This article originally appeared in Worcester Magazine and was reprinted in Reggae Report BOB MARLEY, 1980 by Lee O'Neill As Bob Marley and the Wailers took their positions on stage for a 1980 Boston concert, they resembled a tribe of Biblical prophets carrying electric guitars. Red, gold and green spotlights shined on the different members of the band, from the patriarchal percussionist Seeco Patterson to guitarist Al Anderson, dressed in military fatigues. The leader of the tribe walked to the center microphone in complete darkness and slowly began the song "Natural Mystic." A spotlight finally landed on Bob Marley, whose long dreadlocks suggested a lion's mane, and the mood for the show was fixed. Whether they knew it or not and whether they liked it or not, the Boston audience was being drawn into a religious experience. I had the opportunity to interview Marley several hours after that September 1980 concert. It was to be one of his last. The Wailers traveled to Providence for a show at Brown University and went from there to New York. It was in New York that Marley collapsed while jogging in Central Park and the extent of his illness became apparent. The New York show was cancelled. The Wailers made their final appearance in Pittsburgh a few days later. In many ways, the 1980 tour and the Uprising album it promoted were designed to force reggae and Rasta into the commercial marketplace, particularly the black commercial marketplace. "Could You Be Loved" was perhaps Marley's most successful single in terms of sales and airplay and much of Marley's off-stage time was spent on promotional activities. His message, however, was far deeper than that of a musical ambassador. "We are in a struggle to be free, to eat," Marley said in the interview after the concert. "This music is about struggle. Reggae is a vehicle to carry a message of freedom and peace." The freedom and peace of Marley's message had a level beyond that of temporal politics. "We know that there is a God Jah Rastafari, Selassie I," he said. "I believe in Selassie I more than I believe in myself. And I believe in myself." His devotion to his faith lay at Marley's core. "I do everything for Selassie I. I sing for Selassie I. If I eat a grape (and he dramatically reached for and ate a grape) I do it because Selassie I wills it. "Jesus Christ came to earth and said 'In 2,000 years I will come again. Well, 2,000 years have come and Selassie I is on earth. Now is the time." Although Rasta was born and developed out of a philosophy of African redemption, the overwhelmingly white audiences at the Boston and Providence shows could be confusing. Marley himself found this somewhat perplexing. "I don't know why more black people weren't there (at the concerts). I feel like more black people should listen to reggae. Perhaps in time, perhaps in time. "I am Rasta. I need black roots. Someone has to keep the roots." Marley grabbed one of his dangling dreadlocks and exclaimed "This must have some meaning for us, for why we do it." The concert in Boston was clearly arranged to try to attract a black response. The show was emceed by a DJ from WILD, a black AM radio station. The crossover hit, "Could You Be Loved," was heavily plugged by the emcee. None of the songs performed made any concession to those who came for a good time. They were all evangelical to a greater or lesser extent and were all delivered with he fervor of a prophet. More than ever before, Marley was placing the choices of right and wrong directly in the hands of each individual member of the audience. "It's you I'm talking to," he sings in "Coming in from the Cold." In "Could You Be Loved," he asks if the listener is open and free enough to be really loved. He prefaced "Zimbabwe" by addressing the crowd directly with "Every man has a right to decide his own destiny, but if Africa no free, none of us are free." The connection between individual action and communal redemption was driven home most forcefully in a pair of songs in the middle of the set. "Running Away" is an intensely personal song that speaks to everyone listening. "You must have done/something wrong/You can't run away from yourself." After establishing a context of responsibility the song segued into "Crazy Baldhead," a song that affirms "we're going to chase those crazy baldheads out of town." This did not, however, predict the political domination of the world by the black race. For one thing, Marley did not divide the people of the earth into those with white skin and those with black skin. "I see white as a system," he said, "a system I call Rome that we must overcome. I stand for the black, spelled b-l-a-c-k, not block, b-l-o-c-k, which means to block, but black, which is right. Anyone who accepts Selassie I in his heart is black. I don't see white skin or black skin. Moreover, Marley took little interest in contemporary politics. When