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Did Jim Brown organize hit on Bob Marley?
SUNDAY, 27 FEBRUARY 2011 09:26 EDITOR
Mystery still surrounds the 1976 shooting at Bob Marley's 56 Hope Road residence when the reggae king was wounded by one of the 56 bullets reportedly fired by gunmen. Most people believed the shooting was political. And some accused the late Claudie Massop for the shooting.
He wrote, "No one really believed that Claudie Massop, Bob Marley's good friend, would have involved himself in such a treacherous move, but Jim Brown, don of the JLP stronghold of Tivoli Gardens, and alleged godfather of the multimillion-dollar drug dealing Shower Posse, might have done it" to show his boss that he could be a trusted assassin.
Ironically, Salewicz, noted that Marley prophesied that the person who "did this would die from the same number of bullets. Fifty-six was the number of bullets fired by policemen into Massop's body in February 1979 at the corner of Industrial Terrace and Marcus Garvey Drive, Kingston.
According to the book, from all indications, Marley's decision to perform at the Smile Jamaica Concert sparked the shooting.
Picture the situation. Late 1976 and the streets of Kingston were red hot with rival political factions fighting for power.
In October 1976, posters appeared around Kingston announcing a free performance the following Christmas Day by Bob Marley and the Wailers — the 'Smile Jamaica' concert, on the Prime Minister's spacious lawn at his official home of Jamaica House. Michael Manley and his socialist party were riding in high gear in preparation for a shot for a second term after his 1972 victory.
Bob was unhappy because his generous humanist assertions could be labeled as socialism and in many quarters including Jamaica Labour Party circles, the reggae king was backing Manley's People's National Party with its affiliation with Castro and Russia, while rejecting the Jamaica Labour Party headed by Edward Seaga, dubbed in widespread graffiti, as "CIA-ga' because of the American secret service overt support of his team.
That would mean trouble. Bob paid a visit to the Prime Minister's residence, adjacent to 56 Hope Road, where he complained to Manley that the poster suggested he was officially supporting the Jamaican leader's PNP party.
In response to this, Manley asked Bob, hoping for a gesture of national solidarity from the island's ranking superstar to instead play a show at Kingston's National Heroes Circle, one that he said would have no political undertones.
Bob was assured by the Prime Minister that a political connection between the singer and the PNP was the last thing he desired.
According to Salewicz, Bob was being invited by the government of Jamaica and therefore would be performing for the entire nation: the 'Smile Jamaica' poster was to contain the words: 'Concert presented by Bob Marley in association with the Cultural Department of the Government of Jamaica.' By that time Jamaica was one politically charged community with political charges and counter charges flying.
Murders, shootings, fire bombings were part of the strategy.
A week after press release went out about the concert, which was to take place on December 5, Manley announced election would be held on December 15.
Salewicz argued that such a tricky sleight of hand played by the Jamaican Prime Minister again made it appear as though Bob and the Wailers were personally sanctioning the actions of the PNP.
Certainly JLP supporters interpreted it in this manner.
To some extent, Bob had had his arm twisted. He was repaying a debt to the late Tony Spaulding, the PNP Minister of Housing, for setting Bob's family up in their new home in Bull Bay. Because Bob had already bought Spaulding a BMW, he felt that the debt had been settled. Through Spaulding, Bob Marley had met Tony Welch, an 'efficient enforcer' — as the late Don Taylor euphemistically described him — for the PNP; the charismatic Claudie Massop, a close associate of Tivoli Gardens' don Jim Brown, held a similar position for the JLP.
In an effort to dilute the day-today political violence in Kingston, Bob Marley welcomed both Welch and Massop to 56 Hope Road, where they became almost permanent daily fixtures.
This led to some confusion for onlookers: they would see one or the other of these ranking gunmen entering or leaving '56' and draw their own conclusions.
During rehearsals at 56 Hope Road, Salewicz said a 'white bwai' came to the property and advised the singer to tone one down his lyrics, and to stop aiming at a white audience in the USA; if he didn't, he would find his visa to enter America would be taken away. Then the man left, as suddenly as he had arrived.
Whoever this was would appear to have been acting under instructions from the US Embassy, if not from the CIA. Don Taylor was convinced it was a message from the CIA, who at that time had a close relationship with the JLP; this was part of a strategy of relentlessly undermining Michael Manley's policy of allying with other Third World nations, notably communist Cuba.
