What’s left of Bob Marley?

The legend outdoes the singer

Paris 

11/05/2011 - 

It’s thirty years since the king of Jamaican musician Bob Marley died on 11 May 1981. The star that personifies the sound of reggae shone far beyond the world of music, offering words of wisdom to support the oppressed. And many still find solace in his message.

As soon as the 6,500 spectators at the Zénith de Paris heard the first few notes of the song, they reacted at once, in a single voice. Just enough time to light a match or a turn on a cell phone and they were all singing along: “I was born into a family that was poor, what I hate most is injustice and war. I grew up in the fields working like a mule, to earn a bit of money because poverty is cruel. I never knew my father, he was a captain at sea. He came from England, a place that’s nothing to do with me.”

For two minutes, with moving enthusiasm, they shouted out the lyrics to a song they all knew by heart on a track simply entitled Marley. The musical biography of the Jamaican star is the work of Danakil, whose March 2011 concert accompanied the release of their new album Echos du temps. In the space of two and a half years, it has become the anthem of the new French reggae lovers, notching up astounding scores on the Internet with over 5 million hits! For Balik, the author of the lyrics and the group’s lead singer, it’s proof that Marley’s uniting power has lost none of its clout or its ability to cross generations. Which is exactly what the newspapers were saying back in June-July 1980 when the Jamaican made his last French tour, pulling in record-beating crowds.  Over and above the music, the man was a sensation.

"The Messenger"

Even before cancer cruelly took him away, the lead singer of the Wailers was something other than an artist – more like the leading light of a cause, holding a torch for the hopes shared by millions around the planet. The French daily Le Monde, in its 13 May 1981 edition on which the singer’s death made the front page alongside the election of François Mitterand, chose the title “The Messenger” to highlight his role of “leading light of hope and freedom”. It praised the chord his music struck in all of those who, “…whatever their origins or culture, believed in the fight for equal rights”.

The foundations had already been laid on which reggae was to develop outside Jamaica –in France, Africa and elsewhere. Marley’s songs and albums live on independently from the contemporary reggae scene, unaffected by its vicissitudes. The people who’ve listened to Get up Stand Up, Exodus and Could You Be Loved over the last thirty years are not necessarily all reggae lovers. And what’s more, it’s not uncommon to see today’s Jamaican music fans, or even artists who’ve followed in the same vein, who don’t really know Marley’s classic hits.

Burnt-out memories

The process that over time has turned Marley into a legend, has ended up putting the singer’s image in the forefront and his career in the background. The merchandising of his name, at its apex in the 1990s and the start of the following decade, accelerated the movement. His face could almost be confused with Che Guevara’s, another symbolic rebel frequently pasted on T-shirts and teenagers’ bedroom walls. In the space of three decades, the singer has moved into the ranks of a historical character.  Like Napoleon and De Gaulle, bookshops are filled with piles of books on his life and influence. One of the best of these was written by the French journalist Francis Dordor, who interviewed Marley on several occasions.

In 1991 and 2001, on the anniversaries of the singer’s death, his record label brought out some savvy collections of previously unreleased recordings set to spark off new interest. This time, the release of the CD Live Forever, merely officialises the recording of his last concert in Pittsburgh in September 1980, a pirate album that has been in record shops for some time. Last year’s fire that destroyed the studio built in Ghana by Marley’s widow, Rita, reduced to ashes all of the analog tapes, taking with them any hope of finding hidden treasure. Perhaps the lesson to be learned is that even though his music has a timeless quality, and his fight still feels worth fighting in 2011, and despite the fact that reggae is still going strong, Marley has gone down in the annals of history.

Bob Marley Live Forever (Island/Universal) 2011
Danakil Echos du temps (X-RaySocadisc) 2011
Francis Dordor Bob Marley, Destin d’une âme rebelle (Flammarion) 2009

Bertrand  Lavaine