No Woman No Cry

  No Woman

  No Cry

  My Life with Bob Marley

  Rita Marley

  with Hettie Jones

  PRAISE

  Praise for No Woman No Cry

  “Rita does [Bob Marley’s] legacy a greater favor by humanizing him and his astounding musical gifts.”

  —Rolling Stone

  “Tart, self-assured, and lasting.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “This book makes an important contribution to our understanding of Marley and Jamaican music in general.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Rita is a strong woman whose angle on Bob Marley is fresh and authoritative.”

  —Booklist

  “Above all, fans will find a simple story of a woman who married a simple man, watched him rise to fame, and bravely endured many tribulations at his side.”

  —Library Journal

  CONTENTS

  COVER

  TITLE PAGE

  PRAISE

  EPIGRAPH

  PROLOGUE

  1. TRENCH TOWN ROCK

  2. WHO FEELS IT, KNOWS IT

  3. CHANCES ARE

  4. TO LOVE SOMEBODY

  5. LIVELY UP YOURSELF

  6. A TIME TO TURN

  7. THANK YOU, JAH

  8. I KNOW A PLACE

  PHOTO SECTION

  9. EASY SAILING

  10. BABYLON BY BUS

  11. WAR

  12. WOMAN FEEL THE PAIN MAN SUFFER, LORD

  13. WHO CAN BE AGAINST US

  14. THE BEAUTY OF GOD’S PLAN

  15. SUNSHINE AFTER RAIN

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  I remember when we used to sit

  in the government yard in Trenchtown …

  In this bright future, you can’t forget your past …

  Oh, little darling … oh my little sister …

  don’t shed no tears …

  No woman, no cry

  BOB MARLEY

  PROLOGUE

  PEOPLE ASK WHAT it’s like when I’m somewhere and suddenly Bob’s voice comes on the radio. But the thing about Bob is so deep, it is as if he’s always with me, there’s always something to remind me. So I don’t wait for his voice.

  And he did promise me, before he finally closed his eyes, that he’d be here. It was May 11, 1981, and the doctors said he was dying of cancer and that there was no hope. But Bob was hanging on, he wouldn’t let go.

  I had put his head in my arm, and I was singing “God Will Take Care of You.” But then I started to cry and said, “Bob, please, don’t leave me.”

  And he looked up and said, “Leave you, go where? What are you crying for? Forget crying, Rita! Just keep singing. Sing! Sing!”

  So I kept singing, and then I realized, wow, that’s exactly what the song was saying: “I will never leave you, wherever you are I will be …”

  So if I hear his voice now, it’s only confirming that he’s always around, everywhere. Because you do really hear his voice wherever you go. All over the world.

  And one interesting thing about it, to me, is that most people only hear him. But I hear more, because I’m on almost all of the songs. So I also hear my voice, I also hear me.

  chapter one

  TRENCH TOWN ROCK

  I WAS AN AMBITIOUS girl child. I knew even then that I had to be, in that environment of thugs, thieves, killers, prostitutes, gamblers—you name it, you’d find it in Trench Town. But alongside the bad lived the good, a lot of strong, talented people who were really aiming at being someone. Barbers. Bus drivers. Seamstresses. Bob himself worked as a welder for a while.

  I grew up in the care of my father, Leroy Anderson, a musician who worked as a carpenter. Sometimes I’d go with him to his carpentry jobs, or to hear him play his tenor saxophone. In his woodworking shop outside our house, he’d sit me on the end of the board and call me pet names, like “Colitos,” or “Sunshine,” or other variations on my full name, Alfarita Constantia Anderson. Because I was very dark-skinned, the kids in school called me “blackie tootus” (black and shiny, with very white teeth). I learned discrimination early and underestimated my own value because of my color. Jamaica has a long history of color consciousness and racial struggle. It’s like that old American song, “If you’re black, get back, if you’re brown, stick around …”

  Trench Town was, and still is, a ghetto in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital. Back then it was a shantytown on tracks and dirt roads. Most people just captured a piece of land, got a government lease for it, and then built anything they could. You’d find cardboard houses, houses made of corrugated metal, concrete block houses. It was like Africa, one hut here, one there. Many places in Jamaica are still like that.

