No Woman No Cry

My Life with Bob Marley

Rita Marley
with Hettie Jones

Praise for
No Woman No Cry

“Rita does [Bob Marley's] legacy a greater favor by humanizing him and his astounding musical gifts.”

—
Rolling Stone

“Tart, self-assured, and lasting.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

“This book makes an important contribution to our understanding of Marley and Jamaican music in general.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Rita is a strong woman whose angle on Bob Marley is fresh and authoritative.”

—
Booklist

“Above all, fans will find a simple story of a woman who married a simple man, watched him rise to fame, and bravely endured many tribulations at his side.”

—
Library Journal

     
C
OVER

     
T
ITLE
P
AGE

     
P
RAISE

     
E
PIGRAPH

     
P
ROLOGUE

I remember when we used to sit

in the government yard in Trenchtown …

In this bright future, you can't forget your past …

Oh, little darling … oh my little sister …

don't shed no tears …

No woman, no cry

BOB MARLEY

P
EOPLE ASK WHAT
it's like when I'm somewhere and suddenly Bob's voice comes on the radio. But the thing about Bob is so deep, it is as if he's always with me, there's always something to remind me. So I don't wait for his voice.

And he did promise me, before he finally closed his eyes, that he'd be here. It was May 11, 1981, and the doctors said he was dying of cancer and that there was no hope. But Bob was hanging on, he wouldn't let go.

I had put his head in my arm, and I was singing “God Will Take Care of You.” But then I started to cry and said, “Bob, please, don't leave me.”

And he looked up and said, “Leave you, go where? What are you crying for? Forget crying, Rita! Just keep singing. Sing! Sing!”

So I kept singing, and then I realized, wow, that's exactly what the song was saying: “I will never leave you, wherever you are I will be …”

So if I hear his voice now, it's only confirming that he's always around, everywhere. Because you do really hear his voice wherever you go. All over the world.

And one interesting thing about it, to me, is that most people only hear
him
. But I hear more, because I'm on almost all of the songs. So I also hear
my
voice, I also hear
me
.

I
WAS AN AMBITIOUS
girl child. I knew even then that I had to be, in that environment of thugs, thieves, killers, prostitutes, gamblers—you name it, you'd find it in Trench Town. But alongside the bad lived the good, a lot of strong, talented people who were really aiming at being someone. Barbers. Bus drivers. Seamstresses. Bob himself worked as a welder for a while.

I grew up in the care of my father, Leroy Anderson, a musician who worked as a carpenter. Sometimes I'd go with him to his carpentry jobs, or to hear him play his tenor saxophone. In his woodworking shop outside our house, he'd sit me on the end of the board and call me pet names, like “Colitos,” or “Sunshine,” or other variations on my full name, Alfarita Constantia Anderson. Because I was very dark-skinned, the kids in school called me “blackie tootus” (black and shiny, with very white teeth). I learned discrimination early and underestimated my own value because of my color. Jamaica has a long history of color consciousness and racial struggle. It's like that old American song, “If you're black, get back, if you're brown, stick around …”

Trench Town was, and still is, a ghetto in Kingston, Jamaica's capital. Back then it was a shantytown on tracks and dirt roads. Most people just captured a piece of land, got a government lease for it, and then built anything they could. You'd find cardboard houses, houses made of corrugated metal, concrete block houses. It was like Africa, one hut here, one there. Many places in Jamaica are still like that.

When I was five, my mother, Cynthia “Beda” Jarrett, left Papa and my brother Wesley and me to start a new family with another man. (She kept my other brother, Donovan, who was lighter-skinned.) I loved my mother, because when people would look at us kids and say, “Who fe one is this?” and “Who fe one is that?” I'd always hear, “Oh that's Beda's child” or “Beda's only daughter” and “What a way she grow up fine, sweet little girl!”

But I had been sharing houses out between my mother and her own mother, my grandmother Yaya, before my father decided this was foolishness. Maybe he was jealous of Beda courting another man and felt that we shouldn't be around him. Anyway, I spent more time with Yaya, because I was her complexion—my mother's family is Cuban—and we got along fine. I didn't even mind smelling her cigars—she smoked them backward, with the fire end in her mouth! Yaya's yard was full of her grandchildren, offspring of five daughters, all of whom needed “all-day children stay with you.” Yaya was security, she boiled a big pot of cornmeal porridge for the morning serve, and my cousins and I, ages four and five and six, all drank our porridge and ate our crackers and then went off to our little prep school.

