, he was emotionally hurt that something like that could happen in Jamaica. And he didn't want to be bothered on that. He wanted to focus on the creation of its music. Just on the topic of exile, because essentially that's what happens. He gets on this plane right after the concert and gets out of, like, gets the heck out of Dodge. he leaves Jamaica for all of 1977, where he's living with the band in London. They all have

their own floors on this apartment. And this is where they make the album Exodus, which is widely considered to be, in my personal opinion, outside of the Lee Scratch Perry albums, probably the best and most widely beloved Bob Marley record. It's the one with one love, the re-record, three little birds waiting in vain. And the song we're going to talk about today, Jammin. All of this is written during this London exile. Little side note, the B-side of Jammin. is a song called punky reggae party, which is actually Bob Marley reuniting lovingly with Lee Scratch Perry. They had, after five years of not speaking,

after the acid moment, the acid incident, they get together and they do this B-side. It's an homage to the punk rock movement that's happening in London at the time. They literally name-dropped the damned, the jam, the clash. They even mentioned the slits, although that was removed later because they were sexist and decided they shouldn't be name-dropping a girl band, which is a little strange. In any case, the song Jammin is written. They come back to Jamaica in time for this second concert, which is in April 1978. And this is called the One Love

Concert. It's held at the National Stadium in Kingston. Very important thing happens at this concert. Do you want to tell us politically, going back to that for a second, kind of a reconc-since, an attempt at reconciliation, I should say. Yeah, he brings the leaders of the two major parties, Manly and Siaga on stage. And he has them shaking. hands, and then he takes both their hands and he raises them up. Really powerful moment. And the crowd goes nuts. There's footage of it. It's really powerful to see. You see how uncomfortable these two white men are? Let's talk about that. Just real quick, because I too was just like, why are

the two leaders of the parties white? They are not considered white in the same way that we consider white in this country. They are considered white Jamaicans, but it's not quite the same thing. For example, Siaga, I think, is half Lebanese and his mom is mixed. and Michael Manley is too considered white Jamaican not the same as white. So it's a very complicated thing. It is jarring to see all these black people. Right at this concert. And their two leaders look like Joe Biden and Joe Biden's brother.

But it's an interesting, and it's obviously a holdover from colonization. But this song, Jammin, was a major part of that one love concert. Well, that's the song that is being played when that moment happens. Yes. So it's the perfect entree into our discussion of the song and the stems, which is next up on one song. Actually, it's right now. Let's start with the drums. This is Carlton Barrett.

I mentioned him earlier, one of the two brothers who were stolen from Lee Scratch Berry, basically. One thing I wanted to just quickly talk about is how reggae drum beats, there are three primary reggae drumbeats, especially during this era of the roots reggae, 70s era. One of them, which is probably the most defining one, is called the one drop. Now, you've heard this one, and you knew immediately that it was a reggae song, because it's literally where you don't hit anything on the one. The downbeat does not have a kick drum. So the kick drum comes on the two and the four. I'll play you some examples of that, so it'll make sense.

This is crazy bald head. And this is one of my favorite examples because, again, the one drop is. the absence of the kick drum on the one that means don't don't two three four but you'll also notice that there's some really interesting stuff happening in the hi-hats that's one of carlton barrett's specialties is just doing really interesting rhythms and patterns on the hi-hat and it's dropping that downbeat that makes you feel like you're kind of floating or like breathless for a second and really it's one of the two things that gives reggae music it's reggaeness that and the upbeat the skank happening on the guitar or maybe on keyboards or maybe both.

Between the two of them, that's how, if you wanted to just make a reggae song, you'd start with those two things and you'd sort of build outwards from there. So the one drop is the primary reggae drum beat, but it's not the only one. And actually, Jammin does not use that one. It uses one called Stepers, which is the kick drum is actually going on eighth notes, every beat. And you're still having a lot of play happening on the hi-hat. There's a third one which is called Rockers, and that is more of a kind of slow downed funk where it's boom, cat, boom, cat, which is made famous by Sly and Robbie a little

in the mid-70s around this time. So Carlton Barrett here, we're going to hear him play that second type of beat. This is a stepper's beat, which is what he used for the song Jammin. Pay special attention to how creative he really is with those high hats. They go between being straight and being swung. The song is swung, a little swing feel, but he's got some moments where he throws in some straight eighths. It's very interesting. So it's very subtle. Do you hear the swing? Absolutely.

