| What can anyone say about Bob Marley that has not already been said! Bob Marley spread Reggae music all over the Globe. Australia, Africa, South Africa, Europe, New Zealand, Asia, North and South America, and probably Timbuktu. He was man of many talents, But let us turn back the pages of time to when Bob Marley was a teenager 14 years old and onwards. Jamaica's first radio airways station JBC had begun broadcasting in early 1950's, and the second radio station RJR came on the air in 1959. But in those days there weren't much recording artists around nor any record recording studios about. Impresario Vere Johns regularly held talent shows at the Carib and Majestic Theatres. Both these theatres operated as cinemas. These talent shows were usually held on Friday and Saturday nights on stage in front of the cinema screen. The two radio stations follow suit by putting on talent shows of their own on the air from their studios mostly Thursday evenings. Duke Reid was a sound system proprietor who use to hire out his sound systems to night clubs, for wedding receptions, blues dance and house parties. These in house parties lasted all night until the morning light. The Duke also had an half hour spot on radio RJR for promoting his sound system known as Treasure Isles times. Bob Marley use to spend most of his time listening to the next door neighbour that lived next to his mother's, home who hanged his portable radio on the clothes line every day listening to the latest rhythm tunes from America that was being broadcast on short wave bandwidth over the radio airways. Bob Marley was crazy about music; he danced to every tune that was played on the neighbour's portable radio. |
