Welcome to a Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye. Hi and welcome to the show. If you’re a first time listener, it’s great to have you.
And if you listen often, well, that’s even better. Could I remind you that if you like what you hear on A Breath of Fresh Air, then maybe you’d consider rating and reviewing the show on Spotify or Apple. It would mean an awful lot to me and would help spread the word.
Now enough of that. I don’t think anyone needs me to tell them who Bob Marley and the Wailers are. Perhaps the greatest reggae band in the world, the group was founded in 1963 by Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer.
When Peter and Bunny left in 74, Bob Marley continued making sensational music with a new lineup, one of whom I’m very happy to say is my guest this week. He’s New York born Al Anderson. And when Bob died from cancer in 1981, Al was the one tasked with keeping the music alive, a mission he’s still incredibly serious about today.
I’ll let him tell you the story. I came in just after Catching Fire and then Burning and then Not To Dread was my time in December around 1973, let’s say. I’ve been touring and representing the Wailers music for as long as I can remember, and I spent around eight years touring and recording with Bob side by side.
Stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up, get up, stand up. Don’t give up the fight.
You’re an American and you became part of this whole roster group. Tell me about how you got your start in music and how you got to come to join Bob Marley also. Everybody in my family played an instrument except me.
I was more into football, basketball and baseball. A lot of the family at that time was military. So, you know, we used to get together when they had off and they would jam.
And I was the only one just looking at everybody in misbelief that I couldn’t join in. And then my uncle and my cousin said, hey, man, you got to pick up the instrument. And I think I was about 13.
And I really wasn’t interested in music at that point until I went to high school. And there was a glee club teacher that thought that I could sing. He said, you know, you should pick up the instrument.
So I kind of started playing trombone as an instrument. And then as time went on, my cousin said, hey, man, here’s a guitar. Try this.
I realized that, wow, you know, you can play live. You can play in a studio. And if you’re really good, you can teach.
So there’s three incomes. And if I could get easy two of them, I think playing string instruments would work. I kind of left New York and went to Boston.
And then I got a job in a bakery. I was a baker and I had Aerosmith as friends. They introduced me to everybody.
I went to all these nightclubs where there was Santana, Fleetwood Mac, an array of traffic. I got to befriend a lot of people like Peter Green, Carlos Santana, who later on in my life I ended up working with and doing the Supernatural album for him. I just wanted to get out of America because I thought that England had a really cool vibe.
You saw Twiggy in those little mini dresses and the velvet clothes and the snake shoes and all that stuff. And I thought that the pop rock at that time, you know, I thought that T-Rex was pretty cool. America was a mess.
Racism. It was a really strange time for young colored kids to get respect and get noticed because of our class and differences in New York. We had a lot of people coming from the Caribbean, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans.
And so we were all fighting each other, whites and blacks and Puerto Ricans. It was a big race war and I didn’t want that. So I just went to England.
You know, the guys in Traffic and Free invited me over to London just to do some recording. And I said, yeah, for sure. How did you come to the attention of Chris Wood from Traffic? I met him at all the clubs that they played in, the Fillmore East, the Boston Tea Party, all these clubs that they were touring.
I could see every genre of music except reggae. Woody was not like the other guys in Traffic. He was a loner.
We became like really good friends. And he introduced me to Paul Cossel from Free. He was the one that got me the job with Bob Marley.
But I’ll get to that. I was pretty much in Berklee School of Music. I snuck into the classes until they made the identification that says, oh, you’re yearly student.
And I didn’t have that. So they said, we know you’ve been coming here for months, but that’s over. And so after I snuck into all the seminars where there was like Chick Frea, so I got a little bit of college education from Berklee.
And then I saved up enough money from selling guitars and working in a bakery to go to England because of my friendship with Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Dave Mason and Paul Cossel from Free. And so when I left Virgin Records, I went to a party at Basin Street Studios and there was like Roxy Music, Nico and Eno, Jimmy Page was wandering around from studio to studio. And I was like, wow, Trevor Horn from the Buggles and all that.
And I was like, wow, this place is pretty cool. And he had Jimmy Cliff. I was familiar with Jimmy, but I was not familiar with the Wailers.
So I used to go to Woody’s house and Woody would take me over to Paul Cossel’s house. So one day I was at Paul’s house and Chris Blackwell called him because Bob Marley had just come from Jamaica to England to start his solo career away from Peter and Bunny, and which was the album Not To Dread. He had too many jars of alcohol and he was a little tipsy and didn’t feel like he’d do the best job.
