Marley

[Joseph]

I really enjoyed the documentary biography of Bob Marley that's out now, Marley. I've always loved the style & music of the Rastafari. I met a guy in 1979 who had gone to Jamaica, heard the call & converted. He had great dreadlocks. Alas, as a son of the northern European gene pool with very fine blonde hair I had no chance of achieving dreads. I stopped combing my hair for a few months & it made no difference.

On reflection, the Rastafari  veneration of Haile Selassie is no more ludicrous than that of any other religion. I venerate an obscure 1st century Jewish healer, exorcist & prophet who became an idol of the very empire that executed him.

I love this account account by John Troy of his encounter with a wild old Rastaman who became his ultimate spiritual friend. I & I.

One Love

Joseph

[Mary W.]

Bob Marley is a long-time favorite of mine -- I think our household has every work of his! I had a great love affair with reggae and Rastas during the 1980s, right after the elder Marley died and groups that played reggae, reggae-influenced rock, and ska blossomed throughout the Caribbean, U.S., and England. My biracial "half and half" hair was too thin to grow decent dreads, but I would have loved to have had them. I still think dreadlocks are beautiful. 

In the mid and later 80s, after I'd moved to southern California, I went to nearly every reggae concert that came our way. I saw Ziggy Marley, Burning Spear, Toots and the Maytals, Yellowman, Black Uhuru (with Sly and Robbie) ... At one Black Uhuru concert, a roadie invited me backstage to meet the band. The one woman in the band at the time, Puma Jones, was a Columbia University graduate and social worker from South Carolina who had become disillusioned with life in the U.S. and had gone to Jamaica for a vacation and to discover her roots. She ended up staying there, going Rasta, and singing and making albums with Black Uhuru. I wish I'd gotten more of a chance to talk with her (I found her journey and her conversion fascinating), but I was too much of a star-struck / party-hearty girl then. Unfortunately, in 1990 she died of breast cancer. She was 36.

Here's one of my favorite tunes by them, "Utterance" --in honor of the Rastafari --

[Mary W.]

P.S.  -- I Love King Selassie. Still.

And this Marley reggae-psalm: The Heathen.

[Mary W.]

And, I cannot help but add: Natural Mystic.