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By Leslie Goffe
New York
Familyman: "I am the captain of this ship and I will not let it go down."
Though Bob Marley is dead and gone, his backing band, the Wailers, is alive and well.
Led by longtime Marley bass player Aston Barrett, The Wailers Band as the group calls itself to distinguish between it and the original band, was formed a few years after Bob Marley’s death in 1981.
Since then it has recorded four albums which combine its own, new songs with Bob Marley classics like ‘Get Up Stand Up’ and ‘Natural Mystic.’
Not troubled
Though some Bob Marley fans, and some members of Marley’s family, were critical of The Wailers Band’s decision to re-assemble after the reggae star’s death, Aston Barrett, or ‘Familyman’ as he is known because he has more than 40 children, is not troubled.
He says he is not ready or willing to stop performing Wailers music he loves and helped create just because Bob Marley is no longer around.
“I am the captain of this ship and I will not let it go down like the Titanic,” said Familyman before he and The Wailers Band performed a concert in New Jersey in the United States recently.
“It is the same Wailers from the past."
"We don’t stop playing the music and spreading the message to the four corners of the Earth.”
Criss-crossing
"I'm not trying to fill (Bob's) shoes."
In fact, the Wailers Band has been travelling across the world for much of the past year.
The band is in the middle of a world tour that’s taken it to Australia, New Zealand and throughout much of the United States.
The principal reason Familyman and the Wailers have been criss-crossing the globe is, he says, so those too young to have attended a Wailers concert in the 1970s or 80s can do so now.
“Even young people born after the passing of Bob,” Familyman says, “have taken unto the message and the music just the same.”
And one of the young people who’ve embraced the Wailers message and music, but who would have been too young to have attended a Bob Marley and the Wailers concert in the 1980s, is the band’s lead singer, Elan Atias.
Elan, who just turned 30, is not your typical reggae singer.
A rich boy raised mostly in Beverly Hills by his white American mother and Israeli father, Elan sings about suffering but has never known hard times.
“I’m not trying to fill his (Bob Marley’s) shoes,” says Elan in the distinctive Jamaican-American accent he has developed. “I’m just trying to keep the message and be a part of this band.”
Youth appeal
This is Elan’s second time around with the group.
Discovered by the band’s guitarist, Al Anderson, ten years ago when he was 19, Elan sang with the Wailers for a few years before going off to pursue a solo career.
He returned to the band recently and now combines his solo career - he released his debut album, ‘Together As One’, in 2006 - with his work with the Wailers.
Guitarist Al Anderson, who discovered Elan, says the young American gives the older members of The Wailers Band who’re in their late 50s like him or early 60s like Familyman a chance to appeal to the younger generation.
“We got a new kid on the block named Elan Atias and in essence,” Al Anderson said, “you could say that he is way more up on the list of interest (for fans) than a bunch of old guys that are pretty much doing the same old thing.”
Like Al Anderson, Familyman says The Wailers Band has to be careful it does not become old and stale.
“We are bending some of our music, the melody and lyrics,” he says, “to join in with the young people of this age.”
Legal challenges
Though reviews in US newspapers have been positive and the response of fans who attended their US concerts suggest the Wailers haven’t lost any of their old appeal, it’s not been all good news for Familyman and the band.
For the past several years they’ve been beset by one legal problem after another.
Legal suits over the Marley legacy have been numerous
In 2006, Familyman lost a court battle for £60m in unpaid royalties he claimed he was owed from a contract he signed with Bob Marley’s record company and from earnings from songs he claimed he co-wrote with Marley.
He also claimed Bob Marley said band members would receive equal shares of royalties from several hit albums.
Losing the case proved very expensive for Familyman.
It cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyer’s fee and in court costs.
The band’s legal problems did not end there.
In 2007, The Wailers Band was sued by an American rock and roll band from Tacoma, Washington called The Wailers.
The Washington band claimed that because Familyman’s group had used the name the ‘Wailers’ on its website it had infringed on a copyright it claimed it had owned for more than 30 years.
Newcomer Elan Atias wasn’t immune from litigation, either. In 2006, he was sued by a Mexican pop singer, Elan.
She claimed The Wailers Band’s lead singer had infringed on her copyright by titling his solo album simply ‘Elan.’
With the lawsuits behind them now, Elan says The Wailers Band can finally settle down to do doing what they do best.
“We should not get hung up on the old stuff with that lawsuit and all that,” Elan says, “I’m a singer who has come into this band to keep the message this band has sung for 40 years of bringing people together through One Love.”