  When I was five, my mother, Cynthia “Beda” Jarrett, left Papa and my brother Wesley and me to start a new family with another man. (She kept my other brother, Donovan, who was lighter-skinned.) I loved my mother, because when people would look at us kids and say, “Who fe one is this?” and “Who fe one is that?” I’d always hear, “Oh that’s Beda’s child” or “Beda’s only daughter” and “What a way she grow up fine, sweet little girl!”

  But I had been sharing houses out between my mother and her own mother, my grandmother Yaya, before my father decided this was foolishness. Maybe he was jealous of Beda courting another man and felt that we shouldn’t be around him. Anyway, I spent more time with Yaya, because I was her complexion—my mother’s family is Cuban—and we got along fine. I didn’t even mind smelling her cigars—she smoked them backward, with the fire end in her mouth! Yaya’s yard was full of her grandchildren, offspring of five daughters, all of whom needed “all-day children stay with you.” Yaya was security, she boiled a big pot of cornmeal porridge for the morning serve, and my cousins and I, ages four and five and six, all drank our porridge and ate our crackers and then went off to our little prep school.

  When my father decided that he would rather have us living with him, he asked his sister Viola if she would help. Viola had no children, but she was married and trying to build her own life, and didn’t feel she had to do this. Until our grandparents, who were fond of us, intervened and urged her to consider it. “You must help Roy,” our grandfather is supposed to have said, “because these are good children and need your help.” This grandfather, a tailor, died just about the same time as Aunty Viola Anderson Britton agreed to take us into her house. So I didn’t get a chance to know him, but I’ve got a lot to thank him for. I wouldn’t say I’ve lost anything by not going with my mother; I think I’ve grown into the woman that I ought to be by being raised by my aunty and my father and my brother, because they all played a part. We had to support each other.

  Aunty was first of all a dressmaker and designer of wedding clothes, in partnership with her sister, Dorothy “Tita” Walker, whom we kids called “Fat Aunty.” All over Kingston people knew that if you wanted a wedding, all the way from the bride and groom to the page boy, “The Two Sisters” were the ones to see. Their specialty was wedding dresses with bridesmaid and flower girl. And don’t forget the cake—Aunty could make that too—from one to five layers! For a time she also kept a cold supper shop in the lane outside our house, where we sold ginger beer, pudding, fish, fried dumplings, tea, soup. All to make a living. Her husband, Herman Britton, was a driver for Public Works. He was very good to me, and I thought of him as my stepfather, but he and Aunty had problems and would fuss when he came home drunk every Friday night. Apart from that, he was a quiet, peaceful man. Mr. Britton had two sons outside the marriage, and eventually he and Aunty divorced.

  I don’t know how she managed it, but 18A Greenwich Park Road, where we lived, was one of the best-looking houses around. It had started as a “government h
ouse,” a wooden structure with a zinc (tin) roof, part of a government housing scheme. Now it had three bedrooms, a sewing room, an outside kitchen and pit toilet, a veranda, and a fence with a gate you could lock, which was very unusual in Trench Town, where in those days every place was open and you could walk into anyone’s yard. We also had radio and later television, and even water piped into our yard, so we didn’t have to go to the standpipe to catch water like most people who lived there.

