Junior Marvin

Erin MacLeod

Hi, my name is Erin MacLeod and I have the privilege to be sitting here with Junior Marvin. Bonjour.

Junior Marvin

Bonjour. (applause) Thank you, that was nice.

Erin MacLeod

I hope today that we’re going to be able to move through Junior Marvin’s very storied and interesting career with so many different types of music and of course with some really landmark and important pieces and albums of course. What I want to start out with is first, you’re from Jamaica and born there, spent the first 9 years of your life. Can you tell me a little bit about what you remember from that time?

Junior Marvin

I remember a lot of sunshine. I left Jamaica when I was 9 years old. My parents relocated to the United States and to the UK. My father went to the United States to study theology, which he didn’t want to do, but our family had our own church in Jamaica so it was expected of him, although his preference was to be a jazz musician. My mother was into clothes designing, so England seemed pretty cool. She went there and eventually resided in England, in the UK and then they sent for myself and my sister. I was 9 years old, my sister was 5 years old. I was my sister’s dad and mom while my parents were away. I went to England and it was a great experience for me apart from the weather. I had opportunity to meet people from all over the world. England is the mother country for the British commonwealth and they have people from Africa, from Asia, China, Canada, all over, which is not a bad thing because I think we all learn from each other as human beings as we develop as people, and so therefore, it was great to meet people from all over the world and share experiences.

My first experience of school in England was that on my first day, there was a boy from India, from Bombay, and he was the best fighter in the school, so I had to fight him on the first day. It was like a draw so we control the score. Not in a bad way, it was just youthful stuff, like, “Give me your lunch or else.” No, it wasn’t like that. I’m joking. (laughs)

Anyway, also it was very good for me getting to know my parents, because I had never met my father really until it was almost my 10th birthday. He wanted to be a jazz piano player like Ramsey Lewis or Oscar Peterson instead of playing classical and gospel music, which is what we learned from our family in Jamaica. The fact that we had our own church, we had to learn gospel music first and then classical and nothing else. It was taboo.

Being in England, my freedom was pretty good in terms of what I could listen to musically and what I could share with people from other parts of the world. I got into Indian music. I got into African music. Of course I got into British music, mainly The Beatles and stuff like that, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin. Of course my family coming from Jamaica, I was always into Jamaican music, which was like ska, blue beat, reggae, ragga. So many names for Jamaican music throughout the ages, but predominately what most people call reggae. I got that from my uncle who had his own sound system.

The academic side of being in England was also very good because it became a competition for me in school. I had three other friends. One was from Trinidad, one was from Mauritius and one was from India. Whatever the subject was, whoever came last out of the four was of course laughed at by the others, but it did help because it made me work harder not to be last out of the four. Academically, I did quite well in school in England and you had a lot of choices for sports and great music as well, mainly classical music at that time. At home, you could listen to the radio or watch TV.

My first real discovery of what it as like to be like a musician or rock star or pop star was when I saw Elvis on TV doing “Jailhouse Rock”. I thought, “Oh, I want to be Elvis.” That’s where it all started for me musically in terms of me wanting to be an entertainer. In actuality, I started playing piano when I was two years old because my great aunt was a piano teacher and everyone in the family had to learn to play before we could even talk. My cousins, my sister, all of us, we were just plumped on the piano and we had no choice. She had one of those canes, the long little round cane with a hook on the end. If you hit a wrong note, that cane will be coming down for you. She was pretty strict, but it was a benefit because it helped in many ways. If you play music, it helps you with mathematics. It helps you with timing. It helps you with melody. It helps you with appreciation for the arts. That was my humble beginning right there.

Erin MacLeod

You moved from the piano to the guitar and to being in a number of different bands, but in between that period, you were involved in musical theater. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that.

Junior Marvin

When I got to England, my mother had a friend who was a hairdresser where she’d go have her hair done maybe once every two weeks. That particular hairdresser was very good friends with an agent who provided people for TV commercials, small parts in the movies, mainly young kids who they would need in what you call a crowd scene or something like that. She asked my mom if she could take my sister and myself to some auditions because they could make some good money, put the kids to work. My mother was very active. She always wanted to get myself involved in whatever that was progressive, keep me out of trouble, and also my sister. My sister, when she arrived in England, she had a very strong Jamaican accent and my father was like, “I think we need to change that”, and so they sent her to elocution lessons and she did very well. She actually became quite a big star. She did movies. There was a series of movies called, No Kidding, and she appeared in one of the movies with a speaking part, so she became a star before me. (laughs). I’m joking. That’s how I got into acting.

When I was 12, I got into the theater in the West End of London, where it’s like Broadway of the United States. There was a theater called the Shazri Theater and they brought a play from Africa, from South Africa. The play was called, King Kong. It was about an African boxer and his rise to fame and his fall from fame due to people expecting too much of him, especially financially. They needed some young kids because they weren’t allowed through the British equity actor’s union, weren’t allowed to bring kids under a certain age all the way from South Africa to come and perform on a daily basis. They had to employ young black kids in England to play those parts. I was fortunate to be one of them. That was my first real dive into being an actor.

We had our own tutors. I was 12 years old. We had our own tutors and so we performed every day, twice on Wednesday. I think we had Sundays off. It was great. It was a lot of fun. There was like five boys involved and we were all around the same age and we had a glamorous time. We had a tutor that only worked with us for like two hours a day, so it was more fun than anything else. From there, I started doing extra work for films, and I was fortunate to get a part in the movie Help with The Beatles. They were pretty short guys, and for my age I was pretty tall. There was a scene in the movie Help where they’re chasing Ringo supposedly in the Bahamas on the beach, but it was actually simulated in a studio in England. I was one of the people chasing Ringo. That was my part in Help. I enjoyed it and The Beatles were great guys. They were very funny. They were having a ball. It was great to meet them. That did influence me because, later on, I discovered how many great songs they’d written. Of course, it influenced the whole world I think.

I continued doing TV work. I did The Saint with Roger Moore. I did... I forgot the name of the series, but it was Patrick McGoohan who was the star of that TV show. I did a lot of commercials and bits and pieces. I never really got a speaking part apart from when I was in Hair, which came later on. Hair came when I was about 18, and that was a pretty big musical around the world, maybe one of the biggest, and it had a lot of songs in it and a lot of dancing and a lot of acting. It really stretched you out in terms of being an entertainer, an artist, rather than just maybe a musician or a singer or an actor. You had to incorporate all three things, and the auditions were that you had to choose a song and sing it well and you also had to read and act something. I was fortunate to get a part in that, and I was in that for like three years. There was actually a recording of the London cast of Hair that went into the Top Of The Pops charts. I’m very honored and blessed, and I feel very humble that I was able to be in the right place at the right time to go through these experiences. That was my involvement in acting.

When I became into my later teens, there were less and less parts for black actors in the UK. Coming from a music background with my family, I decided that maybe I should split myself between music and acting and be able to get more work. Eventually, music took over. That was the beginning of the next era.

Erin MacLeod

Can you talk a little bit about that era and how it took you to the United States, because you were in the UK, but then going to the United States and working with some major musicians in the US?

Junior Marvin

In the UK at the time, there was a movement called the British Invasion. I’m sure you might’ve all heard about it. The day after The Beatles arrived in America it was the British Invasion. They’d never seen anything like that when they arrived here. There were like thousands and thousands of screaming girls and The Beatles themselves were like, “What’s going on?” It was really amazing to see the response that they got. People love their music, love their songs, and coming to America was a big deal for musicians in the UK. It opened the door that they actually got, because normally people would say, “American musicians are the best.” The British musician, even though they have a longer history, their musicians for modern music weren’t really as popular as the American music and American musicians were. It opened the door for the British musicians who always thought they were just as good if not better than everybody else. That’s a British thing.

People like Dave Clark Five, The Merseybeats, all the bands from Liverpool and from that part of the country, started to invade the United States. From there, it went to more like Eric Clapton. The blues invasion. A lot of blues bands who got their training from American blues musicians from buying records through ordering it from a record company and having it shipped to them and they learned the songs. They discovered people like Howlin’ Wolf and B.B. King and T-Bone Walker and all the other blues artists. Blues became very, very popular in the UK although it wasn’t really popular in the United States where it was originated from.

Eventually, a lot of the blues musicians started to form bands that was verging on blues pop, blues rock, blues punk, so many mixtures that involve blues. Cream came to the United States. They were a big hit. Led Zeppelin came. The Rolling Stones. All of these bands came from a blues format, because it was easy to play the blues once you learned three chords. Maybe it wasn’t that easy, but it was a great way to start being a musician.

What the British bands would do is they have a repertoire of maybe twelve songs, and they would learn those twelve songs like nothing else ever existed. They became very good at whatever they did. They wouldn’t jam because they couldn’t play anything else, but, those songs that they learnt and knew in their repertoire, it was outstanding because they were so tight. They did very well with the British Invasion, musically, of America. Then they became friends with the American counterpart musicians who said, “Well, hey, didn’t the blues start here? OK, maybe we should get into the same thing like the British bands.” Then, of course, you had the Beach Boys come in with the California beach sound. Then you had bands like Allman Brothers, southern rock, and J. Geils Band. Many, many, I think, American bands that patterned themselves off of the style of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.

It became more of a universal type of approach now. It wasn’t just a British Invasion anymore. It was more universal. There was no competition. It was more like a collaboration between musicians from Europe and musicians from the United States. Then, I think later on African musicians started to influence, and of course you have South American, Cuban. Now I think it’s everything counts. Everything works. Whether you rap, whether you do poetry in music, whether you mix jazz with music or folk or country, it all seems to be moving like many rivers into one ocean. I think it’s beautiful. That’s where we are right now.

