FARLEYWHEN BOB Marley passed away 25 years ago a lot of his life was still a mystery, even to people in Jamaica, where he was born. Since then many books have been published, but none of them have focused on his early life the years before he signed with Island Records in 1972.
Christopher John Farley's Before The Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley (Amistad 2006) fills many gaps in the singer's life. The Jamaican-born Farley, an editor at the Wall Street Journal and a former editor at Time magazine, will be reading at the 2006 Calabash International Literary Festival.
He has agreed to do an interview exclusively for The Sunday Gleaner. Mr. Farley will be reading with fellow journalists Cathleen Falsani and Margo Jefferson on Saturday, May 27.
Calabash 2006 will take place at Jake's in Treasure Beach from Friday, May 26 to Sunday, May 28. All events will be free and open to the public. For more
information on the festival visit
calabashfestival.org.
Q: You're looking at your first appearance at Calabash. How does that feel?
A: I love Calabash. I've been to other pre-Calabash and post-Calabash events. It's exciting to be part of the red-hot centre of the thing.
Q: Tell us a bit about your book Before The Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley.
A: It's a book by a Jamaican, about a Jamaican, for the world to read. It tells the story of Bob Marley from birth until his arrival on the international scene with the album Catch a Fire in 1972. People may think they know this story, but they don't know this story. I interviewed the people who loved him, played with him, and grew up with him to get the inside story on his life and times.
Q: Why did you decide to write this book?
A: It was a book that needed to be written. There have been plenty of books about Marley, but his real story hasn't been told. I wanted to tell it with this book. I want readers to get caught up in the wild ride he took, from Nine Miles to international stardom, from Trench Town outcast to revolutionary icon. When I was in grade school, I was profoundly impacted by The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Bob Marley's story is as important and inspiring. And it has better music.
Q: How long did it take you to write it, and how many people did you interview?
A: It took me three years to write it, and I talked to more than a hundred sources to produce it. In one sense, however, I've been working on the book my entire life. I was born in 1966, so I grew up as reggae grew up. I've long made a study of the music and its impact and always wanted to write a book about it. A few years ago, I
co-wrote the book Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues, the companion volume to a documentary series that the director Martin Scorsese did on American blues music. After working on that Scorsese project, I felt even more compelled to tell the story of Jamaica's music, and her greatest music hero.
Q: What are some of your key findings?
A: There are a lot of new findings and new stories in the book. For many years, other biographers have written that Marley's father, Norval, was a white British captain. My book shows that Norval Marley was actually discharged as a private, born in Jamaica, and was a person of colour who was
accepted as white.
Q: Did you discover anything about yourself in this process? Did your feelings for Marley change?
A: I went into the book with great respect for the Wailers. That respect only increased when I learned more about the many obstacles financial, social, political that Bob and his band mates had to overcome.
Q: Did you discover anything that really disappointed you?
A: An early song of Bob's, One Cup of Coffee, was credited to him but was actually written by someone else. It was recorded earlier in America as a country song. There's no evidence that Bob wrote the credit line, and plagiarising is fairly common in the music industry. Nonetheless, it wasn't his song and the wrong credit keeps getting printed to this day.
Q: You spent a lot of time with the white side of Marley's
family. What are they like?
A: They were extremely helpful and supportive, especially Chris Marley. Learning more about the family's heritage made me more aware of how ridiculous racial
categorisation is. It's certainly not
scientific. Everyone is mixed race to some degree because scientists actually don't have any definition about what 'race' really is. It's a social fiction. Peter Tosh said it best in African: "No matter where you come from, as long as you're a black man, you're an African." Africans come in all colours.
Q: You're a Marley fan, but you're also a professional journalist. Did you have to wrestle to remain objective as you worked on this book?
A: Not really. The important thing is just to tell the truth. Some people may not like it. But they have to respect it.
Q: Let's say you had the same experience and ability as a journalist, but were not Jamaican, in what ways would the book have been different?
A: Anyone can write about anything good writers can reach beyond their background. It just requires a commitment to understand what you're talking about. I've written stories about Bob Dylan, I've written a book about female pirates (Kingston by Starlight, my book about Anne Bonny). That said, non-Jamaicans writing about Jamaica can be like non-Jamaicans playing reggae. We can tell the difference, even if the world can't. Folks with roots in the Caribbean have to take control of their own stories. That's happening more with writers such as Andrea Levy, Colin Channer, Staceyann Chin and others grabbing the
literary spotlight.
Q: Of all the interviews you did, which was the most
revealing to you?
A: Most of the people I talked to had something interesting and sometimes fascinating to say.
Q: Which person did you enjoy speaking with the most?
A: Rita Marley, Bunny Wailer, Chris Blackwell, Lee 'Scratch' Perry and 'Skill' Cole were all interesting in their own ways. There are almost too many to name.
Q: You were a senior editor at Time when Marley's Exodus was voted Album of the Century. Were you one of the people in the room?
A: I nominated Exodus as the album of the century for Time, an honour it ultimately won. Marley was up against the Beatles, Dylan, the Rolling Stones and other greats. My strategy was simple: I just passed out copies of Exodus to various other editors at Time. Marley's music speaks for itself. For proof of its greatness, all you have to do is listen.
Q: Before you wrote your own Marley book, which book on Marley did you think of as being the best?
A: I'd say the smartest book on Marley that I've read is Kwame Dawes' Bob Marley: Lyrical Genius. The second best book on Bob is a book of matches the photographer Kate Simon gave me that had Bob's picture on it. It captured the Wailers pretty well.
Q: Has your ranking changed a bit since you wrote your own?
A: I wouldn't rank my own work. Well, maybe I would. But not right now and not right here.
Q: You ran into Bunny Wailer by accident when you went to do some additional research in Nine Miles last year. That must have been a moment.
A: It wasn't by accident. He's a world-class artist, and it's always good to see him.
Q: Calabash is going to mark the 30th anniversary of Bunny's album Blackheart Man with a music tribute on Sunday afternoon. How does the album measure up to the best albums by Peter and Bob?
A: Many members of musical acts release solo albums. No other group in history has released solo albums that are, in total, as good as the ones the various Wailers released. The Rolling Stones are a fine group; but, for the most part, their solo albums aren't that great. Same with the Beatles. Peter released Legalise It and Equal Rights. Marley released all of his great albums from Natty Dread on. Bunny had Blackheart Man. It's an unprecedented batch of excellence.
Q: You've said in the past that The Wailers were the greatest pop act the world has ever seen. How would you back that up?
A: I've interviewed many of the greatest musicians of the last 50 years: Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Prince, Aretha Franklin, Public Enemy, Joni Mitchell and many others. So I've been face to face with greatness. Having met the best, I recognise the best in the Wailers.
Q: You're written two very good novels. Which do you like more, fiction writing or
journalism?
A: Both forms have their rewards. The trick is to never mix them and always make sure they're clearly labelled!
Q: You left Jamaica as toddler. Why does it continue to mean so much to you?
A: You never leave where you came from.
