A fascinating new documentary about the inspiring life (and untimely death) of Bob Marley premieres today at the Sunshine theater, with special appearances by Ziggy Marley at two screenings tonight. Directed by Kevin MacDonald (One Day In September, The Last King of Scotland), the film dives deep into Marley's entire biography, featuring rare interviews with all the surviving members of Marley's inner and outer circle, including estranged band-mate Bunny Wailer, Lee "Scratch" Perry, and even the janitor/musician at a recording studio where Marley used to crash.
It's a beautifully shot film packed with archival footage, rich first-hand stories about Marley's life, and some surprising revelations about the roots of reggae music. Even if you think you know the full story by now, MARLEY will surprise you. We recently spoke with MacDonald about the film, and found out that he wasn't particularly crazy about Bob Marley when he took the gig, but through the course of making the movie developed a newfound admiration for the legendary musician and revolutionary.
There was so much in this film that I didn't know about Bob Marley. Yeah that's been the response from a lot of people. The strange paradox is that everyone knows Bob Marley's face. He's this iconic face like Che Guevara or something on t-shirts and dorm room posters. Everyone knows the music, they know the songs even if they didn't know who did them. Yet, people don't know anything much about his life. Even people who are big fans say, "I didn't know his father was white."
And even beyond that I really liked how the film went into some of the background of how Bob transitioned into reggae. You know, I love that sequence with Lee "Scratch" Perry and Bunny Wailer explaining what reggae is.
Yeah and then you have somebody, I don't remember his name, he was in Coxone Dodd's studio and... Oh yes, Bob Andy—who is a really pretty great reggae artist in his own right—he, like Bob, got into Rasta quite young and he was also a recording artist at Studio 1. He told me this story, which has been verified by somebody else later, which was that the way reggae began was that Coxone had taken receipt of this new kit from the US, which was a kit delaying machine. But nobody really knew what it was.
It sat there in the studio for a few months before anyone knew what it did. And I think someone in the Skatalites started messing around with it and they found that they could do this thing where you play one strum or one chord on a piano and it would come back at you again so you the "ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch" and they used that on a couple of records, one of them called Nanny Goat. Those are the first reggae records, and then everybody else in Jamaica heard this and thought, 'oh wow'! They didn't know it was the tape delay machine, they thought that must be the way they're playing it! That "ch-ch, ch-ch" on the guitar or on the keyboard. That's how the reggae rhythm began, according to him and according also to the wonderful character of the singer-janitor from Studio 1 Dudley Sibley, who appears in the film, who was also there and said that that was the truth.
Did you ask Lee Perry about that? I did, but I'm not sure if I got a comprehensive answer; Lee marches to his own drum. I think he probably said that it was a gift from Jah. You know his point of view was that Ska was drinking and dancing music, whereas reggae is spiritual music. And it didn't start as a Rasta thing, but it certainly became dominated by Rasta artists, who took it on as their sound. Lee Perry is one of my favorite characters in the film. He dresses fantastically for one thing. And I love the fact that he lives in bourgeois opulence in Switzerland. But he still has his little "Scratch world" in the garage where he has his crazy murals and things that he's doing.
I saw Perry in concert once and it was one of the strangest concerts I've ever been to. I saw him myself just like a month ago in London and it was kind of fantastic in a way. He's still bouncing around and he's like 73 or something, it's amazing. But he said one of my favorite things. He said, "I love Bob Marley so much it's a shame." I asked, "Why do people love his music so much?" and he said, "Because of the story him tell and the way that him tell it. Him tell it so you have to believe it." Which I think is so key. It's not just the lyrics, not just the message, it's also you totally believe the lyrics, you believe the message, because there's something in his voice that just sells it to you. There's something in his voice that says, "I have been through suffering, I have had bad times, I've been the victim of racism and poverty but now everything's good." And so you believe him when he says everything is gonna be alright.
Lee Perry has that crazy song about Chris Blackwell, about how he's literally a vampire who drank blood in Lee's presence. Did you ask him about Chris Blackwell at all? I didn't specifically, but he's not alone in thinking Chris Blackwell is what they call a "duppy." I asked him what's "duppy" and he said "duppy" is a vampire with long hair and long teeth that sucks your blood. So many people feel like they were ripped off by Chris Blackwell, whether legitimately or not.
And in the interviews with Chris Blackwell in MARLEY, I didn't get a sense that he really has any sense of that or at least not that he's going to acknowledge it or talk about it. Well I think there's two sides to the coin. His point of view would be I just did this in standard business practice and people who complain, well, I just did what I was contractually obliged to do so. No worse than what record management did to many other people in America or in Britain. He had the same kind of thing going on. I don't think it's particularly unique, it's just that he had such a hold over Jamaican music. So everybody's had to deal with it. Not everybody. A lot of people, anyone who kind of went big and had a career outside of Jamaica pretty much went through Island Records. It's a small place. He made a lot of money, not only through that, obviously, but also through Nick Drake, and U2 and whoever else. It's a poor country, Jamaica, so I supposed people are envious. It's only natural.