  Though we all had our chores, Aunty always employed one or two helpers to tend to the housework while she sewed. Mas King was our hand helper. He would work with Aunty to add on to the house, or to lay down the zincs when they would lift up off the roof in a high wind or heavy rain. But she’d always be the one in charge—Mas King would be down below reaching the nail and she up there hammering! Aunty was a go-getter with a flair, a special character. She was a small woman, but energetic and intense, feisty—in Jamaica we pronounce that face-ty. Aunty could definitely get in your face. She was still in her early thirties when I went to live with her, very pretty and sexy. Long as I knew her she maintained her good body and beautiful skin. But she was way more than appearance—I used to call her the village lawyer, because she was into everything. Everybody come complain to Miz Britton, so and so and so, and if anything happened in the area they’d rush to tell her. She also ran “partner,” a lottery where everyone gave her money and then got to draw at the end of the week. She was a breadwinner for the community and very “government,” making sure everyone voted, and if anything happened—like I said, she was in charge. I know it was no small thing for a woman like that to take in two young children, but I think she did it with an open heart, because she loved her brother and respected her parents. And in return she was well loved, always loved. More than loved, our beloved Aunty.

  Papa used to make stools on his carpentry bench outside our home, and I had one for myself. Everyone knew this was Colitos’s stool, sort of benchy with four legs and a square top, but very neatly done with a finish. So you could know that someone had a father who is a fine carpenter here. I sat on it during my break time or if I wanted to stay by Aunty’s machine while she sewed, cleaning up something or pulling out stitches or just watching and learning. Eventually I became a hemmer for her, hemming skirt tails and all of that.

  Aunty’s nickname was “Vie” (pronounced vye), and I had my own sweet name for her—“Vie Vie.” Whenever I said “Vie Vie,” things would work out. But whenever she spanked me I’d think, oh why did she? If she loved me so much she wouldn’t spank me! Oh it’s because she’s only my Aunty, oh how I wish I could be with my mother! Many times after I was spanked I would take my stool to the house corner and sit down and cry. I can see myself now, looking left and then right to see if I was alone, because if the helpers or anyone else saw me crying they would tell—“Rita out there cry, ma’am!” So I would cry secretly, wondering why, why did she have to hit me? Is it because I don’t have a mother? Is it because I don’t have any mother … And then I would bawl, really bawl good and loud, to make sure she came out there and saw me and heard what I said. Because she didn’t feel as if I needed a mother besides her.

  And gradually, when I visited my mother’s house and had to sleep with about fifteen other cousins and had to carry this and that and sweep up, and didn’t get much attention, I began to understand and be grateful that this was not my home. Aunty’s, where my room was, where I was cared for, was home and where I belonged.

  When I was nine my mother got married and didn’t invite me to the wedding. That hurts, when you’re a little girl. I didn’t want Aunty to know how hurt I felt, I felt I couldn’t let her know, especially since she’d always said, “Your mother don’t know you’re a girl child, she won’t even send you a panty.” Which, of course, had led me to think that my mother just didn’t care and could have left me feeling lost.

  But Aunty was way ahead of me. “You don’t even have to hurt,” she said in her no-nonsense way. “Your mother don’t want to invite you? No problem! I will make you a beautiful dress, and I’ll dress you up, and we’ll pass by the wedding, and just let everyone see how pretty you are and see what your mother did—wu’thless bitch!”

  That’s how Aunty was, she could be very mean when she felt it was necessary. But she had standards—yes, quality—so much class! And she was so righteous! And for this I came to appreciate her, to understand why I should love her and not let anything be too good for her. Wesley and I, when we got old enough, we’d say to our father, there were times we didn’t even know where you were, but Aunty was always there for us. You look up, you think there’s no one, and here comes Aunty.

  The Andersons were a musical family. Besides my father and Aunty (who sang in her church choir), I was close to my Uncle Cleveland, a big baritone very much in demand for weddings and other celebrations. So I was always musically oriented, musically inclined. And because it was recognized so early that I had a voice, Aunty would teach me songs and then tell her customers, “Oh Rita could sing the wedding song.” I loved singing in church, too—I’m a true Christian from when I was a child. I know there is a God; I love Him and have always felt very close to Him. (And then there was the pastor’s son, Winston, who would walk me home after church and kiss me at the gate.)