Erin MacLeod

With you getting more into music and moving from the piano to the musical theater and then to picking up the guitar and starting with this blues music, you started your band Hanson in the early ‘70s. Before you talk about Hanson, I think we want to hear just a little bit of one of the songs. It’s a song called “Rain” from 1973. We’ll hear the first minute…

Junior Marvin

Before you play “Rain”, I’d like to say that my first band was with school friends of mine. I saw Elvis on TV and wanted to be like Elvis. One of my best friends in school said, “Hey, let’s go out and buy some guitars.” That started. I bought a bright, cherry red guitar. The prettiest guitar in the store. I looked for about a week before I touched it or tried to play it. Then I had a few lessons. Then my first band was actually called Blue Ace Unit. Similar to the names that American bands would use in that time or before that time. From there, my next band was with a very famous English lady by the name of Linda Lewis. Some of you might have heard of her. We had a band called White Rabbit, which was a song by Jefferson Airplane, Grace Slick. Unfortunately, we never got a chance to record but we did tour for a while.

From there, I went to Jimi Hendrix. Of course from there, Jimi Hendrix, and my middle name is Hanson, so it became Junior Hanson to go with JH for Jimi Hendrix. Of course, I wanted to have a three-piece rock band. Everything like Jimi. That’s where the Hanson album came about. I was fortunate to come to America and get a record deal with Atlantic Records care of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, who started their own label and had distribution done by Atlantic Records. Incidentally, the dream of every British musician in my time growing up was to come to America and get a record deal. Of course, I wanted to come to America and get a record deal, but I was told that, “Hey, you can’t do that.” I’d go, “Why not?” They go, “Well you’re black.” At that time it was only the British white musicians who came to America and I had the opportunity to get a deal. I thought, “Well, I don’t care. I’m going to try anyway.” I was, I think, the first black musician from the UK who actually came to America and got a record deal and when I returned to UK with a record deal and I booked a studio and paid for everything, I became the local hero because nobody believed that could happen. It changed the whole concept of what color you were in terms of selling your songs or you music in any part of the world. I’m quite proud of myself for not listening to other people when they say no. Don’t you ever listen to somebody when you have a dream and they say no. Don’t you ever listen to somebody when you have a dream and say no. Here’s Hanson.

(music: Hanson – “Rain” / applause)

Erin MacLeod

Yeah, you can definitely hear the Jimi Hendrix influence on that tune, for sure.

Junior Marvin

Well, I’m still learning from Jimi Hendrix, believe me.

Erin MacLeod

Yeah.

Junior Marvin

He’s amazing.

Erin MacLeod

Can you talk a little bit more about some of your other influences at that time. I know you actually did meet Jimi Hendrix, too.

Junior Marvin

Yeah. He was so shy. I could not believe it. When you see him perform on stage and then you meet him, it’s like night and day. I was at a club in London called a speakeasy where a lot of British musicians would jam together and meet and become famous. I mean, if you did a good performance there, everybody knew about you the next day and he jammed and blew everybody’s mid and I went up boldly and said, "Hello," and he kind of went, "Hello." I went, "My god, he’s so shy." He wouldn’t talk. He smiled and that was it but that was enough for me just to shake his hand. He seemed a very deep person, especially in his lyrics. People always talk about his guitar playing but I think his lyrics are very profound and very universal and very before its time and he had great people like Bob Dylan who gave him a lot of ideas. People are just now realizing how important his words were. There’s a song called "Message Of Love", the song called "Freedom".

Many of his songs have a message so I would advise a lot of people to go back and listen to not only his playing, but the message in his songs. I hope I’m not boring you guys. No? Everybody’s smiling? All right. If I get boring just put your hand up and I’ll stop.

Erin MacLeod

At that time, also you were doing a lot of session work and you met Chris Blackwell and did some work with him as producer and there was a whole range of different things. What I’d like to do is play a couple of songs that you worked on just to really show that range. The first is the first reggae song that you performed on Toots & The Maytals’ Reggae Got Soul from 1975 and then Steve Winwood “Vacant Chair” from 1977 just to kind of give a sense of your range during the time when you were working with Chris Blackwell.

Junior Marvin

This lady did her research, didn’t she? Good job.

Erin MacLeod

If we could play those too and then we’ll have a little chat about working with Chris.

(music: Toots & The Maytals – “Reggae Got Soul”) (music: Steve Winwood – “Vacant Chair” / applause)

I mean, there was so many more I could’ve chosen but I really kind of think that those two songs demonstrate a huge range, not only in yourself but also with Chris Blackwell. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about working with him and doing that work at the time.

Junior Marvin

Well I moved out from my family and I was living in Ladbroke Grove in London, a very fashionable area where they have a really famous antique market on Portobello Road and Island Records was right in that area, so I was literally five minutes from the studio and one of my good friends, his name was Johnny Burns, he was an engineer and a producer, he worked with Phil Collins and his band and produced music there and he said, "Well, come to the studio and hang out. You might get some work." I went there and I was actually very good friends with the saxophone player from Traffic, Chris Wood. In fact, we were best friends. Every night we would jam until five in the morning and then I’d jump on the subway and go home.

We were really tight and he introduced me to a lot of people and he introduced my to Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Chris Blackwell, and that’s when I started to get a lot of work. Then people started to pick up on the fact that I could play different styles because my first musical type of session work were with African musicians in England like Eddie Quansa who played trumpet, Rebop [Kwaku] who played percussion with Traffic, Remi Kabaka who played with Fela and so I developed to learn the African rhythm as well with music and the way they played. Of course, I was a big fan of Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix so I had that rock thing going, and with my father who was more a jazz fan, I learned about George Benson, Wes Montgomery. I learned blues also. T-Bone Walker, B.B. King. Then I got into learning about being a keyboard player as well. I learned about Jimmy Smith, Oscar Peterson.

So many different styles of music I was privy to. I was able to have all these records my father bought and learned different styles, and then people from Island records, especially Chris Blackwell realized that I wasn’t just playing blues or playing rock or playing pop. My styles would change very quickly and at a pretty good level because I used to practice like eight hours everyday religiously. I was able to acquire a few different styles. I like Joni Mitchell very much, I liked Crosby, Stills & Nash, I like a lot of different styles of music and sound. Even when The Beatles got into transcendental mediation and the eastern style of music, I like that a lot too.

I was able to do a lot of different sessions for different styles and genres of music because of things that I learned and things that I try to learn. Put it that way and Chris Blackwell was a little bit impressed and a bit puzzled as to how I acquired all these different styles. I explained to him that I was Jamaican and that my uncle had a sound system so I grew up with reggae every weekend, we go to house parties where my uncle would play a sound system. I was in touch with Jamaican music, I was in touch with American music. I liked Stevie Wonder, I liked Aretha Franklin, I liked all the Blues people, the Jazz people. I was very fortunate to be exposed to all these different styles of music and I liked all of them. I didn’t think any was any better than the other. They all was an even par for me and so I’d try to learn a little bit of everything and put it all together in one.

I got this session with Toots and then Chris sent me on tour with a band from Jamaica called The Heptones and later on I discovered that they were basically just watching me to see what my personality was like before they offered me the job with Bob Marley.

Erin MacLeod

I want to ask you specifically if you could think back to Valentine’s Day of 1977?

Junior Marvin

It’s a day that I’ll never forget, it’s very vivid in my mind. I think it always will be, it was Valentines Day I was supposed to take my girlfriend out for dinner and I had my own flat in the area. She lived in north London so we were planning to get together in that late afternoon. In the morning I got a call from Chris Blackwell saying there’s someone here I would like you to meet. I said, "Well I’m going out with my girlfriend, it’s Valentine’s Day my friend. No sessions today" He said, "Well can you see her later?" Well I said, "I am going to see her later so that’s cool." “We’ll go and visit this friend of mine, I’m sure you’d like to meet.” I said, "Well who is it?" He goes, "No, no, I’m not going to tell you. OK, all right but bring your guitar with you." I said "OK.”

I’m thinking it’s a session that he wants me to do on Valentine’s Day. Then I get a phone call from the United States and on the other end of the phone was this black American guy, "My name is Stevie Wonder and I represent Black Ball Music and I would like to sign you up for 10 years." I’m thinking ,”Who’s playing a joke on me? Is someone playing a practical joke? It’s not funny you know because I’m the biggest fan of Stevie Wonder as well.” "No sir this is Stevie, my guitar player Andre, his wife is expecting a baby and he recommended you."

I’ve met Stevie Wonder’s backup singer Denise Williams. Anyone know about her? His guitar players and everything while I was working with Atlantic Records and Emerson, Lake & Palmer doing two albums for them. Stevie’s guitar player did a guest spot on my second album, which is titled Magic Dragon. When he couldn’t make the tour he recommended me and I was very honored that he did but was very surprised to get a phone call from the United States, no other than Stevie Wonder. I’m like saying, "OK, are you sure you’re Stevie Wonder?" He said, "Yes", and then he explained to me the whole scenario and how he got my number. I said, "OK I guess you are Stevie Wonder. What do you want?" He says, "Well I’d like you to come and work with me, join my company which is called Black Ball Music." One of the principal things that you’d have to do, you’d have to sign a contract for 10 years because you know if you play with Stevie Wonder and you leave Stevie Wonder, you will be a household name. He was making a joke out of it but I think he was serious.