So I was chosen as a substitute to go to Island Records and do the Not To Dread album. I heard like Concrete Jungle. I’ve never heard anything like this.
And I had never heard Rebel Reggae like Peter, Bob and Bunny was writing and performing on Catching Fire and Burning. I had never heard anything like that. I walked straight from the taxi into the studio with my guitar, plugged into the amplifier.
And I just said, nice to meet you guys. What do you want me to do? At the same time, I was a tape op at Hammersmith Studios where I would clean up the studio console, vacuum the rug in the room, get all the cigarette ashes. And whenever Argus was there, I would make tea, sandwiches, and I learned how to pour a proper British tea.
That’s how you learned how to become an engineer from the ground up. And then I got to work with John Martin, Nico and Nino. I was a tape op on one of their sessions.
And then there was Elton John and Jimmy Page. Jimmy Page was doing an overdub on guitar for Elton John. And I was like, wow, this is where I want to be.
From what you’re saying, you had a lot of gumption. You weren’t backward about coming forward. You’d push yourself in there wherever you could.
But how did you feel with being given that opportunity by Paul? You know, when I was looking at Bob from inside the studio, I couldn’t see him. You know, I could just see this guy. I saw a lot of hair.
He’s got an amazing amount of hair. And I had never seen anything like that. So I was kind of fixated on him.
And I asked, what do you want me to play? And he says, I just want you to play some guitar. I said, OK, got it. So I said, let me hear your material.
So they played six songs. And of the six songs, they played maybe two minutes each. And he says, how do you feel about it? I said, man, I hear blues.
I hear some rock. I hear some country, slide guitar and acoustic guitar. I said, OK, let’s go.
So then I think the first song was No Woman, No Cry or So Ja Fe. And so I did So Ja Fe, No Woman, No Cry. I did it in about 45 minutes because I really could comprehend the direction that Bob wanted to go in.
After No Woman, No Cry, they were freaking out like, yeah, that’s incredible. Come on in here. You don’t need to do any more.
So I came in and I’m just looking at Bob going like, wow, I’ve never seen an individual like this. And then Chris was saying, yeah, this he’s going to be one of the more amazing songwriters. What we’re going to do is we’re going to mix this down.
We want you to come back in about a week. So they called me and I came back. I had a business meeting with Chris Blackwell, the CEO of Island.
And I thought I was going to play with the iconic three of them, which I was like, wow, the earlier material that’s Lee Scratchberry produced. And I was really thrown back. Then, wow, these guys are like a newspaper.
If I couldn’t read, I would know what was going on in Jamaica because of what they’re telling me about politically, financially and spiritually. When you were in the recording studio doing those first songs with them, did you know the songs already or were you just playing along by ear? Ear. Oh, that’s what I do.
I was able to really quickly get into his music where I was fitting in. And they like that. And so he offered me a job to come and live with him in Jamaica and produce music.
But I never went from London Heathrow to Jamaica. I went from London Heathrow to Bob’s mother’s house in Delaware where I lived with his mother, his two half brothers and his half sister. I slept on a sofa for six months.
We were waiting for Island to produce the album. How the cover was going to look. We did a video in London, Lively Up Yourself, before I left to go on the road in Jamaica with Bob.
It was a really slow beginning. And then Bob said, now it’s time to go to Jamaica and get you a place. Before.
Didn’t have any money. 1973. You know, there wasn’t any hit records because his solo record, not to dread, hadn’t been released.
So he ended up not being able to live up to the deal. I was supposed to get a per diem, a place to live and a car. When I got to, I lived like all the Jamaicans who didn’t have much.
And I didn’t have much either. I think I have like a hundred pounds in my pocket. And that lasted like months.
And I slept on the floor of Hope Road Studio for a year and a half. At about 12, 13 months, I was starting to get fed up. And then Chris said, OK, we’ve got the cover.
We’re going to we have the release date. And then as soon as they released not to dread three or four songs back to back, we’re number one. And so now here comes a big tour.
So everything changed. Almost two years waiting to get on the road with Bob. When he did put Bob out there, Bob knocked out Paul McCartney’s wings in the Human League to number one spot.
And then I then I just realized that, wow, this is really serious. And I think Bob is going to have a very successful career. The first tour Al did was as a five piece group where he sang all the female background parts you hear on the record.
The band toured all over the U.S. to huge acclaim.