When my father decided that he would rather have us living with him, he asked his sister Viola if she would help. Viola had no children, but she was married and trying to build her own life, and didn't feel she had to do this. Until our grandparents, who were fond of us, intervened and urged her to consider it. “You must help Roy,” our grandfather is supposed to have said, “because these are good children and need your help.” This grandfather, a tailor, died just about the same time as Aunty Viola Anderson Britton agreed to take us into her house. So I didn't get a chance to know him, but I've got a lot to thank him for. I wouldn't say I've lost anything by not going with my mother; I think I've grown into the woman that I ought to be by being raised by my aunty and my father and my brother, because they all played a part. We had to support each other.

Aunty was first of all a dressmaker and designer of wedding clothes, in partnership with her sister, Dorothy “Tita” Walker, whom we kids called “Fat Aunty.” All over Kingston people knew that if you wanted a wedding, all the way from the bride and groom to the page boy, “The Two Sisters” were the ones to see. Their specialty was wedding dresses with bridesmaid and flower girl. And don't forget the cake—Aunty could make that too—from one to five layers! For a time she also kept a cold supper shop in the lane outside our house, where we sold ginger beer, pudding, fish, fried dumplings, tea, soup. All to make a living. Her husband, Herman Britton, was a driver for Public Works. He was very good to me, and I thought of him as my stepfather, but he and Aunty had problems and would fuss when he came home drunk every Friday night. Apart from that, he was a quiet, peaceful man. Mr. Britton had two sons outside the marriage, and eventually he and Aunty divorced.

I don't know how she managed it, but 18A Greenwich Park Road, where we lived, was one of the best-looking houses around. It had started as a “government house,” a wooden structure with a zinc (tin) roof, part of a government housing scheme. Now it had three bedrooms, a sewing room, an outside kitchen and pit toilet, a veranda, and a fence with a gate you could lock, which was very unusual in Trench Town, where in those days every place was open and you could walk into anyone's yard. We also had radio and later television, and even water piped into our yard, so we didn't have to go to the standpipe to catch water like most people who lived there.

Though we all had our chores, Aunty always employed one or two helpers to tend to the housework while she sewed. Mas King was our hand helper. He would work with Aunty to add on to the house, or to lay down the zincs when they would lift up off the roof in a high wind or heavy rain. But she'd always be the one in charge—Mas King would be down below reaching the nail and she up there hammering! Aunty was a go-getter with a flair, a special character. She was a small woman, but energetic and intense, feisty—in Jamaica we pronounce that
face-ty
. Aunty could definitely get in your face. She was still in her early thirties when I went to live with her, very pretty and sexy. Long as I knew her she maintained her good body and beautiful skin. But she was way more than appearance—I used to call her the village lawyer, because she was into
everything
. Everybody come complain to Miz Britton, so and so and so, and if anything happened in the area they'd rush to tell her. She also ran “partner,” a lottery where everyone gave her money and then got to draw at the end of the week. She was a breadwinner for the community and very “government,” making sure everyone voted, and if anything happened—like I said, she was in
charge
. I know it was no small thing for a woman like that to take in two young children, but I think she did it with an open heart, because she loved her brother and respected her parents. And in return she was well loved, always loved. More than loved, our
beloved
Aunty.

Papa used to make stools on his carpentry bench outside our home, and I had one for myself. Everyone knew this was Colitos's stool, sort of benchy with four legs and a square top, but very neatly done with a finish. So you could know that someone had a father who is a fine carpenter here. I sat on it during my break time or if I wanted to stay by Aunty's machine while she sewed, cleaning up something or pulling out stitches or just watching and learning. Eventually I became a hemmer for her, hemming skirt tails and all of that.

Aunty's nickname was “Vie” (pronounced
vye
), and I had my own sweet name for her—“Vie Vie.” Whenever I said “Vie Vie,” things would work out. But whenever she spanked me I'd think, oh why did she? If she loved me so much she wouldn't spank me! Oh it's because she's only my Aunty, oh how I wish I could be with my mother! Many times after I was spanked I would take my stool to the house corner and sit down and cry. I can see myself now, looking left and then right to see if I was alone, because if the helpers or anyone else saw me crying they would tell—“Rita out there cry, ma'am!” So I would cry secretly, wondering why, why did she have to hit me? Is it because I don't have a mother? Is it because I don't have any mother … And then I would bawl, really bawl good and loud, to make sure she came out there and saw me and heard what I said. Because she didn't feel as if I needed a mother besides her.