I said, "Well I’m really honored that you would even call me, much less invite me to come and play your music which I think is very difficult to play, one, and two you could get so many great guitar players in America." He goes, "No, I heard a little bit of your style and I like the fact that you play different styles and I was just in Jamaica with Bob Marley and we did a concert together and I’m actually doing a couple of reggae songs." Which was later on of course, “Boogie On Reggae Woman”, and what was the other one? “Master Blaster”, which he did later and I thought, "Wow that’s really cool". Then there’s a knock at my door while I’m on the phone so I said, “Let me just go see who’s at the door, I’ll come back one second.” Chris Blackwell with his white Rolls Royce outside my house, "Are you ready?" “Ready? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve got an appointment with you."

I said, "Oh let me just get this person off the phone." I didn’t’ tell him who it was you know. I went back in to Stevie and I said, "Stevie I’m really so humbled and appreciative of the fact that you called me and offered me this job and 10 years is a long time but I will definitely like a couple of hours to consider it because I have a previous engagement and I don’t want to keep that person waiting so is it possible for me to call you back?" He said, "No problem, call me back everything’s great. We can talk some more and I’ll explain more things to you when you call back." Hung up took his number and everything great. Grabbed my guitar, rushed out, met Chris Blackwell, jumped in a Rolls Royce and we were driving. I said, "Where are we going?" He said, "Oh we’re going to Chelsea". I said, "We’re not going to the studio?" "No, no, no, we’re going to Chelsea, you’re going to meet some people there." What am I bringing my guitar for? "Oh I want you to maybe jam with these people." I said, "OK, no problem."

We’re driving to Chelsea and Chelsea’s a very fashionable part of London, you know? That’s where all the hip people live, very middle class, upper middle class. Really beautiful area, a lot of parks, great clothes of course. Everybody heard about the King’s Road where the Mods came from? Yeah, very fashionable part of the area of London. We went to this house, like a big five-story building house and we went in on the ground floor.

There was this short man in front of the fire place with his back to me with big dreadlocks and it was like a big aura around him and I could see this big aura and I’m going to myself, "That’s got to be Bob Marley." You know, I didn’t know Bob Marley, I’d never met him before but that was the first thing that hit my mind. It had to be. Nobody else would have this big aura around him like the way he did. I don’t know why my mind just zoomed in on Bob Marley but when he turned around it was Bob Marley with this big grin on his face like a Cheschire cat. He said, "what man, everything irie?" In Jamaican patois that means, "How you doing? Everything’s good?" I have to teach you guys patois later but anyway he said, "Welcome, I’ve been hearing about you for quite a while. I heard you’re the young Jimi Hendrix of London." I go "No, no, no, no, no, no, I’m not young Jimi Hendrix at all, maybe baby Jimi Hendrix. I’ve got a long way to go to be at the level of Jimi Hendrix". He said, "Well I’ve heard very good things about you and I’d like you to join The Wailers." I’m going, "Uh, what did you just say?" Chris Blackwell is like shaking his head and nodding at me and grinning and Bob’s like waiting for me to say yes and I’m going, "But you haven’t heard me play or anything." He goes, "Oh we heard you, don’t worry. In fact let’s go jam a little bit." I said to myself, “Is this an audition?” I’m looking at Chris all nervous and he goes, "No, no, no, it’s not an audition. Wants to jam a couple of songs with you, you know." I said, "OK."

We jammed “Waiting In Vain”, “Jammin” and “Exodus” and each song lasted about 40 minutes, you know? And the other musicians who played with us was Tyrone Downie, he was the keyboard player but he was playing bass. I thought he was a bass player, I didn’t know that he was a keyboard player and he’s pretty good bass player too. He also plays guitar and sings. Anyway, he was like at that time the person who Bob was very close to because Tyrone grew up in the church, he played keyboard, amazing keyboard... he played everybody. He could play jazz, he could play blues, he could play gospel because he grew up in the church and he lived next door to the church and he would jump over the fence and practice in the church and he was pretty amazing, but at that point in time I thought he was a bass player.

He was playing bass, Bob was playing acoustic with him, and they had a little amplifier there so I plugged my electric guitar in and we played those three songs and many, many years later, maybe 15 years later, somebody came and gave me a cassette with that same jam. They actually recorded it and didn’t tell me nothing and I was so happy to get it. I couldn’t believe it but I was kind of shocked, why did they record it and didn’t even tell me, but that happens in the music business quite a lot. People would invite you to jam and they’ll record you and you never know about it until they have a hit song with your line on it.

Anyway, that wasn’t the reason why Bob did it. I think he just wanted to be able to listen to me and see what I would do on first impulse on songs that he was preparing for Exodus and Kaya. After we jammed for almost two hours, or just over two hours, is that right? Three hours? Yeah, that’s over an hour right?

Erin MacLeod

Yeah.

Junior Marvin

Right. He slapped five with me and said, “Welcome to The Wailers.” Then, of course, I got goose pimples all over and then I had this bell in my head go, "Bing! Stevie Wonder!" I’m going, “wait a minute now, did I get a call from Stevie Wonder today? I thought am I dreaming,” so I started pinching myself without Chris or Bob seeing me. I’m like, "Ha, yeah. Yeah," and I’m pinching myself. It is real. The pinch hurts. Chris Blackwell is going, "Yeah, you need to... Yeah, get together with The Wailers," and I said, "Could I call you guys back in an hour or so and let you know what I want to do?" They were looking at me like, "Is this kid stupid or something? This is going to be the next third world superstar. Or the first," going to be very big and Blackwell’s telling me, "You need to just tell Bob yes," and I’m saying, "Well, do you mind if I just go home and meditate on this for a little bit?" He said, "OK." He didn’t even take me home, he must have been mad.

I jumped in a cab and went home. I don’t think he was mad, I think he was just like a little bit shocked that I didn’t agree right away to take the job with Bob, not knowing that I got a call from Stevie Wonder, he wouldn’t know what was going through my mind. I went home and I called my parents and I told them the good news and I called up my friends, all the musician friends that I had, and I said listen, I don’t know what to do. How can you pick between Stevie Wonder and Bob Marley? It’s impossible. They go, "Well, there’s not a lot of guitar players in Jamaica, not of your standard, and there are tons of guitar players in America and you need to support your country," so they convinced me that I should go with Bob Marley and that’s how I made the decision.

I called Stevie and explained it to him that, "Ten years," I used that as an excuse, "Ten years is a long time Stevie. By the way, I just met Bob Marley and he offered me a job," and he goes, "Oh, that’s awesome," he goes, "Well, why don’t you try it with Bob because there’s no stipulation of time involved, whereas with me you would have to sign something, and if it doesn’t work out call me back." “Really? I can call you back?” And he goes, "Yes. Please do."

Then I called Chris Blackwell, because Bob doesn’t answer telephones, it’s too babylon for him, and... you get that one right? At that time he would not answer telephones. Somebody answered it for him all the time. He was very alien to a lot of things, not that he was against it. That was just Bob. Very intense, very focused. I told Chris Blackwell that I had gotten a call from Stevie Wonder while he was waiting outside for me and I had to tell Stevie no. "Oh great. Great, great. Rehearsal starts tomorrow," and he was serious, rehearsal did start the next day. Bob gave me like five albums, "Learn those. We’re going to be playing them over the next three days." And I just swatted, as much as I could, all of those songs and everything worked out with Bob.

A couple years later we did a convention in Philadelphia for Gamble & Huff who were great songwriters, responsible for all the hits from Philly, especially the O’Jays and people like that. Songs like "Now That We Found Love" and lots of others. They had this convention in Philadelphia and they invited Stevie Wonder and Bob Marley to be the special guests. There I was in the middle of the stage with Stevie hanging on to me, "Don’t let me go. I don’t want to fall off the edge of the stage," and then Bob’s on the other side beaming and dancing and I’m thinking, "Wow!" (laughs) "Take pictures! Please!" It was so weird how things unfold in life. That’s the history of my connection with Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder and the greatest opportunity that’s happened to me in my life, so far. (applause)

Erin MacLeod

Then of course the first album recorded with Bob Marley was the one that has been named the greatest album of the 20th century, Exodus. For me, one of the most memorable songs on that album is "Waiting In Vain." We’re going to play the section that has your solo and then I want to talk a little bit about the recording of that song and that particular solo and the kind of style that it presents.

Junior Marvin

OK. Thank you.

(music: Bob Marley & The Wailers – “Waiting In Vain” / applause)

Erin MacLeod

It has such a lovely, sort of lyrical quality to it that it’s as resonant as Bob’s lyrics in the song almost. Can you talk a little bit about what went into that particular sound?

Junior Marvin

Well, first of all, don’t thank me for that solo. You have to thank the universe and god for that solo. I had nothing to do with it. I was just the instrument, believe me. What happened was we recorded the song and incidentally doing Exodus and Kaya we spent 3 months in the studio, we had the studio booked 24/7. I believe that’s why those two albums are so well done and still acknowledged now because there was a lot of time spent on it. It wasn’t just run in, run out... nobody touched the board when we left, came back everything was as it was, so it enabled us and Bob to really get into getting very articulate about everything.

He explained to me that he didn’t want just a solo in the song, he wanted something that will be part of the song and add to the song so it will be one. Every time you listen to it, it will be one. Also something that people could sing along with, for most of it anyway. I tried to do it late one night, about two in the morning, and it just wouldn’t come. Everything was pretty organic back then, you know, analog, and we didn’t record and then do another piece and piece it all together. It was just one take or you have to start from scratch again. It wasn’t like how the technology is now where you can piece things together.