This is a Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. Bob Marley and the Wailers quickly became a household name with the release of their next two albums.
Al says apart from bringing reggae music to the masses, their success was in a large part due to the fact that Bob was such an amazing person and so disciplined in his life. Workaholic, staunch athlete. He ate really well.
He was spoiled with food and women. He was very loved by all his friends, and he was very magnetic. He had his quiet times where he didn’t want to be bothered because now he’s financially stable, and everybody was coming to take a few crumbs from him.
There was something really special about Bob. I left the group in 77 and 78 because there was too many people, too many hanger-ons, and he got involved in politics. And he was very quiet.
He was very vocal also, and he was a leader. And that’s what I really took notice of him and respected, that he was like a politician or a general type. He had his ideas.
He wanted you to follow them, and he wanted it his way, and it was hard to convince him any other way. So he was kind of self-righteous to certain things that he should have listened to, because every artist deserves their just deserves, which is your publishing. You wrote the song.
Don’t share that with anybody if you don’t have to, and your merchandise. But he was very not-so-understanding of the music industry at that time, and he learned really quick, because he wrote I Can See Clearly for Johnny Nash and didn’t get his just deserves. I can see clearly now the rain is gone I can see all obstacles in my way Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind It’s gonna be a bright, bright, bright Sunshiney day It’s gonna be a bright, bright, bright Sunshiney day I think I can make it now The pain is gone All of the bad feelings have disappeared Here is my rainbow I’ve been praying for It’s gonna be a bright, bright, bright Sunshiney day He wrote a lot of songs where he was a ghostwriter for people like him and didn’t get what he deserves.
Bob was really a workaholic. He trained his body, and he was really into 12 Tribes of Israel and Jamaica and the Rastafarian movement and the political party of Michael Manley. He was no normal pop star.
There was something really, really outstanding and special about him because of what he believed in, his philosophy. And he sacrificed, I thought him sacrificed his life for his country, his family, and his friends when a lot of other guys would have been selfish. But he was very brave.
In what way? Peter Tosh and Bunny, too. They were brave because their message. Peter was one of the first marijuana advocates, and he got destroyed by the police because he would smoke publicly to voice his opinion about, we should be able to smoke herbs freely in the world.
It grows everywhere. It’s in the Bible. And why can’t these politicians and stupid police officers legalize this plant and make something? Because if they had legalized marijuana in the 70s and 80s in Jamaica, financially, Jamaica would be doing a lot better than it is today because people would be going to Jamaica to legally smoke.
Because smoking marijuana is a really, really big thing in the world today. Some places, it’s forbidden. Some call it tampered Some call it weed Some call it marijuana Some of them call it ganja Never mind, got to legalize it And adore the criticized Bob was a leader, and he sacrificed his life for his political belief, his spiritual belief, his family, and his friends.
Those politicians knew that he was going to make Michael Manley the prime minister. And when Michael Manley got Bob’s participation, he won the prime ministership through Bob Manley’s affiliation in the Whalers. He was a communist sympathizer because he was part Cuban, and him and Castro were very friendly.
Like Bob was going to be a politician without a doubt, and a musician, and a spiritual leader. That was the powers that he had. George Bush and Ronald Reagan went as far as to have us eliminated to stop our message.
That’s when there was an assassination at Hope Road. So some Asians told me that they were going to come to Hope Road and kill all the Whalers if you guys would support Michael Manley’s party and get him elected. Bob supported the party, got him elected, and also got shot, along with his wife and his manager.
But when they told me this, I had a young son. And I said, Bob, these guys are going to come for you. And he got really angry.
And so I literally left the group because I knew that these Asians that worked for the CIA in America decided that they were going to kill Bob Manley for his political beliefs. Four or five days later, a week later, they came in and they shot at everybody in Hope Road studio. They hit Bob, they hit his wife, and they had shot his manager.
I flew out back to London and his mother called me and said, wherever you are, you know, get here. Because they just shot Bob. So I went straight from England to Ms. Booker’s house.
And we sat there and waited to hear whether he was all right and whether Rita was okay and whether his manager was okay. And so that’s what Bob was like. He was heavy.
He was not a pop star. He was a leader. And he was somebody that all of Jamaica would have followed at one time or another.
And now he’s a very iconic figure because of his songwriting and how he suffered. He comes from a very poor background. And he made, I believe, way more financial situations for so many people like myself and hundreds of other musicians in bringing reggae music to the world.