asked his opinion of the upcoming election in Jamaica, he shrugged and said "I don't care who win. Politicians are one big lie. Politicians use people. They use Selassie I first and they use me second. They keep trying to connect we and them, but I was never part of them. Never part of them. "We appreciate Marx and Lenin, but we follow Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X. We don't need Marx and Lenin and Hegel and so on. We want it to be more easier for the people ahead. We don't fight over ideologies. "Them control the newspapers, television, everything. It's just one big lie them politicians tell. I'll never vote." For Marley, the political concerns of Jamaica paled before the need to establish a black homeland in Ethiopia. The ongoing war between Eritrea and Ethiopia assumed a universal significance. "You must try to look beyond. Where are they getting the guns? Someone is pushing these things and as long as people send guns instead of food to starving people, there will be wars." But even a war in the land of redemption did not deter Marley from his goal of an Ethiopian Zion. "Ethiopia is the place where Christianity began. It is the first piece of land that man ever stepped on. It is the beginning of civilization. But Ethiopia doesn't mean that piece of land. Ethiopia means the whole continent (of Africa)." In this context of a Promised Land, Ethiopia/Africa becomes the land where Rastas can not only set up a life for themselves but can also escape from the perils of Babylon. "This is an exodus of Jah people," he said, echoing his classic song. "When the nuclear war mash on you, we are miles and miles away in Ethiopia. "Man can't destroy the earth. Man can destroy himself or what man has made. The earth was created by Selassie I and only he can destroy it. We must fear for atomic energy 'cause none of us can stop the time." The exodus of Jah people was more than a metaphor to Marley. To him, the spiritual and physical qualities of Africa were limitless. "Africa gives a man a place to build a home where he wants to live, and to build the kind of house that he wants to build. A man can grow a vineyard if he wants. The weather is always fine. The temperature is always warm." When describing Africa, Marley smiled for the first time during the course of the interview. "Even the breeze agrees with me. Yes, man, even the breeze agrees with me." The following section appeared as a sidebar in the Reggae Report article This article first appeared in a slightly different form in Worcester Magazine in the issue of October 8, 1980. During the summer and early fall of that year, Marley and the Wailers were touring incessantly to promote their new album, Uprising. I managed to obtain an invitation to a press conference in Marley's hotel suite following his Boston show. While I thought that the show was tremendous, many of my friends were disappointed by the show, considering the local MC, the stage patter and the funk and African influences on the music to be an indication of Marley's softening up and selling out to commercial interests. I got to the hotel shortly after midnight and after getting to the suite was immediately ushered into a pure pimper's paradise. Dozens of sharply dressed hustlers and scantily dressed women lounged around the outer rooms of the suite. The air was thick with ganja and cigarette smoke. Groups huddled together around the edge of the room doing cocaine. The music was Diana Ross, Rick James and the S.O.S. Band, played loud. Occasionally, one of the Wailers or a management-type would dart into the room for a minute before retreating back to one of the inner rooms. Somewhere around 1:30 am, I was led into Marley's bedroom with about ten other journalists and we settled ourselves on his bed or the chairs and proceeded to talk for about an hour. Marley was clearly exhausted. He looked thin, haggard and grey. He was frustrated at having to answer the same questions about ganja, dreadlocks, Jamaican politics and the commercial potential of reggae over and over again and he was frustrated with a parade of journalists who showed so little interest in discussing the topics that were important to him. The hour that we spent in his bedroom was tense and occasionally depressing. Only near the end of the session, when I was able to get him talking about Ethiopia and Africa was he able to smile and relax. I left the interview with the impression of a man with an enormous burden on his shoulders. After his death less than a year later, the nature of that burden became apparent and more poignant. In revising the original article for republication, I was constantly reminded of that evening in his hotel room and images from the shows that night and the following night in Providence, and every time I had to change a present tense to a past tense I was saddened at the loss of this great man.