The song swings. But it's very subtle to kind of go back and forth between the two. It's so funny to hear that there are funk influences. Obviously, we hear it with the bass. I never thought we'd hear it with the drums because funk is so much about hitting on the one. Yeah, right. The one.

That's the foundation. And reggae is sort of not that. It's literally the opposite of James Brown's philosophy that you're referring to of the one is literally, this is the opposite of. the one. On the one in funk and James Brown, the one is the most important beat. As long as you hit the one, you can kind of do anything until the next one. You can go crazy. Your homework's done. The rest of the evening's yours. And think about the diaspora at this time, because you've got Bob in Jamaica, you've got James in America, and you've got Fela in Nigeria. Right. So the whole diaspora.

And they're all listening to each other. And they're all listening to each other. Getting back to the one drop beat for a second. And again, this is stepers, not one drop. But sometimes Carlton is quoted as saying or other people attribute to him that he's the originator of one drop. I think one of his nicknames might have been one-e or dropy, I forget which. But he's not technically the originator. This happens all the time in all forms of music and all forms of things in life. Who was the first ever to do it? But a lot of people say that Lloyd Nib from the Scatelites, and we heard them, by the way, earlier. When we heard Simmer Down, that drummer was Lloyd Nib. And you'll hear him doing this thing, which I'm about to mention, which is, besides,

potentially originating the one drop being the first to think to do it. He also added a lot of of these kind of niabingi African rhythms and kind of Cuban and Caribbean rhythms, basically, that are very similar to that high hat thing we just heard, how he was throwing out straight and swung and triplets. So I'm going to play again the song Simmerdown, and I'll point out the little moment where Lloyd Nib from the Skadlights in 1962 was doing a little something similar to what Carlton learned from him, who was one of his protege's, how to do with his highhats.

He's about to play something on the bell symbol, which you'll hear, which is of kind of Afro-Cuban pattern. So notice that coming right after the horns play their part. You'll hear a little ding-de-ding-ding on the bell of the symbol, basically.

Love that. So that's just one of the influences that Carlton Barrett brought into his reggae drumming. Awesome. I also find it interesting that, you know, these Jamaican artists have something called a one-drop, when we know that in their sort of caste racial system,

there was the idea that one drop. I find that interesting too. It affects your, you know. By the way, Manly and Seaga sort of use that to their advantage. Right, right, which is its own troublesome thing. There is also very famous Bob Marley and the Whaler's song called One Drop. So this idea of One Drop has multiple meanings, which I think is what they're playing with. Yeah.

All right, what's the next time you want to play for us? Well, let's go to Carlton's brother, Aston Family Man Barrett, on bass. I'll throw the drums back in there for context Now if you take those drums out You really do understand the difference between half-time and full-on Because that could easily be like a house baseline You know what I mean? But it would just be all do do do do do do do do do do do do do you know

You can even do double time By the way you wouldn't even have to necessarily change the symbols It's just because of what the kick is doing that it goes to half time in your brain. There's not much going on in this baseline in terms of fills and melodic ideas. It's pretty much holding it down. The bass, it's exactly right.

It's all about holding it down and keeping it steady. There is a pre-chorus, and I'll play that for you just so you can hear some variety in the base. And together, actually, it's interesting. You can really hear the swing that I was mentioning. There are parts where you're just listening to the drums. You may not feel the swing, but when that bass comes in, he is swinging the bass big time.

So the combination is where you hear swing, not swing, happening back and forth in this really interesting way. And finally, there's a sort of B section a little later on before the break, and here's that. I love that. So cool, right?

