No Woman No Cry (3 page)

When I found out that the Wailing Wailers passed our house every day on their way to Coxsone's studio, I told Dream and Marlene that we ought to meet them and sing for them. One evening when I looked out they were passing the cemetery, so the three of us ran out to wave. Looking at them—there were three of them, too—I thought, well, they look all right, I could be friends with those guys. Even though Aunty was always saying, “Don't look out for that boy business, you already have one baby, so just be cool now, you're either going to work or back to school or I'll have to send you to your father—you're not going to stay here and be an inconvenience!”

Nevertheless, I began to watch for the Wailers and listen to them on the radio, and one day not long afterward they stopped and waved back, and Peter Tosh, the tall one, came across the street while the two others leaned on the cemetery wall, strumming their guitars. Peter introduced himself—his real name was Winston Hubert McIntosh—and asked me how I was, and what was my name, and called me a “nice girl.”

“So you're the Wailers,” I said. “And who's that one?”

“That's Bunny,” he said. “And the other is Robbie.”

“Hi!” I yelled across the street, all the while trying to think of a way to tell them that we could sing. Later I said to Dream, “Let's try to practice that song ‘What's Your Name?' by Sam and Dave.”

The next time the Wailers came past and stopped to greet us, I said to Peter, “You know, we can sing a bit.”

And he said, “Well sing then, man.”

Aunty had been so strict with me since I'd had Sharon that I hadn't even been allowed to talk to boys out of our yard. “Don't make me feel like I'm an old woman just because I have a baby! I'm still young, I still can be happy!” I had yelled at her. But the rule was that I could only socialize over the fence, so when Peter asked, I opened the gate and stood half in and half out. And we sang.

The next day not just Peter but the one called Robbie came over. This time I was alone. He and I said hello, but he was shy, and I thought, oh, nice boy. Then Peter said, “You look like a decent girl, and it seems as if you can sing, so why don't you let us take you up to Coxsone's for an audition one of these days?”

That was an offer I needed to consider. Would those guys take me away and rape me? After all, Trench Town was full of risky, tough “rude boys,” and most of them could sing.

By then, though, a few of Papa's friends were aware of our talent after having heard Dream and me in the yard. Andy Anderson and Denzil Lang were also friends of Coxsone, so one day they decided to pull some strings and take us up to see him.

All excited but a little nervous, Marlene, Dream, and I went to the studio—and there were the Wailing Wailers, who were surprised now as well as interested. It was great—we did a few songs, and then Coxsone asked Robbie to play the guitar for us while we sang some more.

I could tell it was important to all three of the Wailers to see that Dream and I were being raised strictly, that we had discipline from our house, that we had been brought to Coxsone by older men who knew music. Robbie in particular seemed to take that as something very positive. And I think he started to feel interested in me then. But that first day I was just freelancing, I wasn't really concentrating on any special one of them. It was exciting enough just to be at Coxsone's, where you see people you hear on the radio!

Did I have any idea that in a few short months this Robbie Marley, the shy guitarist, would become the love of my life? Did I suspect that he'd become a major force, world-renowned, an icon of musical history?

No! What was on my mind was Aunty's warning: “Don't you dare stay too long because you have to give the baby titty when she wakes up!!”

S
TUDIO ONE HAD
probably been a home before Coxsone bought it. He had taken down walls, but it was easy to imagine where the bedroom used to be and the kitchen and the hall. So you felt like you were at home there, because it was less like a business and more like a family affair. When anything happened, everybody got excited—the musicians, the singers, the man outside. And the hype was, “We do a hit tune today.” “We” meaning it was everybody's hit tune. We would be there for days, nights, days, but nobody complained—it was just fun to wake up and say, “
Oooh
, I have studio today!”

Coxsone had recorded some of the most successful groups in Jamaica, including the famous “Skatalites,” one of the earliest ska bands. (The word “ska” comes from a certain sound made by the electric guitar.) Marcia Griffiths, who later sang with me as one of the I-Three, says that Studio One was Jamaica's Motown, “where all the great stars grew … like a university you graduate.” A lot of times different people would be working at once; songs were being written in every corner. You couldn't help but learn if you kept your ears open. Coxsone had a guitar that he loaned to those who were too poor to buy one. Bob had that guitar most of the time.