So in telling the story, what was one of the things that surprised you most that you did not know and were surprised to learn? I was surprised by so many things. So many little things, but also I was surprised by how much I grew to admire Bob. I may have started out a little skeptical because he had been so commodified as a figure. Bootleg versions of his image are everywhere, used to market things, and his music is such background really now. You hear it everywhere you go and it's become kind of crazy. And I think the more I found out about him—the more I went on this journey to discover the man behind the legend—the more I found myself admiring him. He's got his flaws—we've all got our flaws—but he's not a hypocrite. Which is the main thing, I think, when you compare him to a lot of music stars or celebrities. Bob practiced what he preached.
It reminds me of the part of the film where you've got this footage, I believe it was the concert in Zimbabwe, and the tear gas comes in and people flee the stage, but not Bob. Yeah, that is obviously highly ironic. There's Bob paying, himself, a huge amount of money—several hundred thousand dollars I think—to take all the equipment from England to Zimbabwe to do this free concert for Zimbabwe Independence, because he'd been invited. Because he'd written this song previously called "Zimbabwe," which became a sort of anthem for the freedom fighters.
And so he gets there, he spent all this money, he puts up a stage, gives the concert, and then all the freedom fighters who weren't invited to the official hoity-toity ceremony heard the music and they all just rush in and break down the fence. There's a riot going on, and they have tear gas, and then there is this great footage of everybody in their finery rubbing their eyes, rolling on the ground, running away. And Bob, of course, didn't run anywhere. He was still just kind of up there, lost in the music. And so the great irony is that there he went, he did this big gesture and he was pleased to be playing in Africa but he was playing for Robert Mugabe. Thirty years later, there's Mugabe still. Doesn't seem like he's a person anyone wants to be celebrated anymore.
That's for sure. I found it interesting how you spent a good amount of time on Bob Marley's death. You didn't shy away from that. I had even more. One of the things that fascinated me, I'm sure you've probably heard all the conspiracy theories about his death...
Yeah, the first time I talked with anyone about it I was working at a bookstore and this woman I was working with seriously believed Marley was killed by "CIA-injected cancer," as she put it. Anyway, the whole sequence of his death starts with him noticing something wrong with his foot, which he believed was a football injury when someone spiked his foot, and you include a still photograph of someone stepping on his foot during a game. Is that photograph of the moment they're referring to? Yeah, we think it is. It was taken in Paris, which is where the accident happened. But the full story of that is that he had a subcutaneous melanoma, so the melanoma was underneath his big toenail. And I spoke to a specialist in London about this and melanoma is generally something that white people get, but not exclusively. So I guess that's part of him being mixed-race, which there is a certain irony in that. But melanoma can be brought on by repeated trauma in the same place and Bob had hurt the same place several times. He had an accident on the farm when he was younger and sort of put a spike through his toe and a couple of other times he had done things.
Then what happened in France, he had this injury to his toe and the injury wouldn't heal. And they thought this isn't right, so that is when they took him to the specialist doctor and the doctor said we have to cut off your toe, this is cancerous, it's melanoma. And then Bob went to another doctor to get advice and all doctors said the same thing, but I think he was searching for somebody to tell him something different, basically. So he kept asking until he found a doctor in Miami who said that with a new treatment he can just do a skin graft on his toe. And skin grafts are now an accepted treatment, but you have to do checkups every month or whatever afterward to make sure there's no cancer left. In his case it had. But because he never went to check-ups, nobody spotted it. I suspect he must have known that he was ill. I don't think that you can go on for two and half years and have cancer all over your body and not realize it. So maybe he knew and just thought God will save me, Jah will protect, or I'll just keep going as long as I can. And he knew he was just going to collapse one day.
Rita Marley
And that happened right after that incredible show in Madison Square Garden. Yeah, literally the day after. It was so tragic. And you know that was going to be the big tour where he broke America. Because actually he was pretty niche up until that point. He was kind of a college campus star and this was his opportunity to reach a big broad audience and do what he had done in Europe. He had played hundred thousand person stadiums and broken all sorts of box office records and he wanted to come to America and do the same thing. But never got the chance.
Then they went to Pittsburgh and there was some sound check that was supposedly hours long. It seems as though he did that incredibly long soundcheck because he didn't want to say goodbye, I think. He just wanted to prolong his last opportunity to be with his band. He hadn't even spoken to the band, I don't think at the time they knew quite how serious it was. And then he made this decision to go to Bavaria to go to this alternative doctor.
And so in the beginning of the movie you go from this lush, tropical, equatorial landscape and jungle of Jamaica and you feel the humidity and the heat and then at the end of the movie you're in this bleak, snowy, cold landscape of Bavarian mountains where he went to this clinic. Where a doctor gave him experimental treatments for cancer. And it really did prolong his life by a couple of months but I don't think anyone at the stage, at least no one in the medical establishment, thought the melanoma was really curable. So he spent his last five months of his life in the cold and the snow of a Bavarian winter, which is just so bizarre.