Now, as you know, I don't play a guitar, but I love the guitar part of the song. And I love the story about how tape delay sort of almost like invented this new sound. Right. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Sure. Well, I think you're referring to the skank,

the offbeat thing. So there's two guitar parts in Jammin, and I'm going to play both of you for them. One of them is Bob, and I believe he's doing the sort of basic skank that you're referring to. And that sounds like this. And I'll play that for you in context

because where's the downbeat? That's the whole point of reggae. It can really throw you if you don't have context with other instruments. And, and it's all the ants. One, two, three, four. One, two, three. And what you just heard enter there, by the way,

was Junior Marvin, the second guitar player, the lead player. And the two of them are playing very different parts. The second one, the Junior Marvin part, which is more of a like, blah, ba, ba, ba, ba. It sounds like it's got some wah, maybe some phase going on.

But to your question about the whole skank thing, what you're actually hearing, you're referring to the fact that it is rumored that the earliest ska and rock steady songs where that skank offbeat thing was happening in the guitar, might have been Lynn Tate, one of the early guitar players, might have been Earl Ranglin,

might have been somebody else. There's a story that gets told that it used to get played just like I played for you, where it's just that one note, the one chick, eighth note. And the story that gets told is they got a new piece of equipment at Studio One. That was a delay, which made that chick, chick, chick. And nobody apparently knew how to use it. They were like, what is this thing?

So they turn it on, and it takes those eighth notes into 16th notes. They go from chick, chick, chick, chick, to chicka, chicka, chicka. There's just a little bit of delay after each one. So that becomes the skank. They're both considered skanks, if you will. And I don't mean that in a disparaging way. way. I think that's literally what you call that upchuck. The upchuk also sounds disparaging. Look, this is just what you call these things. Okay, don't shoot the messenger here.

You invented all these terms. A little bit later on, you can hear more of that Junior Marvin lead guitar. He kind of starts to noodle a little bit more. I love it. I mean, everything in reggae is rhythmic. These are all rhythmic melodic parts, but all of them are creating this groove together. Oh, here's one less thing. And here's a cool little soulful solo at the very end. I mean, that is so soulful. So, soful. I love that. It's soulful and rocking at the same time. Remind us who that is? That's Junior Marvin on lead guitar. Junior Marvin, man. I believe he was not, he was not from Jamaica. I think he moved, he is Jamaican, but he moved to London. And there's a fun story about how the year he joined the band, the same day he got the call. He also got a call from Stevie Wonder.

By the way, we have a great Stevie Wonder story coming up, but let's stick with the stems. You've got some keyboards for us. I got some keyboards from Tyrone Downey. It's mixed a little bit with the percussion from Alvin Siko Patterson. And let's hear what that sounds like. So let's hear a little bit more what we were just hearing had a mixture of piano and organ. I'm going to play a part that has a little more of the organ isolated. And then you'll hear the I3s popping their beautiful voices in towards the end of it. I love that. The backing vocals are so gorgeous. Here's another moment. Let's give them their flowers. This is Marcia Griffiths, Judy Mowett. and Rita Marley, and here they are,

background vocals mixed in with some keyboards and guitar. I'll add Bob to that just so you can hear how the harmony stack sounds. So beautiful. I got to say, it is amazing musicianship and amazing songwriting, but it's not the song that we know unless we're talking about Bob's voice. And I think you just proved that. Play us some isolated Bob Marley vocals from jamming. Okay.

I'm going to start with this section, which lyrically is one of my favorites. I'll just play it for you. No bullet could stop us now. We need a bed. No, we won't bow. Neither can be bought nor soul. We all defend the right.

Jaja children must unite. Oh, life is worth much more than gold. You know, we have to talk about the lyrics a little bit there, because that's one of my favorite lyrics. He says, for those, because again, it's easy to, with his patois and all the music, to not really grasp everything being said. He says, no bullet can stop us now.

We neither beg nor we won't bow. Neither can be bought nor sold. We all defend the right. Ja, ja, children must unite. Your life is worth much more than gold. There's so much to unpack there. So much to unpack it. And I just want to unpack just a little bit of it now.

And we're going to get right back. In light of the history, right? Well, it can stop us. In other words, the violence isn't going to deter us. We neither beg, forget your money, nor we won't bow. We're not going to be sick offense. Neither can be bought nor sole, you know, money, possession, wealth again means, you know, not enough. Bob lived that truth, absolutely.