Just living around the corner from the studio I could go home every night, some of the guys would sleep in the studio. They’d be too tired to go home, to their hotel, but I lived in England, so my house was around the corner and I go home. I went home and I had a dream about this song. I don’t remember the dream, but I knew I was dreaming about this song. Maybe it just stuck in my head. Then, the next day, I came back to the studio in the afternoon and I did it first take. After I did it, it was like something was controlling my hand. It wasn’t me. It was like, whatever I dreamt came out and I had no control over it. Then, when it was done, it was like, "Where did that come from?" It was like a gift. I don’t know.

I think, as a musician, if you practice something for many, many hours, lots of repetition, your muscle memory will give you a bonus, or the universe will give you a bonus for your hard work. It’s not something that you came up with. It’s just the fact that you’ve physically gone over this thing so much that now, the computer in your brain takes over and puts something together for you. I always call it the gift. For example, whenever we do live shows, I never plan my solos. I don’t even think about them. I kind of just let it happen, just go in a trance and let it happen. Then, I believe, the subconscious and the universe, guides you. It comes with something special and you go, "How did I manage to do that? Did you guys record that?"

I don’t know if anyone else in the room has ever done that, but if you take a song and you play it for three hours, the same song, after about two hours, you are going to another level. You most definitely will. You won’t even be thinking. You’ll be thinking about, "What am I going to have for dinner? Maybe I’ll have vegetarian tonight," or something. You’re still playing the song, but your mind is somewhere else because the repetition has made the muscle memory take over. I’m sure lots of people who play in bands say they become tight because they play so much together that they don’t have to even think about what’s coming next. They look at each other and they know what’s going to be played by the other musician, just by that repetition.

I think, because I try to do it the night before, maybe ten times, and it just didn’t have that flow that I wanted or Bob wanted. The next day, I came back and I dreamt about it the night before, and it just came out. When the solo ended, everybody kind of froze in the studio. We all froze and looked at each other. "Don’t nobody touch the machine and delete that by mistake," you know? We played it back about ten times and kind of laughed at each other, and like, "Yeah, we got it. We got it." Then, “Waiting In Vain” was complete, you know? Like I said, I cannot pat myself on my back for that at all, because it was just supernatural, very spiritual and very organic.

That’s how I like to approach what I do now, because I learned so much from that experience, that once you go over something as many times as it’s comfortable for you, or even if it’s uncomfortable, you will get a reward from it. It will become so tight, and you’ll do things that you never planned, because the muscle memory and just the vibe of the whole thing, and the feeling or the love for it will give you that gift and make it special. For me, every time I hear that solo, I think, "I need to go back home and practice it so I still know how to play it." Every time we do a show, I practice it before the show because I don’t want to play one note different, and it’s not easy to reproduce something that came organically like that. It’s like you have to go and learn it now and remember it, you know? That’s waiting in vain.

Erin MacLeod

Speaking of…

Junior Marvin

You guys get it?

Audience

Yeah.

Junior Marvin

I don’t want to go too spacey on you. I didn’t smoke anything today.

Erin MacLeod

Speaking of sounds, and rhythms, and songs that came organically, I was wondering if you could grab the guitar and…

Junior Marvin

There’s one thing I’d like to add, though.

Erin MacLeod

OK.

Junior Marvin

The sound didn’t come by accident. Exodus did not win CD of the century by accident. When I was touring as Junior Hanson, in 1973, promoting my albums with Manticore Atlantic, I met a gentleman by the name of Roger Mayer. He invented the fuzz tone. The fuzz tone on “Satisfaction”, by The Rolling Stones, was actually a little box that he’d made that reproduced that sound. If you walked past that box and saw it the way was designed at that time, you’d most likely kick it, because it just looked like a clumsy little box with a bunch of wires coming out of it, but he ended up being the guitar tech for Jimi Hendrix and also reproduced all of those sounds that Jimi Hendrix used, like the Octavia, Uni-Vibe, all the distortions, the Voodoo Child.

Roger came to one of my performances in New York, and at the end if it, he said to me, "I think I can help you." I said, "Yeah? How are you going to help me?" He said, "Well, I used to work for Jimi." I said, "Oh, you’re my best friend." I introduced him to Bob, and he came on board with The Wailers as part of the team. He took all of our guitars, realigned them, readjusted them, took all the wiring out, re-gutted them, gave it back to us, and now, our instruments were in tune. That’s when I first became very articulate about tuning.

Roger explained that in reggae, up until Exodus, everything was a little bit out of tune. If you listen to Caribbean music, the steel pan, you kind of get used to it. It has a sound, but it’s not really 440 [Hz] concert pitch. It’s a little bit out of tune. He said, "You guys should go to the next level if I tune you up," so he took the bass, the guitars, made everything in tune with the keyboards. When you hit a note, it’s like, if you’re Aquarius and you pull that arrow that’s going straight. It’s not going to waver, so our notes stopped wavering. Everything was in line and in tune. If you listen to Exodus, as much as you can make it perfectly in tune, everything was in tune. It made a difference to that record. The record speaks for itself. Everything was in tune, and from that point onward, we learned about being in tune. Roger Mayer was very responsible.

It wasn’t really an accident. Roger worked with Stevie Wonder, on Stevie Wonder’s three biggest albums, Songs In the Key Of Life, and the other two. I can’t remember the titles, but Stevie’s biggest albums, where they invented the synthesizers for Stevie, and stuff. Roger was part of that team that invented the synthesizers, so he was very much into electronics and sound. Now, his development, he worked for the British Admiralty, the Navy. His job was to understand, or study sound underwater, because he worked on submarines, so if you can understand sound underwater, on land, it’s like a breeze. You know, it’s like painting a picture. He took that knowledge, and because he loved playing guitar, even though he was not really a great guitar player, he understood sound. He took that information and created these different sounds for the guitars.

What he would do is, say you had a circuit board this big, he would invent something that would only be just that little corner, right there, so nobody could figure out what he did. You know, you’d be looking all over, but it’s just that one little corner that you might totally ignore, that’s where he made a difference in the sound. He gave all of that information to Jimi because he grew up with all the people from The Yardbirds. He grew up with Jeff Beck. He grew up with the guitar player from Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page. Of course, they never wanted to give him any money because they grew up together. Like when Keith Richards borrowed the box for “Satisfaction”, he said, "Oh, we’re not giving you any money. Go back and make some more boxes for us."

They all used to go to a place called Eel Pie Island, where all these bands came from. They wouldn’t give Roger any money, and when Jimi discovered Roger, he gave him $80,000 just to come and work with him, right off the bat, so Roger went with Jimi, and they became like brothers, because they were both into sound, and guitar, and musical tones, and all the other British musicians were really upset with him like, "Why did you give it to this guy from America? He’s not even white? Why did you give it away?" They were mad with him. I don’t know if you’ve seen any documentaries about Pete Townsend and Eric Clapton and all these guitar players getting together and saying, "What do you think about this guy who just came from America?" Funny enough, they like Jimi so they never had no negative repercussions out of it and they all became buddies, but Roger gave everything to Jimi, and so they were a little bit upset but they figured it out. "Well we never paid Roger, so I guess, he needs to make some money too." When I met Roger and he came onboard with Bob, Bob was like, "Hey, don’t let him get away, I want to hold on to this one." Bob was also a big fan of Jimi so he knew there was something special about Roger. Roger’s still operating, one of the latest bands that he’s working with right now is called Coldplay. They’re not a hit by accident, Roger did things for them that gave them a sound.

He’s not the type of person that you can say, "Can I commission you to come do this?" He has to like what you’re doing before he’ll work with you. He don’t even care about the money. For him, it’s like, a creative source that will last forever. He helped Bob’s music to last forever. You guys can go online and look up rogermayer.com and see the guy who helped make music what it is today, especially where sound is concerned. You know, he worked with Isley Brothers. I mean, everything that he touched, he’s way ahead of everybody with sound. He’s got a lot of pedals out there in the market. He’s now developed software that can make digital become analog. I think he calls it 4-5-6 or something like that, because he’s into car racing so it has something to do with racing, drivers or something. He’s very, his head is about this big, so when you see him you’ll figure out why he’s so smart.

That’s a lot of where it came from, the sound. A lot of people don’t realize that the first thing that grabs you with music is usually the sound. You know, the sound will suck you in right away or make you go, "Wait a minute, let me listen to that." Then you get into the melody, then you get into the song later on. It’s usually the sound that attracts you first or the difference of the sound. That’s a very interesting point that I like to express to people who are getting involved in music. Not just how good you are. You don’t have to be the best player in the world, just have your own sound, that always gets you there, be original, have your own sound. You don’t have to be the best singer, just have your own tone. Nobody else in the planet will have a song like you and it will stand out. Unfortunately a lot of people think, "I’ll have to sound as good as him. I’ll have to sound like her. I have to sound like this." That actually inhibits you. Just be yourself, develop your own DNA in the sound of music and arts. I hope that will help you. Anyway, let me play a little bit… (applause)

Erin MacLeod

So this, what I’ve asked you to play. It’s what I think is really interesting about this song, the really foundation of this song is the guitar line that you’re going to play. Which I think really is sort of a watershed moment in reggae music because it did present a different sound for, I mean you’re talking about sound, provided a sort of a different sound for Bob Marley’s music.

