Elektra
The Marley family -- from left: Stephen, Cedella,
Sharon and Ziggy -- carry on the legacy of their
father, Bob Marley.
By John Berger
Special to the Star-BulletinIf family practices were recycled from one generation to the next, there would be no children out on tour with Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers this summer. It was understood back in the '70s that reggae star Bob Marley went on tour solo. His children -- Ziggy and the other future Melody Makers, Stephen, Sharon and Cedella -- stayed home in Jamaica. The children didn't get to spend much time with their father, and in 1981, time ran out. The elder Marley succumbed to cancer.
Ziggy, Stephen, Sharon and Cedella have been Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers since 1988. As they became parents they agreed that when the Melody Makers toured, their children came along.
"We regret not having time with our father, and so we just want them to be around us. We don't want to miss a moment of their lives, and they definitely feel the same way," Cedella explained in a recent telephone call.
The group's touring party of more than 30 people includes "about 16 kids," as well as the band and usual support personnel. They were somewhere in Florida when she called for the interview. The Melody Makers are criss-crossing America this summer in one of those huge buses that has just about every convenience this side of a swimming pool.
"The bus is like a house, and for the kids it's the perfect summer vacation. It's good for them to have all the experiences seeing all these things. We were more like closet kids: You go to school, you come home. I don't know if it was the (violent) environment we were in being raised in in Jamaica, but it seemed like we were always inside."
The group left the bus in California Monday and is currently somewhere between there and a Saturday concert on Maui. They'll follow that by headlining "Reggae in the Country" Sunday. Cedella hopes to try surfing before leaving Monday for a show in Alaska.
The group's tour commemorates the release of the Melody Makers' seventh album, "Spirit of Music." The album follows "Fallen is Babylon," the 1997 release that earned them their third Grammy. Ziggy, the primary writer, collaborated with producer Don Was in moving the Melody Makers into a new, stripped-down sound that often sounds closer to acoustic rock and rural African-American blues than traditional mainstream reggae or the pop-friendly sound of their early hits, "Tomorrow People" and "Tumbling Down."
The new sound and Ziggy's approach to it took Cedella by surprise at first. "There are no additives in it. It's like you get in the studio and the first time you strum, that's what's going to be there, even if it's the wrong note. I'm a perfectionist myself, and I was like, 'That key is off,' and he's like, 'Listen to it again and close your eyes.'
" 'Do you want me to close my ears (too)?' "
But now she enjoys the spontaneity, and says that choreographing the new show turned out to be a very natural process.
"When you close your eyes, your body takes over the movements, so it's not something that has to be forced or even premeditated. ... It's very raw (and) in your face and it is what it is.
"Ziggy wanted to capture it that way, like when he's sitting in his room and writing the music all by himself. I didn't know what it would be like performing it, but I think Ziggy did a really good job on the material."
Cedella's perspectives are also being broadened these days by her 4-year-old son, Soul-Rebel. She supervises while he surfs the Internet, and has directing him to web sites that explain who her father was and his artistic legacy. However, Soul-Rebel has been the one encouraging her to be more outgoing and to spend more of her free time outside.
"He's teaching me to be freer about going places and doing things. When we were in Jamaica he wasn't even going to school, but I didn't want him going outside. For me, safety was the inside. Even here (in the United States), it was a big deal for him to be outside, but now when we're traveling we go out and look at things."
She likewise encourages Hawaii's reggae musicians and songwriters to be open to new ideas and to create, rather than imitate. "I don't expect someone from Hawaii doing reggae to sound like Buju Banton. I'd be very disappointed at that. What I would call 'Hawaiian reggae' is something that could be so beautiful if you incorporate what you are. I want them to sound like the extension of reggae that branches into Hawaii and the flavor that Hawaii lends to it."
Reggae in the Country
with Ziggy Marley and
the Melody MakersAlso featuring: Jimmy Cliff, and Pato Banton & The Reggae Revolution.
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