And he never got a chance to enjoy his success. He worked his whole life. He’s got 13 children.
They didn’t get to know their father like they should have. And like I said, he sacrificed himself for his country, his family and his friends. Very heavy brother.
Yeah. So what did you do once you’d left him and after you sat with his mother to make sure that he was okay, which it turned out he was, what did you do then? Went back to New York City. Became really close friends with Peter Tosh.
And he gave me the opportunity to be financially with royalties. Because if you’re producing music and the music is selling and you have something to do with arrangements, so there’s the arrangement, there’s publishing, and there’s production. You deserve a piece of whatever the artist is going to get.
Some people, some families, some friends, some artists don’t believe that that is the way it should be. Nobody would give Jamaican artists their royalties and their merchandise. And so their records are playing all over Europe, all over Australia and New Zealand, and they weren’t getting their radio rights, their PPL, their publishing.
And if they had T-shirts that the record company would sell in, we wouldn’t get their royalty. And so that’s why I joined Peter Tosh. I did legalize it.
Like I said, he was the marijuana advocate back in the 70s, and he got punished. He got like 40 stitches in his cranium from a police officer that he blew smoke in his face. And the police officer tried to distinguish his joint, and he was beaten really bad in front of me.
And so my heart opened up to this guy because I thought that like the way the police officer beat him, he was going to kill him for marijuana. Rude equality Peter needed a guitar player, Bob needed a guitar player to play their music the way they wanted to hear their music. And they chose me, luckily.
And Peter gave me the opportunity to play on equal rights. I had the opportunity to work with Robbie and Sly and Wire, Earl Wire Lindo and Tarzan, Robbie Lynn. You know, these were big session names in Jamaica.
Peter had them in his band and I joined them. And you know, Robbie and Sly became two of the most world-famous reggae producers of the world. I toured with them and recorded with them for three years.
To answer your question, I joined Peter Tosh, did two records, toured the world and introduced Peter to the Rolling Stones. Everyone is crying out for peace, yeah Everyone is crying out for justice Everyone is crying out for peace, yeah Everyone is crying out for justice Peace Justice Peace I need equal rights Justice We’ve got to get it equal rights Everybody wants to go to heaven, want to die Father of Jesus Everybody wants to go up to heaven But none of them, none of them want to die I don’t want I don’t want I was really close with Ronnie Wood, the guitarist of the Rolling Stones today. He was playing bass with Jeff Beck and I think he played guitar with Rock Stewart as well.
So me and Woody became friends. He introduced me to Mick and Keith and I became friends with the Rolling Stones now. And so I used to go over to Ronnie’s apartment and he would play all night.
And we’d have some beer and some whiskey and just play guitars. He had a really wonderful collection, just like Paul Cox, my good friend who got me in the way. So Woody said, you know, Rolling Stones are opening up a record company.
Do you have any Jamaican artists? Because we really like Jamaica and Mick really loved Jamaica. They live there now. And Woody loved Jamaica.
So I said, well, I’m working with Teeter Tosh. And he goes like, oh, what’s he like? I said, he’s a great songwriter. He’s got some wonderful songs.
So I had a cassette with this song called Vampires that he wrote. And I gave it to Woody. Woody gave it to Keith and Mick and they said, hey, let’s sign this guy.
So I was able to bring Teeter together with the Rolling Stones, tour with the Rolling Stones, be on the road with them. And things just took off for reggae music on that note. So that’s what I did after I read Bach.
All vampires Would all like to see you prosper Only like to see you suffer On the set of Vampires All vampires Only trod upon creation With your bloody meditation On the set of Vampires What happened to Peter in the end? Because he died early too, didn’t he? Peter was going to open his own radio station where he was going to play the rebel music that they wouldn’t play on the radio in Jamaica. At that time, it was all about Bob Marley, Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs and Alton Ellis and all these big Jimmy Clint. They were the radio favorites.
And so Peter was building a radio station and he didn’t like the opposing prime minister. He didn’t like any of the prime ministers, but he really didn’t like Siaga at all. And Siaga was a very powerful man.
And he said some really distasteful things at the One Love concert, that big concert with all the groups and one of the biggest shows in Jamaica of all times. And so once he disgraced the prime minister, he put himself in a deadly position politically. And he was assassinated.
He got five shots. And I heard that they shot everybody in his home. He had a really big party.
