Marley

I somehow lived in ignorance of Bob Marley while he was alive. I didn't pay that much attention to popular music during my school days (and virtually none at all during my time at University - it was that dreadful 'New Romantics', synth-pop era), and the great man completely passed me by.

Even when I visited Jamaica at the end of the '80s he was little more than a name to me. I suppose it was on that trip that I first became fully aware of him, began to appreciate the enormity of his reputation. On the island, of course, he is regarded as a kind of demi-god.... and almost everyone I met there claimed some kind of relationship to him, however tenuous or improbable ("My sister used to date his bass-player", "My second cousin used to live next door to him when they were kids", "My brother was his driver", etc., etc.).

But even then, I didn't get to hear much of his music. The Marley Museum (the bungalow where he survived an assassination attempt) was cloaked in a reverential silence. Everywhere else there was music, LOUD music blaring from ghetto-blasters in every shop, on every bus, at every street corner.... but mostly pretty dire music. The island's musical culture, I fear, was already in thrall to America, and eager to take up all the least attractive trends in American music. At that point, it was rap and house. Soon after, it would be hip-hop and the modern reinvention of "R&B". Traditional reggae was withering away under the onslaught of these more aggressive, less melodic styles. I'd nearly used up my two weeks there before I got my one and only dose of Bob, on a taxi driver's cassette player..... and what a breath of fresh air that was, after all of that boom-boom-boom nonsense that had been oppressing my eardrums ever since I arrived. Very possibly a life-changing moment for me. My host and I tipped the driver generously in gratitude for his musical good taste.

It wasn't too long before I became a huge Marley fan, although the process was so slow and subtle that I barely noticed it - only that first encounter sticks in my memory as a significant step along the road (probably not really my very first experience of the music, in fact, but the first that made a lasting impression on me). Several years later, of course, his music was to play a big part in one of my wildest ever drinking sessions, the infamous two-man 'Jamaican Beach Party' I shared with Mad Irish Dave. Always 'good time' music - just the thing to chase away the blues of another dreary London day. It's very, very difficult to listen to Marley when depressed. Or rather, it's very, very difficult to stay depressed when listening to Marley. I could do with some with me at the moment!

Quite good for lifting downcast spirits in the often dreary surroundings of my adopted home, The Unnameable City, too.

I had been planning to have a big reggae-themed party in my apartment to mark Bob's birthday last month (February 6th.... though the party was to have been on the preceding Saturday), but my emergency return to the UK thwarted that plan. However, it seems to me that this would still be a suitable way to celebrate my return next week. And, after all, a party in honour of the late Bob Marley may as well be late.... so March 3rd is the date I'm now planning for. Watch out for further news on this blog!! And - if you too live in The Unnameable City - feel free to drop by.