So did you miss me? I moved into a space and got internet for the place, so here we are, ready to resume the thankless tedium of audio restoration with the first post of Black History Month.
Today is an easy one, a pretty straightforward tribute to one of the most beloved musicians who will ever be, on a milestone birthday.
That he is 75 today, or would/should have been, is really kind of mindblowing. I remember the reports of his death on the radio when I was all of 14 years old... that he is gone almost 40 years is testimony to the fact that we old.
We might have gotten old, but the music of Robert Nesta Marley will never age a day. It will be enjoyed and provide a philosophical basis of constructive resistance long after everyone any of us know is way gone from this orb, and you don't need me to tell you that to know it's fact.
Was he murdered by the darker forces? The dreaded CIA soccer shoes? We'll never know for sure, but it no longer really matters.
If the Babylon bastards didn't kill him, you bet they wanted to. That's how you know you're singing the song right, when Art becomes so weaponized in the mind of your audience the Controlling Hand has to step in and reintroduce the boot to your collective neck.
Probably the closest thing to a living, breathing shaman onstage as any artist of our lifetimes, just his live performances alone were life-altering experiences for a great many attendees.
And this, to say nothing of the music he specifically helped to invent, codify and popularize to the point where by the end of the 1970s, it had taken over the world, and continues life today as one of the richest and most vital genres we have here.
And, yet, there's more. Enjoy legal cannabis much? Without guys like Bob paving the way when it wasn't quite such a popular position, you'd still be hiding your little herb stalk in the bushes and running from the roadblocks today.
They called him the Negus of Reggae Music back then and in a certain sense, he always will be the singlemost identifiable artist of the firmament of it, which as we know is extensive.
Is Bob Marley one of the ten most recognizable global cultural figures of the last 100 years? I would say absolutely to the power of definitely.
He is looking down from the right hand of Jah right now, surveying his accomplishment and loving the idea that somewhere on Earth, at all times, one of his tunes is playing and bringing the Irie vibe he always intended.
The saying goes that you can kill a revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution. From what we see around us just this week, we can't help but wonder why the powerful privileged never seem to comprehend its basic truth.
It's OK, though, because for every billionaire sociopath endowed only with the capacity for coercion, there's 1000 spiritual children of Bob Marley in the world ready to counter it with the commensurate quantity and quality of compassion.
So let's give thanks and praises to the Most High on Bob's big day here, courtesy of one of the acknowledged jewels of his as-yet-unreleased performances.
Bob Marley & the Wailers
The Boarding House
San Francisco, California USA
7.7.1975
01 Trenchtown Rock
02 Burnin’ & Lootin’
03 Midnight Ravers
04 Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)
05 Rebel Music (3 O'Clock Roadblock)
06 No Woman, No Cry
07 Kinky Reggae
08 Stir It Up
09 Lively Up Yourself
10 Get Up, Stand Up
Total time: 1:05:33
Bob Marley - guitar, vocals & percussion
Aston "Family Man" Barrett - bass
Carlton Barrett - drums & percussion
Al Anderson - guitar
Tyrone Downie - keyboards
Alvin "Seeco" Patterson - percussion
Judy Mowatt - vocals
Rita Marley - vocals
KSAN-FM pre-FM reels, pitch corrected in 2009 by sidewindersf
one track marker moved to start with actual music by EN, February 2020
354 MB FLAC/February 2020 archive link
I will try to fire up my beautiful machine in my new surroundings, disoriented as I may be, in the next few days, and brew up some BHM badness like I try to do each February.
Do enjoy this show -- you can hear the crowd at one of Bob's last club gigs before he became too big for stadiums ready to spontaneously combust from the then-new sounds being transmitted from the stage -- and let's celebrate the 75th birthday of a legend's legend for all the ages, with whom we have all been so fortunate to have our lifetimes overlap.--J.
2.6.1945 - 5.11.1981