Effectively, Jamaica was in a state of covert civil war, to such an extent that on 19 June 1976, a nationwide State of Emergency had been called by the Governor- General, the formidably named Sir Florizel Glasspole: the PNP charged that the JLP and CIA were plotting to destabilise Jamaica.
There were, noted Judy Mowatt, 'some eerie feelings in the air'. On the Jamaican radio airwaves, however, everything sounded irie (great): massive play was being given to 'Smile Jamaica', a musical celebration of the island's virtues, which Bob and the Wailers had recorded after the concert was announced — this was the slower version of the tune recorded at Harry J's, without Scratch's assistance. The night before the song was recorded, however, Judy Mowatt had had a 'vision'. She dreamt she was being shown a headline in a newspaper: 'Bob Got Shot,' it read, 'For a Song.'
Troubled, Judy went to Harry J's later that day for the session to record the track. Now she noticed something about the song that hadn't been previously apparent: it contained a line, which ran, 'Under heavy manners'. This phrase, meaning under strict discipline, was the PNP's principle political slogan. Bob had until recently been off the island, on the Rastaman Vibration tour, and seemed unaware of the political implications of such words.
Clearly, realised Judy, they would mark Bob out as a PNP supporter.
Anxiously, she expressed her worries to Marcia Griffiths, telling her about the content of her dream. 'Go and tell him now,' exhorted Marcia.
In the control room at Harry J's, Bob was surrounded by his brethren from the Twelve Tribes sect of Rastafari, one with which the musician empathised. The air was thick and grey with herb smoke as they listened to various playbacks. All the same, Judy told him she must talk to him.
'Yeah, mon,' he said, and went out on the steps with her. She told him how the 'under heavy manners' line would label him as a PNP supporter. Bob agreed.
Returning to the studio control room, he spoke to his brethren: 'Gentlemen, wha' yuh think' pon the line "Under heavy manners?" And everyone say, "Bwai, mi not think about it." Then one say, "Bwai, it nuh right, because they use it fe them slogan."
Now everyone was taking it upon themselves to advise against using the words — though, noted Judy, none of them previously had bothered to counsel Bob against their use.
According to Salewicz in his book, Early on the morning of Friday 3 December, Bob, Skill Cole, Seeco Patterson, Carly Barrett, and Neville Garrick, the Tuff Gong art director, drove out to jog along the beach at Bull Bay; 'a lickle eye-opener', as Bob referred to these regular morning athletic expeditions. 'Man, I had some weird dream last night,' a puzzled Bob told Neville. 'I couldn't make out if it were gunfire or firecrackers, but it sound like I'm in a war.'
Immediately afterwards, one of those out-of the-blue incidents that so characterise Jamaica occurred: police arrested Garrick at gunpoint as he rolled a spliff in his car, and was taken to the Bull Bay police station. Bob followed him down there and, using his influences, took him back with him to 56 Hope Road.
In it she saw a rooster and three chickens. Someone shot at the rooster, and the bullet hit one of the chickens; from the side of the wounded chicken protruded its intestines. This dream scared Judy: 'I looked at Bob as being represented by the rooster, and we were the back-up chickens.' Arriving at 56 Hope Road to rehearse for the 'Smile Jamaica' concert, she told Marcia and Rita about this dream. Marcia admitted she had also felt premonitions; she decided to leave 56 Hope Road and go home. But Rita and Judy stayed on and rehearsed. Later that evening, Rita was booked to take part in rehearsals for a pantomime, 'Queenie's Daughter', at the Ward Theatre. The two women singers said they would leave the rehearsal at the same time — Rita to the Ward Theatre and Judy to her Bull Bay home.
The rehearsal was held in the upstairs room that was sometimes used. Judy, who was seven months pregnant, continued to feel edgy. At the end of each song they ran through, she found herself wandering over to the doorway and looking out down the corridor. 'Subconsciously, I knew something was going to happen.'
When the rehearsal was finished, she asked Bob if he could drive her home. Bob said he was waiting for someone and instead he asked Neville to drive Judy in Bob's BMW. Neville was not particularly pleased.
Notwithstanding his experience with the police that morning, he was awaiting with pleasure for the arrival of Up-Sweet, who would be bringing with him some herb fit for connoisseurs. Neville knew that, by the time he came back from Bull Bay, the best herb would have all gone.
Later Judy realised that she and Neville, who were accompanied for the ride by Sticko, a former 'sticksman' employed as gateman, had left in the nick of time.