The backup group we eventually formed still consisted of Dream, myself, and Marlene, who would leave school in the evenings to come to Trench Town and rehearse, and whose parents thought this was the worst ambition. To leave high school to go to Trench Town, to be with those kinds of people—the tough guys, the killers, the thieves!

Dream was my main tootsie, my favorite cousin, my little postman, my little errand runner. As a baby, he had the most beautiful big eyes you've ever seen, and always looked as if he was dreaming—you know that sexy dreamy look? So from an early age Constantine Anthony Walker was known as “Dream.” He was only about thirteen, the baby amongst us, when we met the Wailers. They, being the Misters of Black Progress, who taught us that Black Is Beautiful and how wise it is to know yourself, decided that Dream was so much their little “buds” (buddy) that they had to change his nickname. Only old men have
dreams
, they insisted, but young men have
visions
. And so Dream became Vision. A much more youthful flavor!

We sang behind the Wailers and sometimes behind other singers or groups who were recording. Coxsone and some others on the scene suggested we name ourselves something like the Marvelettes, an American group we'd heard, and so we became the “Soulettes.” Our first big hit, with Delroy Wilson also singing background, was “I Love You, Baby.” This was a big, big thrill for us. We were unknown, we weren't out there in the show business arena, and we were all still teenagers, starry-eyed amateurs.

It was also Coxsone's suggestion that Bob train and rehearse us, and I guess by then he must have seen something happening between Bob and me.

He was pretty handsome, I thought—Robert Nesta Marley, Robbie to all of us then. Jamaicans would call him brown-skinned and Americans might say light-skinned. His father, Captain Norval Sinclair Marley, was an older white man, a native Jamaican who had retired from the British Army. Bob had much of his father's imprint; he was very half-black, half-white, with a high, round forehead, prominent cheekbones, and a long nose. His mother, Cedella “Ciddy” Malcolm, was seventeen when she met Norval. He was more than twice her age, and was then the superintendent for British-owned lands in the rural parish of St. Ann, where Ciddy lived. By the time she was nineteen, she'd been seduced by, married to, and then abandoned by Norval. The one time he saw his father, Bob used to say, the old man offered him a “Willy” penny (an old copper coin, thought of as a collector's item). Bob claimed he never saw Norval again.

But like me, Bob had an extended family to raise him, at least for a while. His grandfather, Omeriah Malcolm, was a
myalman
, or healer, as well as a successful businessman respected in his community of Nine Miles. So it didn't surprise me that Bob, as the world would come to know, was very black conscious—his black consciousness covered his light skin. You see him, you hear him, and he's a black man. And he was very disciplined, self-disciplined. Very real.

At fourteen he had come from St. Ann to Kingston with his mother, to live with her and a man named Thaddius (Taddy) Livingston, who had offered her work in his bar. Ciddy had a daughter, Pearl, with Taddy, but then found out he was already married and had other women besides. Looking for a better life, she took Pearl, who was still a baby, and migrated to Wilmington, Delaware, where she had some family and friends. Bob was left in Taddy's care, but more like on his own. He told me that his mother's plan had been to send for him in three months, as soon as she was settled and could secure the necessary papers. But the papers weren't easy to get. The three months had become more than three years.

When we met, Bob was living in an uneasy situation with Taddy Livingston, Taddy's common-law wife, and his son Neville Livingston, called Bunny, the member of the Wailers eventually known as Bunny Wailer. With his mother away, Bob lacked the kind of support and defense I got from Aunty. (One of his early songs is titled “Where Is My Mother.”) Taddy's woman resented him, as the son of a woman who had had an affair with her man. One day Bob told me how fed up he was with both Taddy and this “stepmother,” who wanted him to be her maid because he wasn't bringing any money to the house. For a while he had simply become an errand boy, then worked as a trainee in a welding shop, before making his first singles, “Judge Not” and then “One Cup of Coffee,” on the Beverley's label. That Bob was getting some attention didn't mean he was being paid very much. No one had money then.

