Peter Tosh 1944-87

Rip It Up, Issue 123, 1 October 1987, Page 4

Peter Tosh 1944-87

I’ll bet they wept in the Kingston Police Headquarters, where in 1978 they took great pleasure in breaking Tosh’s arm and putting a wound needing more than a dozen stitches in his head, after busting him in the street outside a recording studio for smoking ganja.

No doubt it’ll be written off as just another sorry event in the violent history of Jamaica, a country wracked by poverty and politics. The fact that Wailers drummer Carly Barrett died in the same city and in similar circumstances only a couple of months previously points out the uncomfortable and deadly reality of this little island: the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

During my brief stay in Jamaica last year, there were five fatal shootings, two of them by police in Savanna la Mar, parish of Westmorland, Tosh’s birthplace. He joins a disturbingly long list of music stars who have died violently, yet for Tosh such an end seemed almost inevitable. He certainly made enemies in his life-

time, and through his music and lifestyle, openly challenged them all. Abandoned Winston ‘ Hubert Mclntosh was abandoned by his parents as an infant, and grew up in the care of an aunt, who moved to Trench Town in 1956. Having made his first guitar out of a board, a broken tin pan and plastic strings, the lanky, boastful and angry youth began hanging out on Third Street, a haunt of many aspiring musicians. It was here that-he found Bob Marley and Bunny Livingston, singing harmonies with one of JA’s most influential performers, Joe Higgs. However the individual Wailers later argued their respective contributions, it

Armed robbers shot dead 'Jamaica’s internationally renowned reggae star Peter Tosh at his home in Kingston, police said on Saturday (Sept 12). They said three gunmen riding motocycles shot dead Tosh, 43, and another man identified only as “Doc” on Friday night. Five other people at Tosh’s home were wounded, including his companion Marlene Brown and a radio disc jockey known as “Free-I.” Police said the gunmen shot the seven after ordering them to lie on the floor when Tosh refused their demands for money. Tosh, who used to play with the late Bob Marley, died after being taken to hospital. (NZPAReuter)

was Higgs who taught them to sing together. Between 1963 and 1974, the Waiters recorded literally hundreds of tracks under a variety of names (in the very early days) and with a string of labels and producers, including Clement Dodd (Coxsone), Leslie Kong and Lee Perry. The raw energy, especially on the Perry sessions, has never been equalled. The split came after the release of the Waiters’ second Island LP, Burnin’, when it became plain that Chris Blackwell wanted Marley to be frontman. Tosh quit for that reason, white Livingston opted for a less hectic and more devout Rasta lifestyle, dividing his time between a farm and the studio.

Tosh’s first LP, Legalise It, was released in 1976, with backing by the Waiters band. He’d signed to CBS, who were eager to capitalise on the success of Marley’s watershed 1974 album Natty Dread and equally successful Live LP of 1975. 'Legalise It’ left no doubts about where Tosh stood. Still the most uncompromising

Tosh's physical size alone would have intimidated most aggressors, but he took his Dread image even further with his pugnacious attitude to authority, hypocrisy, racism and oppression, all loosely grouped by Rastafarians under the title ‘Babylon.’ At a peace festival in JA in 1978, when political infighting reached a murderous peak, Tosh smoked a spliff onstage and harangued the crowd for 30 minutes on various legal and political issues. To western observers it was an eyeopener. To seasoned Tosh watchers, it was par for the course. Artistically, Tosh seemed to lose direction after that, some say he was obsessed by Marley’s success, and in several interviews he tried to downplay Marley’s rote in the original Waiters. It’s also thought a 1977 motor accident left scars which never heated. Tosh was driving, and admitted later that he’d been drinking. His wife was critically injured and took six months to die. He never touched alcohol again after that. In 1978 he signed to Rolling Stones Records, cutting three LPs, Bush Doctor, Mystic Man and Wanted Dread or Alive. He achieved a measure of crossover success in a duet with Mick Jagger, ‘Walk (Don't Look Back),’ but the albums themselves sounded tired and were too obviously fleshed out with old tunes rehashed.

herb anthem.it set the tone for a stormy solo career, marked by controversy and tragedy. The 1977 follow-up Equal Rights was an unequivocal statement of personal ('Stepping Razor’) and racial (‘African’) integrity. “If you wanna live, treat me good,” warned Tosh. He also remade the Waiters’ classic ‘Get Up, Stand Up,’ probably to ensure there was no doubt about who wroteit. Pugnacious

Word Sound & Power Tosh maintained his profile through extensive touring with his Word Sound and Power Band, which included Sly Dunbar and Robbie 1 Shakespeare. On stage, he could still cut it on a good night, and gave' perhaps his finest performance at an outdoor show in Swaziland in 1983. Armed with a guitar shaped like a machine gun, Tosh attacked concert organisers until they relented and allowed in hundreds of poor people who had been unable to afford tickets. A bootleg recording of that show is one of my prized possessions. Tosh’s last two albums, 1983’s Mama Africa and this years No ' Nuclear War, were both uninspired and unoriginal. His ego problem also asserted itself and his rare interviews exhibited a strong streak of chauvinism verging on paranoia. It seemed he would do anything for a hit, even covering ‘Johnny B Goode.’ If history regards the Wailers as reggae’s Beatles, then I suppose Tosh will be its John Lennon. Cynical, provocative and never satisfied, his contribution too often underrated, overshadowed by a charismatic colleague - with more tunes in his head. At the time of going to press, Dennis Lobban, a 33-year-old unemployed man with a history of violence, had been charged with Tosh’s murder. The man . who maintained reggae’s militant face for all the world to see ultimately became a victim of the system he despised. In an unjust society, poverty breeds violence and crime. Peter Tosh’s talents took him out of the ghetto. That, combined with his refusal to ever back down, made him a target. I can't find no love, no sympathy What kind of love they’ve got for me

I'm on my way to happiness Where I can find some peace and rest...

Duncan Campbell