'Because if they saw Bob's BMW leaving, they would have shot it up with Neville and myself.' As they drove out, Judy passed her cousin, who was also pregnant, walking through the gate. Later her cousin told her she had only walked a few yards up Hope Road when she heard shooting — she had kept on walking.
Leaving the rehearsal room, Bob had wandered down to the kitchen. Peeling a grapefruit, he looked up as Don Taylor came into the room. Bob's manager walked straight into the line of fire of a gunman who had appeared in the doorway and was loosing off shots indiscriminately in the direction of Bob. Taylor took four shots in the groin — the gunman was firing from one of the lower steps leading into the kitchen — and a bullet that missed him ricocheted off a wall and whizzed across Bob's chest into his arm. If he had been inhaling instead of exhaling, the bullet would have gone into his heart.
Then Taylor fell on him.
'Selassie I Jah Rastafari,' uttered Bob.
Rita, meanwhile, had been sitting in her yellow Volkswagen Beetle, starting up the engine, with a pair of youths occupying the rear seat. Five shots were fired at her through the vehicle's rear window as she screamed at the boys to get flat on the floor.
Putting her VW into gear, she raced off around the corner of the house, heading for the gate. But a pair of gunmen ran after her: a bullet was blasted through the door, and a final bullet went through the front windscreen.
Although at least one bullet hits her in the head, the glass seemed to have slowed down its pressure, and it slid over her skull, not fully penetrating it. As she neared the lion-encrusted wrought-iron gate of the property, Rita braked the car to a halt, feeling blood dribbling down her neck. As she did so, one of the gunmen ran up, pointing his weapon at her head; Rita played dead, and the gunman, apparently having been distracted, ran off.
Still up in the rehearsal room, Family Man heard the shots.
Realising this was a 'serious business', he ran down the passageway into the bathroom, leaping into the metal tub. He was followed by the three horn players, Glen DaCosta, Dave Madden, and Vin Gordon, who bundled up on top of him, followed by Tyrone Downie. On top of them suddenly jumped Bob. As he tried to hide himself as low down in the bath as he could get, he somehow knocked a tap, and water began to pour in on Family Man's head.
From the book, Bob Marley— The Untold Story by Chris Salewicz, who spent time with Marley in Jamaica. The book was published in 2009.
SUNDAY, 27 FEBRUARY 2011 09:26 EDITOR
Mystery still surrounds the 1976 shooting at Bob Marley's 56 Hope Road residence when the reggae king was wounded by one of the 56 bullets reportedly fired by gunmen. Most people believed the shooting was political. And some accused the late Claudie Massop for the shooting.
He wrote, "No one really believed that Claudie Massop, Bob Marley's good friend, would have involved himself in such a treacherous move, but Jim Brown, don of the JLP stronghold of Tivoli Gardens, and alleged godfather of the multimillion-dollar drug dealing Shower Posse, might have done it" to show his boss that he could be a trusted assassin.
Ironically, Salewicz, noted that Marley prophesied that the person who "did this would die from the same number of bullets. Fifty-six was the number of bullets fired by policemen into Massop's body in February 1979 at the corner of Industrial Terrace and Marcus Garvey Drive, Kingston.
According to the book, from all indications, Marley's decision to perform at the Smile Jamaica Concert sparked the shooting.
Picture the situation. Late 1976 and the streets of Kingston were red hot with rival political factions fighting for power.
In October 1976, posters appeared around Kingston announcing a free performance the following Christmas Day by Bob Marley and the Wailers — the 'Smile Jamaica' concert, on the Prime Minister's spacious lawn at his official home of Jamaica House. Michael Manley and his socialist party were riding in high gear in preparation for a shot for a second term after his 1972 victory.
Bob was unhappy because his generous humanist assertions could be labeled as socialism and in many quarters including Jamaica Labour Party circles, the reggae king was backing Manley's People's National Party with its affiliation with Castro and Russia, while rejecting the Jamaica Labour Party headed by Edward Seaga, dubbed in widespread graffiti, as "CIA-ga' because of the American secret service overt support of his team.
That would mean trouble. Bob paid a visit to the Prime Minister's residence, adjacent to 56 Hope Road, where he complained to Manley that the poster suggested he was officially supporting the Jamaican leader's PNP party.
In response to this, Manley asked Bob, hoping for a gesture of national solidarity from the island's ranking superstar to instead play a show at Kingston's National Heroes Circle, one that he said would have no political undertones.