He was opening up his radio station and he wanted to have a party with all the people in the business. And I was working for him on behalf of his business. He invited me from New York to fly down to Jamaica.
And if I had him, I probably would’ve got shot too. They shot like four or five people, three or four people died along with Peter. They shot Ziggy Marley’s drummer, Santa.
It was a really horrible time. They wanted to kill the Wailers. They killed Carlton Barrett, the Wailers drummer.
They killed Peter Tosh. And I believe they killed Bob Marley too.
This is a Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. It was a dangerous business in those days to make music in Jamaica and if you were a rebel, then it was akin to being a terrorist.
Both Peter Tosh and Bob Marley had spent years fearing for their lives. Both had also been ripped off by management when Al decided to go back and work for his old boss. I did.
I was touring with Peter as he was touring with the Stones. Now Peter’s really making money. I got tired of being with Peter and touring with a manager that didn’t care about the band and didn’t care about the artists.
So I left Peter and I was walking to Miami Airport going back to New York City. And somebody goes, hey, Alo. And I turn around and it’s Bob with all his hair.
He goes, hey man, can I talk to you for a minute? And I say, Bob, wow, long time. He goes, yeah, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you. And you’re playing with the Rolling Stones and Peter Tosh.
You guys are, you know, Rolling Stones are the biggest band in the world. I said, yeah, they do really well. And he goes, man, you must have a lot of money.
I said, you’re the guy who has all the money. You just did Aya and Exodus and Live and Babblin’ by Bus and all these live albums that you’ve done very well with. He said, well, it was never about money with me and you.
And he says, oh, I have another manager now. He said, would you be interested to come back and work with me? So we sat down there and we talked about joining the group back again in 1979. So I went back, toured with him to the days where he went on his journey.
And I also stayed with him for maybe six months in Germany. He said, please come over and just stay with me because I want to talk with you. So I went to Munich and was with him at the Joseph Issel’s Cancer Clinic until he went on his journey.
I spent a lot of time with him. But my hand was made strong By the hand of the almighty We’ve forwarded this generation Triumphantly Won’t you help to sing These songs of freedom Cause all I ever have Redemption songs Redemption songs Of course, in Germany, that’s where he was taking all of this holistic treatment. He refused to take any Western medical treatment for his cancer, didn’t he? He wouldn’t have chemotherapy or the like.
He did. He ended up having radio and chemo because, yes, the Joseph Issel’s was Hitler’s youngest doctor. We were less than a mile from Hitler’s bunker and the chateau that we rented for him.
And so it was like 20 degrees below zero, six foot snow drifts. Bob wasn’t used to that. He wasn’t used to anything like that.
And Joseph Issel’s was giving Bob holistic treatment to vitamin infusion. But it wasn’t working as rapidly as Bob needed to get better. So they convinced him.
But Joseph Issel’s decided that Bob needed stronger treatment and therapy. So they gave him radiotherapy and he went on to chemotherapy. And Bob and his mother and myself, we would pick him up at the clinic and walk back to our house.
And it was just sitting around waiting to see whether he could come back to Jamaica, go on tour. But he wanted to see his children, his family. He wanted to be in Jamaica.
He wanted mangoes and pineapples and steamed fish. He wanted all those things that he grew up with. You know, Germany wasn’t really nice to him because it was so cold.
I think a lot of people don’t realise that when Bob Marley did pass away, he was only 36 years old. It didn’t make sense. I met him in 1973.
The guy was fit. He ate the best food, best juices, coconut water. He had electrolytes, fruits, vitamins, proteins.
He played football four or five hours every day. We used to go up McCain River and do pushups and run. He was fit.
Look at him. Look at all his early pictures. And then all of a sudden he had this look of concern of his health.
You could see he was concerned. It was the Legend album. Look on the Legend album.
Look at everybody in the group. We were all happy. He was not because that’s when he started feeling like something was wrong.
You could see it and you could feel it. But we didn’t say anything because we didn’t know. They said it was all about he put on some shoes from somebody bought some football shoes for him to play in.
And there was a spot inside the shoe where it pricked his toe. That is not normal. I was with Bob the day that incident happened.
He had his own shoes. Somebody had an old pair of football shoes. He was playing against the team that had poor equipment and see a football shoe has a screw and on top of that screws is a big plastic cleat that you twist and turn and you lock the guy’s shoe broke.