Junior Marvin

You have it absolutely right. What happened was, we were in New York and Bob had a problem, the problem was that black Americans did not really gravitate to his brand of music. At that time reggae, black Americans have a lot of choices for a music concern, they have blues, they have jazz, they have gospel, they have rock, they have pop, they have R&B. They have a lot of choices and reggae was just a little third world Caribbean music, clips of thing going on over there. They never really paid much attention. Bob was really supported by predominantly white college students. Of course, Chris Blackwell packaged everything like a rock band. It wasn’t just third world steel pan or something, it was packaged very well. Very well organized and promoted and made it very attractive to certain type of people who would make it like a cult type of thing, mainly college students at that time. The hippies, the heads, great for that type of people, the punks, those type of people gravitate towards reggae and the message. You didn’t have to be the greatest player in the world to actually be involved.

Bob was trying to figure out how he can come up with a song that would bring more people to support his message in music. We met a DJ by the name of Frankie Crocker. Who I believe his station was called WBLS in New York. They were like the biggest black radio station. Anything played there was a hit, you know? Frankie was a big fan of Bob. He came and Bob said, "Frankie, what do you recommend I do to try to make a song that black Americans would also gravitate towards?" What was being planned was a 60-city tour with Stevie Wonder. Therefore, that would have helped to bring a different audience to Bob. We needed a song to come out before the tour that would help to bring other people to the fold. He said, "Well you know, something like James Brown, a little bit danceable, a little funky, a lot of soul, not so much on the one drop beat of reggae, a bit more danceable." Palatable for all the genres of music that black people were into at the time. Bob and I were at this meeting and I was thinking about it.

Then one day we went back to England and I was sitting there and I was doing... [plays guitar melody] he said, "What’s that?" I said, "I don’t know, just something." He said, "Can I have that?" I said, "OK, if you must." Then he came back the next morning and said, "Could you be loved and be loved?" And I thought, "Can I have a piece of that?" That was where the song came about. It was an instant smash and it got all the black people dancing and it went to number 5 on Billboard, number 10 actually Billboard. That’s the history behind that song. It wasn’t an accident. It was actually crafted from conversations with people about, “How can we bring people together with the music and the lyrics?” Could you be loved and be loved? It’s so simple, you know? That was just the song, the whole thing is like, could you be loved and be loved? Can you? Do I get a yes out there?

audience

Yes.

Junior Marvin

OK, so go ahead, play the music.

(music: Bob Marley – “Could You Be Loved” / applause)

You guys feel that?

Erin MacLeod

You worked with Bob Marley from 1977 pretty much up till his final concert and his final moments, and were involved, very involved with him at that time. Could you talk a little bit about that point, the final concert. I know that it was, as you’ve told me, it was a bit unexpected. It wasn’t what people thought was happening.

Junior Marvin

Yes. It was very, very unexpected because Bob was very physical in terms of sport. He loved to play soccer. He’d play soccer in the dressing room, he’d play soccer on the stage and sound check. He told me one day, "I never envisioned myself being a singer/guitarist/songwriter. I always envisioned myself being a soccer player playing for Liverpool or Manchester United in England or something like that." He said that was his first passion, was to be a soccer player.

His first manager was the best ever soccer player in Jamaica, a man by the name of Allan Cole, who was recruited by Pele, and is still the only Jamaican to have ever played for a Brazilian team, Santos. He was that good. His feet were like his hands. He and Bob hit it off not just because of soccer, but because they had a similar background of being both Jamaicans and growing up in a similar way etc. It was difficult for Bob to split himself between what he really wanted to do was be a soccer player or a musician now. "Can I still be a soccer player?" He trained pretty hard and played a lot of soccer everywhere. What was the question again?

Erin MacLeod

Talking about sort of the fact that, that’s one of the things, the fact that his physicality kind of led to the essential tragedy of his death.

Junior Marvin

Yeah, well Bob played soccer a lot. If he had the right shoes, he would play. If he didn’t have the right shoes, he would play barefoot. He was in Jamaica and he stepped on a rusty nail and Bob grew up in the countryside of Jamaica. They don’t have doctors there. You use homeopathic type medicine, you take a leaf from a tree and you rub on it and you take a branch and you boil some tea or something. He never took care of it and eventually when he discovered that it went gangrene it was very late and the doctors in England recommended that he cut his toe off.

The fact is that if you cut your big toe off, then you can’t play soccer anymore and you can’t balance anymore, you can’t dance anymore. They tried grafting some skin from his rear and grafted the toe. But by then, the blood was already contaminated, so it spread to his lungs and to his brains etc. None of us in the band knew because he didn’t really talk about it. He did in fact ask me to take him to a doctor in England to check it out and that’s when the doctor told him to cut it off. He didn’t want to cut it off and all of the people who advised him told him, "No, there’s got to be another way. Don’t listen to this doctor."

In fact, the doctor was quite right. I think he would have lived if he’d taken away that element so it wouldn’t spread throughout his body. He went to play soccer in New York just before the Stevie Wonder tour and he had like a stroke and went to the feet. Eventually he came out of it and then everyone got really scared and took him to the doctor and then they realized that the cancer was in his lungs and there was a big tumor in his brain, about this big. That’s what caused him to have the stroke. They diagnosed that he had maybe two weeks to live. Of course, no one in the band knew this so we’re getting ready to do this concert and Allan, the soccer player, ex-manager of Bob came to the band and said, "We need to have a meeting. There’s something going on you guys should know about."

He explained everything to us and that the doctor’s recommended that Bob no longer tour until they could see what they could do further, if they could do anything at all. We were like in shock, everybody was in shock. We were looking at each other like, "What’s going on? This can’t be real. There’s nothing wrong with him. We were hanging out yesterday." But the people who knew that he had the stroke knew something was going on and those were maybe the guys who played soccer with him everyday. It wasn’t this band really. We were off doing other things like buying instruments or whatever being in New York.

We decided that if this is going to be the last concert, then we got to play the best we’ve ever played in our lives, and just make it be a positive energy and maybe that energy would help to make him well. I went into Bob’s dressing room and he was like looking in the mirror and going like this [scratching his head], because you can’t see nothing. He’s going, "What, you can’t see nothing but the doctor said it’s something big in me like this, and I’ve been getting headaches lately and not knowing why,” and etc. He did the concert and it was flawless. Everyone was saying, "But how can he be that sick and only have two weeks to live and look how he’s performing?"

His inner self didn’t accept it, but his physical self was showing the signs and it was very evident that something wasn’t right. He went to the Sloan Kettering Cancer Research Clinic in New York and they gave him some chemotherapy that was pretty heavy. His hair fell off and that wasn’t helping, he just lost a lot of weight from that because that pretty much destroys all the cells, the good and the bad in your body. Then we decided to try this German doctor, Dr. Jesus in Bavaria. He had success with a few of his patients by treating them with serum, the liquids from plants, the protein. That was all that you would intake intravenously, because with chemotherapy, it affects your intestines, your digestive system.

Bob’s digestive system after the radiation treatment was like somebody tied a knot in it and made it really tight. He couldn’t digest anything. The only way that he could be helped was to feed him intravenously liquid. He started to gain weight because eventually they would have to cut him and go inside and undo that knot. Unfortunately, we have this thing in Jamaica where we believe that certain foods can cure certain things, but it’s not really true. They brought him food that he hadn’t ate for months, like there’s a thing called cassava, and they made something that they call bammy. It’s like what some people call it dumpling. You guys know what a dumpling is?

Audience

Yeah.

Junior Marvin

It’s very, it takes a long time to digest and so he couldn’t really digest anything. They gave him fish and they gave him that and he was like, "Wow, I haven’t ate this stuff for months, let me..." The doctor had already warned everyone, "Don’t give my patient nothing to eat, nobody." And they did it behind the doctor’s back. Of course, he couldn’t digest it and it was coming out of his pores and of course the doctor came back and threw everybody out, including Bob, because he said, "I can’t save you now. I can’t cut you. You don’t have enough body strength."

They put Bob on a Concorde and took him to Miami and they had to take him straight to the hospital and he passed and that was that. I was in Jamaica because he’d asked me to go Jamaica and check on the house studio, recording studio, make sure everything was cool down there. I arrived home and I turned the radio on and as I turned it on I heard, "Jamaican first third world superstar Bob Marley just passed in Miami." I kind of froze but I thought, "I just left him in Germany, he was fine."

I didn’t know that they gave him this food to eat, I found out later on. I was like, my eyes were full of water and I grabbed my guitar and I ended up writing this song that I’ve never done before in my life, write a song, just off the cuff. The words, the lyrics, the music, everything just came out and the song was titled “Life Without You Is Not The Same”. That was the passing of Bob Marley. The music is still here and we’re here to talk about it and enjoy it. Don’t feel too bad. Part of life. (applause)

(music: Junior Marvin – “Life Without You Is Not The Same” / applause)

Thank you. There’s one thing I’d like to add. Whenever I think of Bob I always smile because he liked to smile a lot. I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of pictures with him. Didn’t he have a beautiful smile? I want you guys to smile. Don’t feel too bad that the story’s a little bit morbid but it’s just another way of life. Things happen in life. Sometimes we know the reason why, sometimes we don’t know the reason why and maybe that the way it was written for Bob. He did a great work and it lives on. Be happy and just enjoy his music, OK?

Erin MacLeod

Part of the reason why it lives on is because of yourself and other members of The Wailers that kept it going for quite a few years after his passing, which meant that you moved from playing lead guitar to being the lead singer as well. I think that you’re going to play a little bit for us, demonstrating that move from being one of the band to leading it.