Bob was assured by the Prime Minister that a political connection between the singer and the PNP was the last thing he desired.
According to Salewicz, Bob was being invited by the government of Jamaica and therefore would be performing for the entire nation: the 'Smile Jamaica' poster was to contain the words: 'Concert presented by Bob Marley in association with the Cultural Department of the Government of Jamaica.' By that time Jamaica was one politically charged community with political charges and counter charges flying.
Murders, shootings, fire bombings were part of the strategy.
A week after press release went out about the concert, which was to take place on December 5, Manley announced election would be held on December 15.
Salewicz argued that such a tricky sleight of hand played by the Jamaican Prime Minister again made it appear as though Bob and the Wailers were personally sanctioning the actions of the PNP.
Certainly JLP supporters interpreted it in this manner.
To some extent, Bob had had his arm twisted. He was repaying a debt to the late Tony Spaulding, the PNP Minister of Housing, for setting Bob's family up in their new home in Bull Bay. Because Bob had already bought Spaulding a BMW, he felt that the debt had been settled. Through Spaulding, Bob Marley had met Tony Welch, an 'efficient enforcer' — as the late Don Taylor euphemistically described him — for the PNP; the charismatic Claudie Massop, a close associate of Tivoli Gardens' don Jim Brown, held a similar position for the JLP.
In an effort to dilute the day-today political violence in Kingston, Bob Marley welcomed both Welch and Massop to 56 Hope Road, where they became almost permanent daily fixtures.
This led to some confusion for onlookers: they would see one or the other of these ranking gunmen entering or leaving '56' and draw their own conclusions.
During rehearsals at 56 Hope Road, Salewicz said a 'white bwai' came to the property and advised the singer to tone one down his lyrics, and to stop aiming at a white audience in the USA; if he didn't, he would find his visa to enter America would be taken away. Then the man left, as suddenly as he had arrived.
Whoever this was would appear to have been acting under instructions from the US Embassy, if not from the CIA. Don Taylor was convinced it was a message from the CIA, who at that time had a close relationship with the JLP; this was part of a strategy of relentlessly undermining Michael Manley's policy of allying with other Third World nations, notably communist Cuba.
Effectively, Jamaica was in a state of covert civil war, to such an extent that on 19 June 1976, a nationwide State of Emergency had been called by the Governor- General, the formidably named Sir Florizel Glasspole: the PNP charged that the JLP and CIA were plotting to destabilise Jamaica.
There were, noted Judy Mowatt, 'some eerie feelings in the air'. On the Jamaican radio airwaves, however, everything sounded irie (great): massive play was being given to 'Smile Jamaica', a musical celebration of the island's virtues, which Bob and the Wailers had recorded after the concert was announced — this was the slower version of the tune recorded at Harry J's, without Scratch's assistance. The night before the song was recorded, however, Judy Mowatt had had a 'vision'. She dreamt she was being shown a headline in a newspaper: 'Bob Got Shot,' it read, 'For a Song.'
Troubled, Judy went to Harry J's later that day for the session to record the track. Now she noticed something about the song that hadn't been previously apparent: it contained a line, which ran, 'Under heavy manners'. This phrase, meaning under strict discipline, was the PNP's principle political slogan. Bob had until recently been off the island, on the Rastaman Vibration tour, and seemed unaware of the political implications of such words.
Clearly, realised Judy, they would mark Bob out as a PNP supporter.
Anxiously, she expressed her worries to Marcia Griffiths, telling her about the content of her dream. 'Go and tell him now,' exhorted Marcia.
In the control room at Harry J's, Bob was surrounded by his brethren from the Twelve Tribes sect of Rastafari, one with which the musician empathised. The air was thick and grey with herb smoke as they listened to various playbacks. All the same, Judy told him she must talk to him.
'Yeah, mon,' he said, and went out on the steps with her. She told him how the 'under heavy manners' line would label him as a PNP supporter. Bob agreed.
Returning to the studio control room, he spoke to his brethren: 'Gentlemen, wha' yuh think' pon the line "Under heavy manners?" And everyone say, "Bwai, mi not think about it." Then one say, "Bwai, it nuh right, because they use it fe them slogan."
Now everyone was taking it upon themselves to advise against using the words — though, noted Judy, none of them previously had bothered to counsel Bob against their use.