At first, and maybe always, I cared for Robbie Marley from a sisterly point of view. I was that sort of person, and still am—the responsible kind. I saw him and I said, “poor thing.” It wasn't “I love him,” but “poor thing.” My heart went out to him. I kept thinking, oh, what a
nice
boy. So nice that I didn't want to let him know I had a baby—in those days, for a teenager to be unmarried and have a baby seemed so shameful. During this time I spent many hours at Studio One, rehearsing and recording, and always managed to conceal that fact. But one day, right in the middle of recording, my breasts started to leak, and Bob noticed. He said, a little surprised, “What's that? You have a baby?” It was not said unkindly.

Although I was terribly embarrassed, I couldn't deny the evidence, so I just nodded.

And he said, “I could tell. Why you didn't let us know? Why you didn't ask to go home early? Is it a boy or girl?”

“Well, it's a girl,” I said.

“Where is she? What is her name? Where is her father? Can I see her?”

All these questions came fast, with great concern. I stood there, looking at him, unable to answer right away. I found that concern to be very mature for a young man still in his teens—like caring and at the same time maybe seeing me through a different eye. His interest in my baby made me feel proud instead of ashamed. That to me was a good sign, but so unexpected. Finally he said, “Go home and feed your baby and I'll see you later.”

And this is where my love came in. I looked at him and thought, uh-oh, such a
nice
guy. And I got weak in the knees. Oh my God, I thought, oh my God.

That evening, he did come by. Sharon was about five months old then. When I brought her out, he loved her. And she loved him. When she learned to talk a little she couldn't say “Robbie,” so she called him “Bahu.”

From that day on, when you'd see Bob, I'd be his tail. He'd have me by the hand, walking me, come on, Rita. When all this first started, Sharon's father and I were still corresponding. Bob didn't like that and made his position clear. In fact, he insisted that I end the relationship—why was I having anything to do with a man who wouldn't help me or the baby? One day he caught Dream with a letter to be mailed to Sharon's father and took it away from him! (That ended the correspondence.)

I learned firsthand about his generosity then, this Robbie, the kind of man he was, because whenever he had a little money he'd come by the house with some Cow & Gate baby food and a drink for Aunty. And even she began to give in to his nice ways and manners. “Well,” she said, “it looks like something is going on here.”

And so, though I didn't expect this, I became
his
. As in okay now, guys, this is
my
girl. Even Peter Tosh respected that and learned not to touch, because Peter was very touchy, he would see you and
ohh
—hug you up and try to squeeze you.

But Bob said, no no no … this is
my
girl.

It wasn't long before Coxsone put out a Wailers album with the Soulettes behind them. Released in 1965, it was called
The Wailing Wailers
. Since Dream was so much younger than Marlene and I, and had a soft, sweet voice, our female voices overpowered his presence, and the main impression the Soulettes gave was that of a female group. I was the lead singer, and eventually, when we started to get bookings for concerts, two other young women—Cecile Campbell and Hortense Lewis—came in, as Dream sometimes wasn't able to go on the road, either because he had to go to school or because he was restricted by his age from some of the events that we were allowed to attend.

I loved performing live, under the bright lights and inside the music, being onstage. And it was a thrill to be earning a little money independently. But I still wasn't sure about giving up the security of a nursing career, although I loved music so much and it seemed as if that's what I was going after. Bob and I were always meeting, rehearsing, talking, giving each other advice. One of the important aspects of our relationship was that we were friends before we became lovers, we were naturally friendly, like brother and sister. He was always teaching me to hold notes and other aspects of music. He was
concerned
about me. “You're a
nice
girl,” he'd caution, “so don't get mix up, these men will use you and abuse you, and you could be caught up and have many more babies and destroy yourself. So don't follow them, see about your
work
. Decide! Decide whether you really love music or want to go back to nursing, but be serious about whatever you do.”