Junior Marvin

Yeah. Well before I joined Bob I was singing and playing guitar and when I joined I was doing backing vocals and he said to me, "You ready to sing yet?" Joking with me sometimes because he figured if he had a little sore throat or something I could maybe sing a couple of lines and help him out. He allowed me to sing a couple of lines. Actually, I sing a couple of lines on “Could You Be Loved” and a lot of people think that it’s Bob but it’s actually me.

The Wailers had pretty turmoil passage after Bob’s passing because Bob, when he was very young, signed a lot of contracts, publishing deals, and stuff not knowing the business side of things. Made a lot of mistakes and so when most of us got together with Bob, we never signed anything. It was just a handshake and of course when he passed, the lawyers loved that. "Oh, more money for us. You guys don’t have a piece of paper." The Wailers had a pretty turmoil time since the passing of Bob. We never actually got paid for our royalties and stuff because the music industry is not... don’t care. You have to negotiate and so I would advise you all guys to learn the business side of the music business if you’re going to be involved. Don’t rely on anybody else but yourself, and don’t share lawyers. Get your own lawyer. It’s like conflict of interest when you share something like that.

It’s part of the business you have to learn. If you think back to all the blues musicians who would get a bear for their song, and now those songs generate millions of dollars. They don’t get anything. It hasn’t really changed. If you’re naïve and you don’t know the business, people will take advantage. Whether they’re good people or not, that’s another story, but when people see an opportunity it’s like a temptation to just, “Well this person is quite happy. They don’t want no money. I’ll just keep it.” You need to know what your rights are when it comes to the business side of things.

Two weeks ago, "Family Man" Barrett, the bass player, who’s the most senior member of The Wailers right now who’s still alive, called us and said, "We need to get back together." Right now we have lawyers drafting contracts for us to get back together and we hope to be back on the road December or January. (applause) This time, there’ll be a piece of paper.

Anyway, I’m just going to play a couple of songs. One of them is quite happy and one of them is a little bit sad but it’s a very good message. If you feel like singing along or clapping your hands or standing up and dancing, please help me out here, OK? I’m serious. First one is called “Stir It Up”. You might all know this. Bob wrote it, I think when he was in the kitchen and dinner was being prepared. It’s a really cool song.

(plays Bob Marley – “Stir It Up” / applause)

See Bob’s songs are quite lively and fun. A lot of his music was very fun and enjoyable and very simple. A baby could understand it, grandma can dance to it. Then you have other songs that have very positive and strong message, and there’s also a very spiritual side to Bob as well being a Rastafarian. Being a Rastafarian basically is just the elements of all the good things from all the religions, whether you’re a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, whatever. It’s the positive and the good in that or out of that that makes you a Rasta. Looking for the truth and trying to practice it. I mean, we’re not perfect, but if you try you become a Rasta. Not about the hair, it’s not about the clothes, not about smoking marijuana. It’s just about enjoying each other and being of service for each other.

I might sweep the streets, you might be a doctor or a lawyer, it’s all equally important because I’m keeping the place clean for you and you’re going to help me when I need legal help and when I need medical help, and we exchange. We’re being of service to each other and singing music or playing music or being an artist or a dancer, it’s the same thing. You are creating a feeling, an emotion, something from within that we can all share and there’s no animosity, there’s no jealousy, there’s no greed, there’s no jealousy, it’s just what you call unconditional love. That’s what I think the essence of reggae coming from Bob Marley.

I mean, there’s dancehall reggae that’s a little bit provocative and whatever and there’s other styles of music that don’t really deal with the positive side of a day-to-day environment. It’s more like comedy. The reggae that we performed as Bob Marley & The Wailers, it’s a mixture of fun and message and learning about life and enjoying the most beautiful gift, which is life itself, yeah? (applause)

Here’s one song that is one of my favorites and I think a lot of people love it very much and it talks about the history of people. I mean, we’ve all been made slaves no matter if you come from China or India or England or island or Jamaica or part of Africa, we’ve all used our own people as slaves. Every race has done that. Chinese did it. The British did it. The Irish did it. Africans did it. We all do it but it’s not a good thing to do so we have to move towards a better way of treating each other and we’ve been able to abolish slavery on one level but there’s still mental slavery, there’s still slavery, which is like professional jealousy type slavery. They’re all different types of slavery that we’re still learning how to rid ourselves of so we don’t have to have anymore wars or anything like that, right? Here we go.

(plays Bob Marley – “Redemption Song” / applause)

Thank you guys. Thank you all for being here. Please give a nice round of applause to Erin, did I get it right?

Erin MacLeod

Yes.

Junior Marvin

Stand up, come on. Love you guys. (applause) One last thing. Those of you who are songwriters, try to write a song every day. I’m serious. Bob Marley tried to write a song everyday. At the end of the year he’d have maybe 150 and he’d take the best 15 or 12 for the album. Just keep writing and things will happen, OK? All right. (applause) Thanks to Red Bull. All right, Red Bull. Best not forget Red Bull. Thank you Red Bull. My first time doing this, a little bit nervous but thanks for supporting me and making me feel comfortable and at home and thank you Red Bull for the opportunity. God bless you all. (applause) Oh yeah, question time.

Erin MacLeod

Yeah. I think we have some time for some questions so if there are any questions for Junior Marvin.

Audience Member

Hey.

Junior Marvin

Hi, how you doing?

Audience Member

Good. I was just wondering about Bob Marley’s creative process and whether, obviously you had a studio 24/7, but was Bob coming in with songs fully written and you and The Wailers were just performing them or were you writing together?

Junior Marvin

Well, Bob wrote a lot and we never always had a studio 24/7. We had to run in there, run out sometimes because we never had enough money in the beginning, but as things developed we were fortunate to have that available to us. You know, having a studio rocked. Blocked books and we could have a lot of privacy and really get into things. Bob always had a little tape recorder or note recorder or a 2-track or whatever he could get his hands on or just pen and paper. Every opportunity that he got he would write something or try to write something or try to get better at what he did. He had a lot of songs and there’s still a lot of songs in the can. Whoever was present and you had an idea, he would incorporate that idea. He wouldn’t say no to anyone, even if you were a stranger and you didn’t know anything about music and you had a great idea. He would always, "Oh thank you thank you," and he’d put it in there. "Don’t forget my royalties Bob." He said, "Oh no problem, no problem."

He took whatever who was present had something to offer, he would take it. He would try it, he wouldn’t just say, “No, no I don’t like that.” He would just try it whether he liked it or not, he would try it. Having that channel open made it easier for him and made it better for him I think. It wasn’t like, "Oh just going to be what I think." You know it was very general, very open and a lot of people came forward after he passed, "Oh I wrote that song and I never got paid." They might have put maybe one word but you know of course a lot of things weren’t documented back then so a lot of people came forward and said, "Oh by the way, I contributed to that song", or "It was my idea". You don’t know for sure if they did. Maybe they did because Bob would do that.

I mean Bob was asked one time, “Do you have writer’s block sometimes? Or do you ever get stuck when you come to writing a song?” And he goes, "Well what I would do is I would go to the local bar and I would buy everybody a drink and then I’ll have a million stories to write about." It was quite funny really. He always had that energy and that focus kind of like had blinkers on when it came to writing songs. He’d write in a day, in a night, doesn’t matter what time of the day or night it was, he had an idea, grabbed his guitar. His guitar was always right there. Some form of recording process would be there whether it’s a 4-track, a 2-track, a 1-track, doesn’t matter. He would try to have it so he could remember what he did.

He wouldn’t play a song for like half an hour, he would play a song for like 3 hours. If he’s writing a song he’d be over and over and over, hours and hours and hours. The process for him wasn’t just, "OK I got it," no. He would go back and he would refresh it, bring new ideas, he would do it again, do it again, then we might be passing by. I’ll come, he’d say, "What do you think of this?" Then we would add maybe a line to it and he’d incorporate it in song and then eventually there were members in a band that he collaborated with like myself, “We Could be Loved”, that’s just an example of how things happened. With the keyboard player, the bass player, the drummer, everybody gave ideas and were involved in some of the songs along the way.

When we got to the recording studio, sometimes he would say, "This song really sounds good but I don’t remember writing it," because it would be so different from when he started. When you get other people putting their input, you know like one song in particular was “Ambush In The Night”. When they tried to kill the band in Jamaica, that was before I joined. Bob wanted to do a concert for the people of Jamaica and of course, the local government made it look like a political concert and it became a very negative thing. The opposition party tried to kill the whole band. The song was called “Ambush In The Night” because they came in the night with young kids who don’t even know how to fire a gun, that’s why maybe nobody died.

Jamaica has a bad history with politics. He wrote the song and then we went and recorded it and the bass player had a incredible bassline for it which was [hums bassline], which was going the opposite way to the song. It was just like a perfect chemistry, Bob goes, "Wow that’s amazing but I didn’t write that song." Sometimes it would come out the way he envisioned it and sometimes it would come out better than the way he envisioned it. He was always happy about it because he wasn’t like dogmatic and say, "Well it has to be my way, you know this is the way I wrote it. It’s got to be like that." If it actually came out better, he would let you know and sometimes he might want to change a few things but he was very open about it and he allowed everyone to be a part of it, especially if you were in the band.