Yes. Yes. Him and Stevie Wonder, I think, you know, let's talk about that real quick. Stevie Wonder and Bob Marley play a concert. And Stevie donates the money to charity, and that was so powerful to Bob. And I think that really affected it. It was a role model thing. Yes, when Rhodesia became Zimbabwe and they threw out the colonizers, the Zimbabwe people said, hey, we performed for us.

And, you know, his manager sent over the quote. They were like, we ain't got it. And Bob was like, okay, I'll use my own money so that we can perform. You mean like the fee? Yeah. He was like, well, just to move the band and everything to set up the venue, Bob paid that out of pockets because he felt it was important to be. in Zimbabwe. I think he beat up his own manager too because...

Oh, yeah, yeah. He kicked him and his manager flew across the room. It was the beginning of the end for their relationship. That was where Don Taylor started to be on the outs. Absolutely. But, you know, the fact that he played that concert and then, of course, there was a bit of a stampede and some tear gas. But it was important for Marley to finish that concert,

even on his own dime where he wasn't making money on the concert. No, African concert is complete with the tear gas. No, because you know what? Neither can be bought nor sold. Play us some more vocals. from Mr. Marley. Holy Mount Zion just seated in Mount Zion

in rules of creation and where we're gentlemen This is gospel music You know It is revolution music It is political music But in Rastafarianism The political and the spiritual go hand in hand

And he's singing about Holy Mount Zion which I believe in Rosafarianism is not necessarily the place just outside Jerusalem. It's actually considered to be utopia. It could be Ethiopia. But it's just supposed to be the utopia when everybody is treating everybody the way they should be treated. Yes, this is not a Zionist song, like in the Israel sense of the word. Let's not say that. Let's not even dip our tone to that. Well, I mean, I don't mean to Jewish.

playing it, but you can say whatever you want, but I don't know. We may not want to step into it. Well, we're literally saying the Holy Mons. Yeah, I know. Wow. I mean, listen, I love the echo in reggae and in dub. Like, to me, it's like such a defining feature. It's like outer space.

Why? Why? It's so spacey. By the way, this is recorded in 1977 when Star Wars is coming out. Like, you know, like, there must have just been something in the water where everybody in the 70s just wanted to go to space. It just seems like, maybe it was. Maybe it was 2001. Oh, I mean, if you ever go to, like, the Jamaica bin at the record store and you look at the, like, the dub records. They're all, there's so many, like, Star Wars, like, cute, you know, illustrations done by hand. And that sort of, like, very individual style where it's, like, you know, Darth Vader mask.

And, like, there's definitely a lot of spaceness happening. If you ever look at, like, Scientist is another dub producer who worked with King, King Tubby and Prince Jammie. There's a lot of space love. It's all another life. Space getting a lot of love. And a lot of love. in this song. I really do love the lyrics in the song. When we were talking about

what's our Bob Marley episode for this season, we talked about this one because, you know, he says we're jamming in the name of the Lord. Like, there's so much, if you think about the political context that he's singing into with the two leaders on stage, we're jamming in the

name of the Lord. Jamming, by the way, there are a couple of ways to interpret the word jamming. But I think the safest way is to say, you know, dancing and having a good time, essentially partying, and they're part in the name of the Lord. And I think that's wonderful. I also think there's just a lot of great.

We taught a little bit about some of the lyrics in this song. He's such a master poet. He's such a master poet. I wanted to bring up one of my favorite Bob Marley lyrics of all time. It's this one lyric from Trenchtown. In this great future, you can't forget your past. It's one of those wonderfully circular. Linen does a lot of that.

It's simple, but it's profound. It's simple. He delivers it, makes it profound. It's simple and it's clever reminds me. I always go back to the John Lenn and Larry, baby, you're a rich man. I love any time you can make that perfect circle. He's just, you know, he's just, he's great. And what's funny about a lot of these songs is, you know, being a part of the hip-hop generation,

I didn't know a lot of these were, you know, Bob Marley songs before my favorite hip-hop group interpolated. Oh, is that right? Absolutely. I mean, like, I think about, you know, everything's going to. be all right. And that, first time I heard that was in the naughty

by nature song. When it was internal. Sorry, everybody in the world. That was louder than I expected. Really loud.

