![]() In 1974, Clapton’s cover version of Marley’s ‘I Shot the Sheriff’, one of the bestselling reggae songs of all time, and the subsequent rise of Bob Marley to international fame is well documented.īut that was just the break that brought focus on the body of work that Marley had already done in the nine years prior to that. In ‘Concrete Jungle’, Marley sings about life in a ghetto, with little or no hope for escape: “No chains around my feet, But I’m not free, I know I am bounded in captivity.” Trenchtown doesn’t seem like a place that would provide inspiration for song writing, but much of the songs Bob Marley wrote were rife with references to the poverty, discrimination and violence that were part of his childhood. The government yard was a public housing project for the poor, where Bob Marley and his family lived. ![]() Trenchtown is a slum neighbourhood in Kingston, Jamaica, whose most distinctive feature was an open sewer trench. “Cos I remember when we used to sit in a government yard in Trenchtown.” The staccato chords played on the off beat, the seductive bass line and the wistful keyboard parts were distinctive, and so was the voice singing in a lilting, thick accent. All of a sudden, someone slipped in a new cassette, and my ears perked up as an unfamiliar sound wafted through the cool Bangalore night. ![]() I was at a Saturday night party in a friend’s room, listening to music on an old car tape recorder connected to two beat-up speakers. ![]() I didn’t know a genre like reggae existed till I got to my first year of college. ![]()
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