It was a great process of writing because it was very comfortable, there was no negative, there was no I’m doing this part, I don’t like your part. We tried everything and when it came to mixing the songs and articulating in instrumentation, we were able to try different things and see which one came out best. You know we might do a mix and then the bass player might come and do a completely different mix and then I might come along and take it all down and start again. We would learn from each mix we did before. We’d keep adding to that chemistry rather than taking away from it. It never got worse, it always got better because it wasn’t like, “Man I just spent like 24 hours mixing it, now you want to come and change everything.” That wasn’t that feeling, it was like, “OK, there’s no one watching the clock, we don’t have to really worry about the budget, OK, let’s try it again from scratch.”

Back then it was analogue recording and you can’t do it like how you can do it now where you can save it. You can maybe do a mix of it and save the mix but you can’t save it like how we can do with ProTools and Logic and all that. The technology we have now for recording and mixing and mastering. Fam would come after we spent 12 hours and say, “Let’s break it down to the beginning again.” Yeah man, you know, and we’d go back to the beginning. OK. Then we’d go, "OK see what happens," but it would get better every time. It was like, “Wow it actually got better.” So then we got used to doing that and we wouldn’t fight it. We’d let it, somebody came in with a great idea, we would allow them to explore their idea. It always worked out better. That was very good, that was a good process that we worked with and it worked very well as you can see or hear.

Welcome, don’t be afraid to break it down, especially with technology you have now, it’s not a big deal you know. Yeah.

Audience Member

Thank you.

Audience Member

Hello, it’s very interesting that you mentioned tuning earlier because there’s a question that I’ve been wondering about for a while…

Junior Marvin

Question about what?

Audience Member

Tuning.

Junior Marvin

Tuning, yeah.

Audience Member

It’s something I’ve been wondering for a while. I like to experiment with things and I really like to have things at 432 because I feel that’s much more comfortable and natural.

Junior Marvin

Right.

Audience Member

“Could You be Loved” is one of my favorite songs of all time. I remember playing along thinking that things just aren’t syncing up. Then I got into researching more about frequencies and the actual number escapes me, I think it’s 525 or something around that...

Junior Marvin

Right.

Audience Member

... It’s quite close to C and it’s colloquially known as the healing tone. 528, yeah thank you.

Junior Marvin

Yeah.

Audience Member

I was trying to play everything in that and I changed my guitar to be relative to that and then I played along with “Could You Be Loved” and everything perfectly matched up. I was just wondering, I’ve just wondered for so long, is that something to do with tape speed or is it completely intentional?

Junior Marvin

Well I believe in the same process too. I learned different tunings from listening to people like Joni Mitchell and James Taylor and people like that who use different tuning with their right. Have you heard of Seal? Yeah a lot of his songs are with very different type of tuning from the regular guitar tuning. They have a certain strength about it and certain colors and healing powers that you wouldn’t find in the regular way that we tune guitars. I believe it’s a process that’s very workable and I believe that you can heal through music. You can reach a lot of people, it’s something you can’t see but you can feel. It’s like a magnet you know, you can’t see the magnetism but you can feel what a magnet does when you are using it. You can see that there’s a signal being sent and being received and there’s connection. What you’re saying is absolutely right. There is definitely connection for healing powers.

Audience Member

Was it completely intentional in that particular song? Do you remember?

Junior Marvin

I kind of experimented with different chord progressions and things you know and ones that made you feel good. That progression made me feel very good and it also made Bob feel good so song came about from that. Part of it was accident, part of it was just experimentation and you know later on developing that, “Hey, this works!” You know. It’s true. Hope that answers your question.

Erin MacLeod

I think there were a couple more questions.

Audience Member

Hey I have two quick questions, the first question is on that day on Valentine’s Day and when you got those calls, what was the first thought in your head? Did you get anxious? Did you get excited about these two things? How did you feel basically?

Junior Marvin

When I got the call from Stevie Wonder I started to sweat because I didn’t believe that I could get a phone call from Stevie Wonder. I got a little bit nervous and he kind of cooled me out you know, he said, "Oh everything’s cool you know, I’m just Stevie Wonder." Then when Bob asked me to join The Wailers on the spot, I got goose bumps. I mean more than normal you know and that’s when I started pinching myself because I thought maybe I was having a deja vu or something. Anyone ever had a deja vu? It felt like a deja vu, you know it’s kind of airy, a little bit scary. At the same time you don’t want to panic you know. There was also a joy in it as well.

It was like the work that you put in, somebody was watching and decided to give you a reward. Like I said, I used to practice like eight hours a day at that time. The reason why I did that was because whenever I went for an audition, I wanted to get people’s attention within 30 seconds and I wanted to be at least three times better than anybody else that was auditioning. I would try it out sometimes and I’d show up at the audition, everyone’s fooling around and I would play something and then I would notice within 15 to 30 seconds, everybody would turn a look at me. I knew it was working so I knew that the practice that I was doing was having an effect.

It actually happened to me when I played with Ike and Tina Turner. I went to the United States and I met Sly from Sly & The Family Stone and he was very good friends with Billy Preston. I went on tour with Billy Preston and then we went to hang out with Sly and Sly had one of those campers. You know, those big hub on wheels? He’d drive around LA and him and his dad would just hang out and drive around LA all day. That was home and they’d have everything in there, a clarinet, keyboard, drums, guitars, everything.

We ended up at the studio of Ike and Tina Turner and I was just sitting in the corner and there was a bunch of Ike’s guitars and I didn’t’ touch any of them. I took mine out and I started to play and within 30 seconds Ike ran over to me and said, "Where did you learn to play wah wah like that?" I was just checking to see if it still worked or if it would work in that environment and within 30 seconds, he said to me, "I need you to play on my album. But you got to play my guitar." I said, "No I can’t play your guitar." He said, "You got to play my guitar, my session." Everybody looked at me and I said, "No", and everybody looked at me again. He told Ike no. I don’t know if you know the history of Ike Turner but it’s somebody you don’t say no to. He said to me, "OK play your guitar." Then I recorded three songs with him and he never gave me credit on the album. It’s okay, he was the guitar player for the band it was his band so obviously he wants people to think that he was playing.

Which I understand, you know, I mean it’s not fair but what’s fair in life, you know? I was happy that he allowed me to play on the record. I know, I know about it so it’s not like, there’s some things that you know for yourself and you don’t need everybody else to know about it, you know? One of my favorite things to say is, "The greatest thing in life is to know whatever. Whatever this topic is or the topic, when you know you know. Nobody can take that away from you." It’s like you don’t have to question it or think about it or wonder about it. Some things you just know. And maybe you don’t even learn it, it’s just something that comes from within but you know. I knew I’d played on it, I knew what I did and I was happy with that so I had no bad feelings with Ike and I know his history. He’s still a good guy, I mean what he did with R&B and rock, brought them together was phenomenal. Songs like "River Deep Mountain High" and all those songs he did with Tina. He’s amazing, an amazing guy.

Erin MacLeod

I think there was one more question in the front.

Junior Marvin

I hope I answered both parts of your question.

Audience Member

Actually I was just going to ask you the second question.

Junior Marvin

Yeah, please. No, no, please ask, there’s no rush, there’s no rush.

Audience Member

It’s just on a lighter note, what happened with your date on Valentine’s Day?

Junior Marvin

What happened with my what?

Audience Member

With your date? You were going to have your…

Junior Marvin

My date that evening?

Audience Member

You were going to go out with your girlfriend, yeah.

Junior Marvin

I never made it. I never made that date and my girlfriend was angry but she stayed my girlfriend though. She forgave me when she heard the story, she was, "OK, I’ll let it go this time."

Audience Member

Sure you know, a call from Stevie Wonder.

Junior Marvin

Yeah, you know, whatever.

Erin MacLeod

One more, there’s actually two questions. Maybe if you could ask yours and then yours in the back and then you can answer them both.

Junior Marvin

I don’t mind. Go ahead.

Audience Member

I think London and England in the mid to late ‘60s was one of the most amazing times for music in recent history. Since you were there to see everything, I wanted to ask you if what do you think were some of the elements that contributed to that kind of environment? Especially in terms of the attitudes of the people involved like musicians, the bookers, the club owners and that kind of thing?

Junior Marvin

There was a lot of confidence. That fact that The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were so successful and then Led Zeppelin and many others. There was a lot of confidence that whatever they packaged and shipped back to America would be successful. A lot of it came from America like it was right under your nose and you couldn’t see it. Now we’ve got it and we’re going to sell it back to you and they were very confident because of the success of it. I mean like you know The Beatles was phenomenal, the songs and the response and you know, five songs on the charts at once. Those things never happened before and you know when The Rolling Stones came I think they did Ed Sullivan’s show on TV in America.

That was their first TV appearance and it was like James Brown and Rolling Stones and they said, “Well Rolling Stones have to go on first and then James Brown.” Then James Brown said, "I’m not going on after the Rolling Stones." Then the Rolling Stones says, "We’re not going on after James Brown." Eventually James Brown went on first so when Mick Jagger went on, he just let it all out, dancing everything and they became an instant hit. The next day it was like he was on par with James Brown which is a pretty hard thing to do. They had a lot of confidence and they put a lot of work into it. They’re very like scientists, they go in depth with music and why the instruments sound so good and why the overall feel is so good and they really try to get to the core of what was the magic that got people attracted.

