At Birmingham Town Hall Dave Woodhall watches Basil Gabbidon commemorate Bob Marley.
On Thursday afternoon Radio Four Extra broadcast an event to mark Bob Marley’s eightieth birthda; included was a Great Lives episode featuring the late Benjamin Zephaniah. Then that evening came another occasion, Reggae Origins with Steel Pulse founder-member Basil Gabbidon and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.
This one took place at Birmingham Town Hall, a fitting venue because the city has long been the centre of British reggae and a collaboration with BCMG showed how such music, like so many other imports, has entered the cultural life of the region.
One thing that has changed is the punctuality of these gigs so I missed the early part of the first half, best described as a journey through history, from the origins of reggae in folk and French court music. Not only was the playing of top-quality but it was informative. I’d always known Louis Jordan was an important figure in the bridge between blues and rock’n’roll, but never thought of his influence on Jamaican music, which showed when playing his music followed by a selection of ska classics.
Moving through some Marley and then Steel Pulse classics, the educational part of the evening came to a fitting close with new music from Basil and his band.
Then it was time for the main event; a tribute in every sense of the word to one of the masters. Beginning with a snippet of Redemption Song and then moving into I Shot The Sheriff, The Town Hall seemed a perfect venue for such music, offering marvellous acoustics and an intimate atmosphere.
We’d been promised a selection of Marley’s classics as well as some lesser-known songs; Stand Alone and Dreamland from his early work, both sung by Basil, were followed by Jump Nyabinghi, from the posthumously-released Countdown. They were all warmly received but it took the anthemic Get Up, Stand Up to bring the audience to their feet.
And there was the only reservation about the evening. The audience – some who’d been fighting for civil rights or rocking against racism in the early days, others who were from the Windrush generation, weren’t particularly there to be educated about the music of Bob Marley. They were eager to hear the anthems that had taken Trenchtown to the world and found a particularly welcome home a few miles from where they were being played.
It took Is This Love and Buffalo Soldier to win them back and by the finale of Iron Lion Zion, complete with some nifty work courtesy of the re-introduced BCMG horn section, the music of Bob Marley was getting the reception it deserved.
And then, after a wait which sadly led to some of the crowd leaving early, a stunning arrangement of No Woman No Cry ended the night. Stripped down to an accompaniment of hand drum and keyboard, this almost-gospel version of the song that more than any other broke Marley’s music to a worldwide audience, was met with both reverence and enthusiasm. It was a fitting end to a worthy tribute.