But listen, sometimes you've got to whisper or sometimes you got to scream. So you're saying that's a dub version. But no, seriously, I also think about

his line about I think it's from Trenchtown. One thing about music when it hits, you feel no pain. Yeah, and that was used in everything

from Drake to Dead Prez. Can I play a section? Yeah. One thing about music when it hit you feel no pain. White for sex. And it was also used by none other than Drake on one of his very first songs. The track is over. I mean, there's about, honestly, there's about 10 years between those songs

and about 20 years between them and trench down. So that's, you know, that lyric, which I never knew was an interpolation, is pretty fun. Let's talk a little bit about samples and interpolations. What do you think? I think that's a great idea. Okay. Well, the song Jammin was sampled by the Jungle Brothers with Tribe Called Quest, Delausole and Moni Love. That's right. The entire Native Tung's crew came together in 1989 for doing our own dang. Don't follow the path that we're stepping. Truth to the soul is what I'm cramming. Reasons for this is the family strong. I like Bob Marlon.

I love it when they do that in hip-hop songs, right? Or in any song, when it's just like a little fragment from the lyrics. It's the tiniest bit. The tiniest little bit, and it reflects what was just mentioned in the lyrics. And then we go to just Bob saying jamming because they just name drop Bar Marley in the lyrics. Yeah, that's awesome. And then now this next one isn't a sample. It's an homage, but we alluded to Stevie Wonder and that connection between Stevie and Bob a little earlier.

Big fans of each other's work. They played a couple times together. one time was the 1975, what was called the Wonder Dream concert, which was actually the first time that Peter Tosh, Buddy Whaler, and Bob Marley were together on stage since 1973 when Bob, when they all went their separate ways. They came up for this one show, and it was the last time they ever played together. So Stevie Wonder brought everyone together for one last hurrah. And then a little bit later, Stevie Wonder does a song called Master Blaster, which is an homage, including a lyric or two. that I will play for you in a second.

That quotes the song Jammin. Here, I'll play it for you now. First off, one of my favorite Stevie Wonder songs. Really good. And it also has like that swing beat, the stepper's beat. It's got the same stepper's beat that Jammin has. The same kind of swing feel to it as well. And doing it to death by Fred Wellesley and the JBs.

Like that, that's got that, don't, don't, don't, down, down, down. That's a triplet feel. So it's like six, eight time. but the thing about swing and triplets is that they're connected. In a sense, now there's many different variations of swing. Rhythm has all kinds of variety

within between the notes of the bar, but essentially da-da-da-da-swing, you can think of as being two of the three triplets. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, so they are related. I will say, Latch by Disposure has that. Six-eight feel. As a DJ, those are really hard songs to mix in and out of.

You kind of have to go into another one of that. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I remember one time I was like, I'm going to put all of them together and blow people's mind. But like, it can be tricky when you're trying to blend it and blend out of those. Exactly. All right, so buckle up for this next one. This is not, I've got a little tale to tell you about One Love. So there's a lot of complexity to the song One Love itself, the Bob Marley song, has two versions.

Let's start with that. It's first recorded by the Whalers, so with Bunny and Peter and Bob, in 1965, and here that is. So that's the original ska version of One Love. And when we get to the verse, we have this melody. Pay attention to the melody. And as you're listening, ask yourself, it reminds you of something else. Does that melody ring any bells to you? It's pretty close to this in my ears.

This is People Get Ready by the Impressions, written by Curtis Mayfield. People Get Ready as a train, a com. You don't need no baggage. It's just the shape of the melody is very similar. And in fact, that first version, just to set it all up, there are four different competing credits for this song across 50 years. One of them is that Curtis Mayfield is a co-writer of the song.

In other words, that's an interpolation. Interpolation. And he is giving credit for it. And some version of the world, he's getting some royalties in certain countries. who the hell knows. It is so complicated. I spent 20 minutes talking to my friend who is helping me research this.

But in another world, Cox and Dodd has an ownership claim. It was re-recorded in 1977 for the version most people know. If you've ever noticed, this song is called One Love slash People Get Ready. Because when it was re-released, they did go back and credit

and give 50% of the songwriting credits, it should be said, to Curtis Mayfield, for that interpolation. In the original version, too, but the original version does not give credit because of complexity of Jamaican publishing. It's such a behind-the-scenes quagmire of complexity.