According to Salewicz in his book, Early on the morning of Friday 3 December, Bob, Skill Cole, Seeco Patterson, Carly Barrett, and Neville Garrick, the Tuff Gong art director, drove out to jog along the beach at Bull Bay; 'a lickle eye-opener', as Bob referred to these regular morning athletic expeditions. 'Man, I had some weird dream last night,' a puzzled Bob told Neville. 'I couldn't make out if it were gunfire or firecrackers, but it sound like I'm in a war.'
Immediately afterwards, one of those out-of the-blue incidents that so characterise Jamaica occurred: police arrested Garrick at gunpoint as he rolled a spliff in his car, and was taken to the Bull Bay police station. Bob followed him down there and, using his influences, took him back with him to 56 Hope Road.
In it she saw a rooster and three chickens. Someone shot at the rooster, and the bullet hit one of the chickens; from the side of the wounded chicken protruded its intestines. This dream scared Judy: 'I looked at Bob as being represented by the rooster, and we were the back-up chickens.' Arriving at 56 Hope Road to rehearse for the 'Smile Jamaica' concert, she told Marcia and Rita about this dream. Marcia admitted she had also felt premonitions; she decided to leave 56 Hope Road and go home. But Rita and Judy stayed on and rehearsed. Later that evening, Rita was booked to take part in rehearsals for a pantomime, 'Queenie's Daughter', at the Ward Theatre. The two women singers said they would leave the rehearsal at the same time — Rita to the Ward Theatre and Judy to her Bull Bay home.
The rehearsal was held in the upstairs room that was sometimes used. Judy, who was seven months pregnant, continued to feel edgy. At the end of each song they ran through, she found herself wandering over to the doorway and looking out down the corridor. 'Subconsciously, I knew something was going to happen.'
When the rehearsal was finished, she asked Bob if he could drive her home. Bob said he was waiting for someone and instead he asked Neville to drive Judy in Bob's BMW. Neville was not particularly pleased.
Notwithstanding his experience with the police that morning, he was awaiting with pleasure for the arrival of Up-Sweet, who would be bringing with him some herb fit for connoisseurs. Neville knew that, by the time he came back from Bull Bay, the best herb would have all gone.
Later Judy realised that she and Neville, who were accompanied for the ride by Sticko, a former 'sticksman' employed as gateman, had left in the nick of time.
'Because if they saw Bob's BMW leaving, they would have shot it up with Neville and myself.' As they drove out, Judy passed her cousin, who was also pregnant, walking through the gate. Later her cousin told her she had only walked a few yards up Hope Road when she heard shooting — she had kept on walking.
Leaving the rehearsal room, Bob had wandered down to the kitchen. Peeling a grapefruit, he looked up as Don Taylor came into the room. Bob's manager walked straight into the line of fire of a gunman who had appeared in the doorway and was loosing off shots indiscriminately in the direction of Bob. Taylor took four shots in the groin — the gunman was firing from one of the lower steps leading into the kitchen — and a bullet that missed him ricocheted off a wall and whizzed across Bob's chest into his arm. If he had been inhaling instead of exhaling, the bullet would have gone into his heart.
Then Taylor fell on him.
'Selassie I Jah Rastafari,' uttered Bob.
Rita, meanwhile, had been sitting in her yellow Volkswagen Beetle, starting up the engine, with a pair of youths occupying the rear seat. Five shots were fired at her through the vehicle's rear window as she screamed at the boys to get flat on the floor.
Putting her VW into gear, she raced off around the corner of the house, heading for the gate. But a pair of gunmen ran after her: a bullet was blasted through the door, and a final bullet went through the front windscreen.
Although at least one bullet hits her in the head, the glass seemed to have slowed down its pressure, and it slid over her skull, not fully penetrating it. As she neared the lion-encrusted wrought-iron gate of the property, Rita braked the car to a halt, feeling blood dribbling down her neck. As she did so, one of the gunmen ran up, pointing his weapon at her head; Rita played dead, and the gunman, apparently having been distracted, ran off.
Still up in the rehearsal room, Family Man heard the shots.
Realising this was a 'serious business', he ran down the passageway into the bathroom, leaping into the metal tub. He was followed by the three horn players, Glen DaCosta, Dave Madden, and Vin Gordon, who bundled up on top of him, followed by Tyrone Downie. On top of them suddenly jumped Bob. As he tried to hide himself as low down in the bath as he could get, he somehow knocked a tap, and water began to pour in on Family Man's head.
From the book, Bob Marley— The Untold Story by Chris Salewicz, who spent time with Marley in Jamaica. The book was published in 2009.