So the back heel of his shoe had a screw and that pin went straight through Bob’s toe and stopped him from playing ball from that day until this more serious situation came along. He should have taken care of his toe when that guy stepped on his toe because I saw that his foot was hurt so bad he kept playing anyway but then he started limping later on knowing that he was really hurt and he should have taken care of that toe earlier. They say it spread through his body and I don’t believe it.
I just think that like the CIA do, they eliminate our leaders. Bob Marley and Peter Tosh and Bunny Whaler was the top three guys. If you wanted to stop the information from the profit singer-songwriters, you could just stop the Whalers and they did stop the Whalers.
Bob passed. Peter was killed. I believe Bob was killed.
They worried Bunny Whaler to death. Somebody confiscated his wife and he had a ransom out for her and he never got to see his wife. It brought him to his passing.
The Whalers are the most incredible story of my lifetime because of what they went through. The iconic three guys was the reason why the whole world turned to their music and turned to them. Al, just to be clear, you think that the CIA murdered Bob Marley? I think they had something to do with it.
I don’t know. I think that it wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was too fit and they were threatening him.
Agents of the other side were telling him not to support Michael Manley or they were going to harm him. Everybody knows that Bob Marley supported Michael Manley and Michael Manley was a communist sympathizer, was very close with Castro. Everybody knows that.
Castro invited Bob to come to Cuba when they shot him because he said that my military would protect him from all those evil forces trying to claim his life. Al, since Bob Marley’s passing, you’ve carried the legacy of the Wailers forward, haven’t you? Did he ask you to do that? When I was in Germany with his wife and mother, we would talk about the fact that his hands weren’t strong enough to strum and play like he used to. He just wanted to sing.
He wanted to play guitar. He wanted to go back on the road. He wanted to get out of Germany.
He didn’t want any therapies. He wanted to be who he was. He says, if I’m not allowed to do that, and God has other plans for him.
Bob obviously trusted you implicitly. He gave me the signal to try to help keep the band touring. I don’t know any more than the rest of the guys that if Bob wasn’t going to come back to the band, everybody was ready to do other projects, go solo on that.
He said, hey, I want you guys to stay together because he had everything going for him. Like I said, Quincy Jones, Walter Yednikoff and Michael Jackson wanted him to be on CBS Records. But look at the position he was in.
Nobody knew he was that ill. When he was 100 percent shape, that’s when Quincy and Michael came and made an offer. The Jackson 5 wanted us to tour with them.
So everything was happening. But he chose me because I stayed with him the longest after the other band members to try to keep it together. And he said, whatever you do, don’t get some guy that’s going to pretend to be me.
Find your own singers, write your own songs and you have a fabulous catalog to play along with the music that we produced and you wrote. And that’s exactly what I did. I fulfilled his wishes for the 50 years I’ve been doing this because of him, Peter and Bunny.
Let’s get together and feel alright Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel alright Let’s get together and feel alright Let them out pass all their dirty remarks There is one question I’d really love to ask Is there a place for the hopeless sinners who has hurt all mankind just to save his own beliefs Let’s get together and feel alright As it was in the beginning So shall it be in the end Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel alright Let’s get together and feel alright One more thing Let’s get together to fight as only I’m a Gideon So when the man comes The three of them, they were my mentors and friends and I dedicate my life to the Wailers music through them. They really helped me to be where I am now and yesterday. You’re an incredibly loyal friend, if nothing else Al Handerson, aren’t you? I respect these three gentlemen.
They were really a big education for my music life That’s when it really started to happen because Jamaica is like a Nashville because there’s so much music from so many songwriters bands, so many places to play so many DJs, rap stars in Jamaica They changed my life. They made me a completely different person. If I hadn’t been a part of Jamaican society, I wouldn’t be the person I am today.
You’re out there touring at the moment with your own version of the Wailers, playing all of the Bob Marley catalogue. We do our own songs and we play the iconic songs of Bob Marley and the Wailers from the past. Al Anderson, thank you so much for your time today.
Thank you for being so kind to me. I appreciate it. Good evening to you or good morning Talk soon Al, thanks.
Al Anderson has never forgotten Bob Marley’s parting words in 1981 when he told him, I’m going on my journey please honour the music that we made together and make sure the band stays together. Unfortunately not all of that happened. Today Al is the sole member of the Bob Marley and the Wailers mid-70s lineup in the original Wailers.
Look out for Al on tour. He puts on a super show Thanks for your company today. I’ll look forward to being back with you again same time next week.
Bye now You’ve been listening to A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye.