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I wasn't a fan of his ganja songs or the cloth ripping one. The language he used in some interviews.....
...but there is no denying that he did make a valuable contribution and I love the way he stood up to the media. Glad he is getting the recognition he deserves.
I really like this song.
...but there is no denying that he did make a valuable contribution and I love the way he stood up to the media. Glad he is getting the recognition he deserves.
Move over Bob Marley: Peter Tosh is finally getting the recognition he deserves
Tosh was the outspoken member of The Wailers who was sidelined by the Jamaican establishment, says Ian Burrell
Peter Tosh was not a man of peace. He was a revolutionary. "Peace," he told the feverish 40,000-strong crowd at the famous One Love Peace Concert in 1978, is "the diploma you get in the cemetery", written on your tombstone: "Rest in Peace!"
Tosh believed in action. Standing 6ft 4in in his black beret and often wielding a guitar shaped in the form of an M16 assault rifle, he was the most militant member of the world's greatest reggae band, The Wailers. Next to him, Bob Marley looked like a mere pop star.
He knew what he was doing that charged evening as he strode to the microphone in his black martial arts uniform and put his life on the line in one of the most passionate and dangerous political speeches ever given by a musician. Addressing Jamaica's two leading politicians, Prime Minister Michael Manley and Edward Seaga, the Leader of the Opposition, as they sat before him at a time when the country was being rent apart by murderous political gun battles in its poorest districts, Tosh warned: "Hungry people are angry people".
Retribution was inevitable, and came five months later. He was taken into a police station and beaten relentlessly until his skull cracked open and the hand he attempted to shield himself with was broken. He only survived by playing dead.
Today, Tosh is relatively unknown. The One Love Peace Concert went down in history because Bob Marley called Manley and Seaga on stage and made them shake hands in front of the television cameras. Tosh's earlier, braver action was not televised because he ordered the "lickle pirates from America... wid dem camera and dem TV business" to stop filming. In the recorded version of that night, and in the history of popular music, Peter would be overshadowed by Bob, the man who he taught to play the guitar.
And yet, after a long hiatus in which the Jamaican establishment, that was so stung by his criticisms, had almost succeeded in expunging Tosh from an island soundtrack defined by tourist-friendly Marley anthems such as "Jammin'" and "Could You Be Loved", the legacy of Peter Tosh is now being recognised.
He is the subject of a biography, The Life of Peter Tosh: Steppin' Razor, by the British author John Masouri. The Oscar-winning director, Kevin Macdonald, is planning a feature based around the making of Tosh's first great solo album Legalize It. In October, near his family home in the rural Jamaican parish of Westmoreland, a two-day concert – Earth Strong Celebration – took place in the Peter Tosh Memorial Garden.
Last year, the governing People's National Party – which Tosh supported – awarded him Jamaica's great honour, the Order of Merit, which was bestowed on Marley in the weeks before Bob's death from cancer in 1981.
It is 26 years now since Tosh's own passing. He was the victim of a treacherous murder, robbed and slain in his own home by an acquaintance: a brutal example of the desperate ghetto behaviour he had warned Jamaica's leaders about. Whereas Marley's funeral was a global news story and brought Jamaica to a standstill, Tosh's burial was a fiasco. His mother had to disown one of the two 'fathers' who turned up and the service was interrupted by protesters, including one who stood by the coffin and implored the body to "Arise and open the casket!".
It's not clear how Peter Tosh, with all his revolutionary tendencies – musical and otherwise – would have regarded these belated celebrations of his memory and establishment-type attempts to reclaim him.
For Masouri, who compiled his biography over four years and based it on 100 interviews, Tosh's persona was exemplified by his relationship with the Rolling Stones. The band made him the only signing to their record label and hoped to gain credibility from association with an uncompromising iconoclast.
"He was even too hot for the Rolling Stones to handle," says Masouri of the short-lived relationship. "He was so principled and their hedonistic rock'n'roll lifestyle didn't interest him – he was genuinely revolutionary in his thoughts and ambitions for his music and he really did want to change the world with his songs."
Mick Jagger sung with him on a duet and gave him a hit ("Don't Look Back"), and the Stones released his music (the album Wanted Dread & Alive) and took him on their stadium tour, introducing him to new audiences. But it wasn't enough for Tosh. "He accuses them of not promoting him properly!" says Masouri. "I think they were intimidated by him, although they would never admit to that. But he was too much for them and for many other people as well."
As Tosh sang: "I'm like a steppin' razor, don't you watch my size, I'm dangerous!"
Tosh was the outspoken member of The Wailers who was sidelined by the Jamaican establishment, says Ian Burrell
Peter Tosh was not a man of peace. He was a revolutionary. "Peace," he told the feverish 40,000-strong crowd at the famous One Love Peace Concert in 1978, is "the diploma you get in the cemetery", written on your tombstone: "Rest in Peace!"
Tosh believed in action. Standing 6ft 4in in his black beret and often wielding a guitar shaped in the form of an M16 assault rifle, he was the most militant member of the world's greatest reggae band, The Wailers. Next to him, Bob Marley looked like a mere pop star.
He knew what he was doing that charged evening as he strode to the microphone in his black martial arts uniform and put his life on the line in one of the most passionate and dangerous political speeches ever given by a musician. Addressing Jamaica's two leading politicians, Prime Minister Michael Manley and Edward Seaga, the Leader of the Opposition, as they sat before him at a time when the country was being rent apart by murderous political gun battles in its poorest districts, Tosh warned: "Hungry people are angry people".
Retribution was inevitable, and came five months later. He was taken into a police station and beaten relentlessly until his skull cracked open and the hand he attempted to shield himself with was broken. He only survived by playing dead.
Today, Tosh is relatively unknown. The One Love Peace Concert went down in history because Bob Marley called Manley and Seaga on stage and made them shake hands in front of the television cameras. Tosh's earlier, braver action was not televised because he ordered the "lickle pirates from America... wid dem camera and dem TV business" to stop filming. In the recorded version of that night, and in the history of popular music, Peter would be overshadowed by Bob, the man who he taught to play the guitar.
And yet, after a long hiatus in which the Jamaican establishment, that was so stung by his criticisms, had almost succeeded in expunging Tosh from an island soundtrack defined by tourist-friendly Marley anthems such as "Jammin'" and "Could You Be Loved", the legacy of Peter Tosh is now being recognised.
He is the subject of a biography, The Life of Peter Tosh: Steppin' Razor, by the British author John Masouri. The Oscar-winning director, Kevin Macdonald, is planning a feature based around the making of Tosh's first great solo album Legalize It. In October, near his family home in the rural Jamaican parish of Westmoreland, a two-day concert – Earth Strong Celebration – took place in the Peter Tosh Memorial Garden.
Last year, the governing People's National Party – which Tosh supported – awarded him Jamaica's great honour, the Order of Merit, which was bestowed on Marley in the weeks before Bob's death from cancer in 1981.
It is 26 years now since Tosh's own passing. He was the victim of a treacherous murder, robbed and slain in his own home by an acquaintance: a brutal example of the desperate ghetto behaviour he had warned Jamaica's leaders about. Whereas Marley's funeral was a global news story and brought Jamaica to a standstill, Tosh's burial was a fiasco. His mother had to disown one of the two 'fathers' who turned up and the service was interrupted by protesters, including one who stood by the coffin and implored the body to "Arise and open the casket!".
It's not clear how Peter Tosh, with all his revolutionary tendencies – musical and otherwise – would have regarded these belated celebrations of his memory and establishment-type attempts to reclaim him.
For Masouri, who compiled his biography over four years and based it on 100 interviews, Tosh's persona was exemplified by his relationship with the Rolling Stones. The band made him the only signing to their record label and hoped to gain credibility from association with an uncompromising iconoclast.
"He was even too hot for the Rolling Stones to handle," says Masouri of the short-lived relationship. "He was so principled and their hedonistic rock'n'roll lifestyle didn't interest him – he was genuinely revolutionary in his thoughts and ambitions for his music and he really did want to change the world with his songs."
Mick Jagger sung with him on a duet and gave him a hit ("Don't Look Back"), and the Stones released his music (the album Wanted Dread & Alive) and took him on their stadium tour, introducing him to new audiences. But it wasn't enough for Tosh. "He accuses them of not promoting him properly!" says Masouri. "I think they were intimidated by him, although they would never admit to that. But he was too much for them and for many other people as well."
As Tosh sang: "I'm like a steppin' razor, don't you watch my size, I'm dangerous!"
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