A, they were very tight because they knew what they were doing, very well. And B it was a repackaged sound, it’s a sound that people in America grew up with but never paid attention to it. It was a very harmonious and vibrant sound. They were very confident, you had The Police, you had The Sex Pistols, you had The Specials. It was like the punk movement, the rock movement, the blues movement, the pop movement and then you had people like Tom Jones and [inaudible] everybody was covering every facet and genre of music and packaging it and selling it back to America. America was where you made the money. You know, America’s got millions of clubs. In England you go up and down once you’ve done it.

It was well appreciated too and loved by everybody. They had a lot of confidence about what they were doing and then they had the clothes to go with it because they were very fashion conscious and then they had the drugs to go with it as well. Everything was just like the chemistry of the whole thing, I’m not saying the drugs were a good thing but it kind of freed them up in a way where they didn’t feel inhibited. Not that you should use drugs in that way but it allowed them to be psychedelic for example and be adventurous and be universal and flower power. Then it took off in America as well. Then it became one big global thing, you know. It was a very beautiful time to be in music and see it out of nowhere become everywhere.

Erin MacLeod

And I think there was one last question in the back.

Junior Marvin

There’s another one here too, been waiting for a long time. Go ahead.

Audience Member

I was going to say like would Bob ever inspire you and give you the motivation when you had your days where you had no motivation at all playing guitar?

Junior Marvin

Can you say that again?

Audience Member

Would Bob ever inspire you...

Junior Marvin

Inspire me?

Audience Member

Yeah, and motivate you when you needed the motivation and what would he say to you?

Junior Marvin

Well, when I first met the band he was very hard on me. You know, he gave me these albums to learn and I figured I’d learned everything, I got it. And then he came up to me in a sound check and said, "I know you’re a good-ish guitar player and people know about you and stuff but my music is different. It’s not about the notes that you play it’s about the feeling and how you project that feeling." And it was just me and him. He didn’t do it in front of everybody. He just pulled me to one side. But he was very like... because I was kind of burnt out from having to do all of this swatting and everything. He says, "You don’t have it. You don’t have it yet. You need to go back to the beginning and think about the feeling. The feel of the music, the soul of the music." Because every music has a soul and a feeling and a drop and a space. You can’t cover up that space because then you spoil everything. It’s not the same anymore. The essence and chemistry is lost because you’re not in tune with everyone else.

So, I called my mother up and I said, "Hey, I’m leaving this band." And my mother is a typical Jamaican old school, a lot of discipline. She said, "You sit your little butt down, you listen to what Bob’s got to say and learn." And then she called Bob and said, "If he doesn’t behave himself, slap him." (laughs) I said, “You can’t tell Jamaican guys that,” I mean they’ll take you, they’ll slap you. But my pride in a way was kind of hurt because when he was talking to me my eyes bunged up with water. I’ll never forget. The drops were ready to come down. He saw that. He saw the water bubble up in my eye and he kind of backed off and said, "Oh, you kind of got it a little bit." You know?

Then my mom told me to stay, “Don’t leave.” Because I felt, “Man this guy’s too tough,” you know? He wants everything super perfect and I’m not going to get it in a couple of days. But anyway I want back to the beginning and I worked with the bass player and locked in with him and the drummer more. In fact I was more conscious about locking in with them. While I was playing the right notes and having a great time I was now playing the right notes, having a great time but being in a pocket with them because that’s very important to reggae, especially Bob Marley’s reggae. There’s a space where you don’t play.

It’s like Miles Davis would say, "It’s not when you play, it’s when you don’t play." Or the space that you leave in the music that creates that chemistry, that hypnotic chemistry and that magic. I wasn’t really fully aware of the magic and the soul of that particular brand of reggae. I wasn’t listening to the drummer. Because the drummer when he played, there’s a space where he doesn’t play. Then his kick drum is like the access of the music, it’s like the center of gravity. So, when he hits that kick drum everybody doesn’t play for a split second. It’s [mimicks sound of drums]. That little breath right there you don’t play in that breath. If you play in it then you don’t know what you’re doing because you’re not in that same groove and you’re not helping to enhance that hypnotic magic that Bob Marley’s music had or does have.

So, I became more aware of the root of the music that we’re all working under the same root. So, the drummer comes first. The first sound in music, drums. If you don’t play with the drummer you’re not going to lock in no matter what kind of music you play, what band you play with. It starts with the drums, the bass and you notice most bands who are really good the drummer and bass player are usually very tight even on recordings. Like the Motown recordings you have James Jameson and the drummers that they had, it’s very tight. It just hypnotizes you right away.

The Rolling Stones, they’ve got a very simple drummer but he’s very tight. Him and the bass player, Bill Wyman, they locked in. They’re not the greatest musicians in the world but they lock in. Same thing with The Beatles with Ringo and Paul. They have the special thing where they clock in. They don’t really talk about it but they have an understanding about it and they developed it through their relationships or whatever they go through to get to where they want to get through.

That’s when I discovered that I also have to listen to the soul of the music whether it’s salsa, Cuban music, Brazilian music, Jamaican music, British rock music, punk music, jazz, they all have this chemistry about them where you’re supposed to leave that space. And if you cloud it up you lose the whole essence of where it’s coming from. So, that’s something very special about music, whether it’s classical music or jazz or blues, rock, folk. There’s always something there, you know? Even bossa nova or music from Brazil, there’s a definite soul to it. Or like Spanish music, you know?

You feel the soul when you start to understand music itself. There is a soul there. There’s something magical about it. You see somebody dancing to Spanish music and they have the thing like [makes drum sound]. You get it right away that there is a soul in that music just like Cuban music or rock music. There’s a soul there in the music. Whether it’s quarter notes or half notes or whatever, there’s something there that you need to learn to really achieve in that genre of music.

All of the top musicians like Stevie Wonder, Ravi Shankar, they all know that it exists. They look for it in the people that they work with. They also understand and it’s not even something they talk about, they usually know about it before they even get together and the chemistry works because they’re all aware of it. It’s not something that happens by accident. If you listen to most reggae, there’s a difference between the one-drop reggae that Bob Marley plays and what an English reggae band would play or a Brazilian reggae band would play. They’re not really aware of that space.

So, when you listen they don’t have that same feel that we had with The Wailers because they’re not aware that that space is not supposed to be touched. It’s supposed to be allowed to just breath and that’s where the magic is. It’s very, very important to study the soul of music, not just the notes, you know, the feel. People say you got a great feel because you’re listening and you’re not playing against a metronomic feel. Music is very metronomic once you know the timing. And if you play with that metronomic feel it will sound better. You can play around it, you can play in and out of it but you always come back to that beat where it’s the dominant factor in the music.

Even if it’s classical music, you can hear it. Classical music will make you cry, it will move you. One little piece of music and you find yourself crying. The music does that. That soul it touches you, like you said before about the healing powers. There’s something with music that it’s in our DNA. It’s in our seed. We’re all born with it. Like babies, you don’t have to teach them how to dance. They hear something and they start dancing. It’s in their DNA, it’s in their seed. It’s from the time of creation.

A lot of people say that life is rhythm. Life is created out of the rhythm, the rhythm of life. The sperm and the egg get together and there’s a rhythm. There’s a dance with that sperm trying to be the first one to get in there. It’s very real. It’s difficult to explain. It’s not really that complicated but it’s not really easy to explain. It’s something that you acquire, you learn about it and then you use it and magic happens. The more you look for it, the easier you find it just by listening.

If you listen to somebody like James Taylor and the way that he sings and when he stops singing and when he comes back in there’s a rhythm to it. He just doesn’t come in and come out and come in and come out. There’s a feel to it and you start to feel it. Like Neil Young or somebody like that or Stevie Wonder. There’s a rhythm to the way that they project that sound that comes from within them and there’s a rhythm to it. Once you understand that it takes you to another level I think.

Erin MacLeod

I think it’s also probably no better time than what you’ve just said to end. I know you had a question, right.

Junior Marvin

You want to go to dinner, right?

Erin MacLeod

Pardon? No, no.

Junior Marvin

I’m joking.

Erin MacLeod

But you’re going to be around for a while so if there are some folks that have some questions during lunch you can come and ask Junior. I would like to thank...

Junior Marvin

Did you get to ask your question? No, no, I want to answer it really because you’ve been so patient.

Audience Member

It might be a bit long.

Junior Marvin

No, it’s okay, I’ll make it short.

Audience Member

OK. That’s right and thank you by the way for sharing and playing.

Junior Marvin

My pleasure.

Audience Member

It seems like the music you’ve been engaging or playing for us has this positiveness to it and there was some talk about healing. Even the minor chords have this silver lining around them. Do you indulge or engage with sad or destructive music sometimes or do you feel opposed to it? What is your relationship with things that doesn’t have this positiveness?

Junior Marvin

Definitely involves it, definitely. Like for example, “Stir It Up” is in a major key, right? And it has that very happy bouncy. Then other songs like “Natural Mystic” is in a minor key. It’s kind of like a blues format and it has that kind of like mystical sad way about it, you know? It’s not really happy bouncy kind of thing but it’s not negative. There’s a difference in the chord structure that you choose to express the feeling. Major and minor is definitely different. You know, major always makes you feel bouncy and up kind of thing and minor is a bit more kind of blues, kind of a little bit sad but not totally sad. It’s more like something you’d use to express a message or you want to get somebody’s attention on a not too playful mood, a more serious mood you’d maybe use a minor.

If you listen to a lot of movies or you watch a lot of movies and listen to the music they use for certain scenes and you try to figure out what the chord is that’s predominant you’ll realize that they chose it especially to express that moment, that mood that they’re trying to get. So, it’s very relevant like you’re saying. Thank you. (applause)