So there's a lot of different competing stories, a lot of people competing for the dollars obviously coming from this song. But that's one love, as simplified as I could make it. There's more that I left out of it. But I'm going to leave you on one more fun note If you're familiar with the song Buffalo Soldier, you may have noticed the connection.

Oh, yeah, I know this story. Yeah, to another song. Here's Buffalo Soldier. Now, Diala, does that remind you of anything? Maybe something that I used to come on Saturday mornings. That's right. It's very, very, very, very similar to the song. The Tra-Lala song by The Banana Splits, a late 60s kids show, basically.

A bunch of very strange to our modern eyes like costume, kind of creepy costumes. Everything from that period is kind of creepy. Now, I've heard, I mean, this story kind of reminds me of Rod Stewart going down to Brazil, hearing something and not realizing. And I think that the story is that Bob was, was he touring America? Like, where did you get exposed to the travel? He was touring America. So he had a friend named King Sporty, who's Jamaican, and who moved to America. So King Sporty is a friend of Bob Marley's who moves to Miami in the early 70s.

He wrote the song Buffalo Soldier. Yeah. And he produced the original demo, which I'll play it for you now, by the way. This is fun. This is Bob Marley recording the original demo in Miami towards the end of the Kaya tour in 1980. And here it is. It's like a cocaine. Is this 77?

That's 1980 and it's like super cocaine disco. It's like disco. Yeah, it's fast, too. I never thought Bob would do disco. It's like high energy like Sylvester, like this super speedy disco. So there was actually like a BBC investigation I found where they were like, well, Bob Marley was never in America. And they basically, their conclusion leaves out the possibility that King Sporty was in America and definitely had access to watching the band and Spitz splits in the 70s as we did. So my theory is that, you know, I think it's such a direct connection melodically.

The rhythm is the same. Yeah. Even the chord change is the same. So maybe, so it might be a case where King Sporty brought. I believe King's 40 and Bob had no idea who the Trawlala was were. I'm pretty sure that's right. King Sporty is credited. He gets 66% writing credits on this versus Bob.

There's one more piece of the story, though, in case anyone's worried that the banana splits are going to sue. The Traw-L-Law song is credited to the TV show's music directors, Mark Barkin and Ritchie Adams, but the person who actually claims to have written the song was a for-hire jingle writer named N.B. Winkless. So he worked for the ad agency. I'm sorry, what was that name again? His name is Winkless.

N.B. Winkless. How does he spell the first name? Oh, it's like N-B. The letter is N-B-B. Oh, I thought his name was like E-M-B-E. I was like, what a weird first name. It's still an unusual name. M-B. Winkless.

He's N-B-Wingless Jr., by the way. His dad liked the name so much. Gave it to him. So this is a gentleman who wrote the jingle under the auspices of being a salaried employee for the ad agency, Leo Burnett, for Kellogg. This is like the 60s TV weirdness with like ad agency.

Yeah, that's like Madman era. Exactly right. So I think at the end of the day, it's probably, I'm going to go with that's the Tra-Lala song that was interpolated into Buffalo Soldier. Yeah. Yeah, that's my theory. That's awesome. Now, luxury, Bob Marley won love.

The Bob Marley biopic was released this year. It holds a 43% among the critics on Ron Tomatoes, but this is interesting. The audience score is like 92%. That's so, like the people love it. How did you like it? I thought it was really good. I have to say. Yeah.

And this is the trouble where you see a biopic for someone you know a lot about. Yeah. You really only, it's like the opposite. You see only the discrepancies. Totally. You really, you don't see the bigger picture because you're distracted by the things that aren't quite right. What was one of the inaccuracies or let's just say, you know, one of the changes that the people took a lot of creative license with.

I mean, listen, I'm not the only one who noticed this, but there's a scene where we talked about Cox and Dodd. The scene where they go in and meet Cox and Dodd and they end up recording Simmerdown before they get to that point, Cox and Dodd shows up with a gun and he's like threatening them, which I don't believe happened in real life. I think what that really is is they're conflating two of the famous sound system operators of the day. Cox and Dodd was one, and Duke Reed was one of the other ones. I mentioned him before in the Big Tree conversation. Duke Reed famously was a cop who brought his gun everywhere. So my guess is that they decided, well, let's... They amalgamated them. Let's meldell the lore together. But that wasn't really Cox and Dodd style, right? I don't think that was really Cox and Dodd. And

Cox and Dodd's children don't think so either, because they're... They're really pissed, and they're threatening to sue or something like that. But, yeah, they're out there vocally saying, that's not our father. So one out of five stars. Well, for the Cox and Dodd depiction, I actually liked the movie because I love the story. I love the man. And actually, it's kind of a coincidence that we ended up using this song, which is the centerpiece of the movie as well.

The Jammin is in the, as we discussed on the episode, the two concerts where their book ended by the Smile, Jamaica, and One Love is that's also where the movie kind of takes over. Yeah, totally. So that was kind of fun to watch that in preparation for the episode. But like I said, that one little distraction shouldn't take away from what it's an overall... No, it shouldn't. But, you know, little details like that matter. There was one moment from the movie that got turned into a jiff that got sent to me a lot.

And it shows Bob Marley giving, I assume, Chris Blackwell or his manager, I guess that has to be Blackwell. I was a while. Gives him a fist bump. Yeah. And I'm like, wait a second. It's 19... It's early 70s. Like, the fist bump was not a thing in the early...

He would have been doing that then. No, the history of the fist bomb, but I don't know why I even know this. It sort of starts with American black GIs and Vietnam, but it doesn't become a thing that, like, everybody's doing until, like, the early to mid-80s. A Jamaican man and a British man might not necessarily be doing it. Little details like that will really throw me out. I mean, you look less like Bob Marley. He looked a little more like Bro Marley. But I'm definitely going to see the movie. Yeah. You know, but I was stickler like that because I make. you know, TV shows and movies, they gotta, they gotta get the facts right.

I know. And sometimes you've got to put in a lot of the like exposition, right? All the facts have to go in. So you have to have a character that embodies five actual people or something like that. In the interest of time, but like a fist bump, I don't know about that. Diyala, you're a writer and a movie lover, from what I understand. Seems to me like musical biopics are often kind of bad. Why do you think that is? Listen, like I said, it's just, well, it's just like, you know, there was a scene in straight out of Compton, which I actually think is a decent. I liked it.

But there's like a scene like, hey Ice Cube, where are you working on? Oh, I'm writing the screenplay for Friday. Like that conversation did not happen. That's what I mean. They've got to put all the exposition in. Here's what I am doing right now in order to see at the next part of my life. At a laptop. But you know, I understand that.

But there's a difference between that, like getting a detail wrong. And some things that I think are just misguided from the start. I am not a fan of Clint Eastwood's Charlie Parker biopic bird. That was on my list to see. You don't think I should see it. Not good. Watch it. I don't know if you need to watch it. My problem with that is that I feel like they paint Charlie Parker as a heroin addict who happened to be a genius, not a genius who happened to use heroin. And I just think that I think that I think that's telling the story the story the story the story the story of the story from a completely misguided piece of. Is it sending the wrong message? Like heroin equals genius. Like you see a metro million times. Well, I mean, there were enough jazz musicians who followed him down that road erroneously. But I also think that, you know, the story Clint wants to tell to me is not what made Charlie Parker special. So Bird, not a big fan.

Okay. Luxury, help me in this thing. All right. Well, I'm producer, DJ, musicologist, and songwriter luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ, Dialla Riddle. This has been one song. If you've enjoyed the episode and you have, because you stay it all the way to the end,

which means that you should go on to the favorite podcast platform of your choice. Give us the five stars we have earned so clearly, possibly write a review and tell all your friends. But until then, we'll see you next time. And don't forget, interpolation. And don't forget. Interpolation. I know you're not going to use that, but I did it twice anyway. This episode is produced by Matthew Nelson with engineering from Marcus Homme,

additional production support from Casey Simonson. The show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, Eric Wael, and Leslie Guam. I'm out.