  Saturday afternoons on RJR, one of the two Jamaica radio stations, there was a program called Opportunity Knocks. If you got on it, you would be exposed to people who could take you from nowhere (like Trench Town) and put you into helpful organizations like the Girl Guides. Or they’d give you a bit of cash and a trip somewhere. I was ten when Aunty said, “You want to try for the radio, Rita?” Aunty, she was oh so confident in me! So I said, “Okay, what am I gonna sing?” And she said, “The Lord’s Prayer, because that’s a big tune, and you can do it!”

  She sat me down on my little stool, beside her sewing machine, and day after day she’d be there sewing and singing “Our father” and I’d repeat “Our father.” “Who art in heaven …” “Thy kingdom come …” And when we reached the last of it, she’d say, “And now we put our hands together like this: ‘And the glllooooorrry … ’”

  The night of the program she dressed me up in a crinoline and a fabulous blue skirt and blouse with lace trim. I was way too short for the microphone and they had to put me on a box, but oh, I tore that place down! All I can remember is, “And tonight’s talented winner is … Rita Anderson!” And everyone yelling, “You won! Rita, you won!”

  I went up on the stage and for the first time experienced the applause of an audience. I was so little, but I think of her, that little girl—myself—as so courageous! And from that day on, I said, hey, I’m gonna be a singer.

  Often the only way to keep a Jamaican family surviving was—and still is—for one of its members to emigrate and send money home. The way people go to New York now, in that time our refuge was England. You went by boat, and the fare was very cheap, seventy-five pounds. Though it might take people years to save that up, eventually the recommendation was, “If you’re gonna tu’n wu’thless, g’wan to England and find a job.” When I was thirteen, Aunty said to my father, “You’re getting nowhere. Where’s your ambition? You can’t stay in Jamaica sawing wood and playing saxophone twice a week. Rita’s turning teenager—I’ll soon have to buy her brassieres!” She bought Papa a ticket to England and said, “Go find a life.” So, like others, he went to London. He used his carpentry skills and drove taxis but managed still to work as a musician, playing his tenor sax and living in various European cities.

  Wesley and I had thought that when Papa went to England we were going to be following him in a year or two. That was always a promise: If you behave yourself, you will go to your father. If you behave yourself … And so I was always looking forward to that and hoping to one day tell my friends, “I’m going to England ’cause that’s where my father is, my Papa’s sending for me.” But that dream never materialized because he was never financially able. Although he kept in touch,
I didn’t see him for more than ten years; in fact, Bob saw him before I did! This is why Aunty meant so much, because she gave me the reason to be a tower of strength. She gave me that ambitious feeling. She’d say, “Just because your mother left you and your father’s gone doesn’t mean you’ll be nobody. I’m Aunty. You’re going to be someone.”

  Across the street from our house, on the opposite side of Greenwich Park Road, the Calvary Cemetery held most of Trench Town’s Catholic dead. Though it wasn’t something we had any fear of, living in front of a cemetery was an experience. We were always being faced with life and death, because every day there were three or four bodies and at least one elaborate funeral with beautiful flowers and ribbons. Our neighbor Tata was the caretaker there, and his wife, Mother Rose, was Aunty’s best friend. So we had access to the cemetery anytime, and were able to squeeze ourselves through the barbed wire or even go through the gate if we wanted. And since Tata knew I needed ribbons for school and that Aunty and I loved flowers, if there was a special funeral that came in, he would send someone to tell us, and after the mourners left, I climbed in. Other kids said, “You don’t afraid?” At school they would tease me that my hair ribbon was from a funeral. Or they’d say, “Oh no, you have to come through the cemetery to get to school! I’m afraid of you, girl!” But then there were my friends who would fight for me, who said, “Foolish! You stupid! So what? She’s intelligent, she can sing!!”

  It was our family’s custom to gather every evening and sing, under the plum tree in the yard—the “government yard” that Bob would later so famously sing about. From the time I was small, the yard had been my special place, not only where I cried after Aunty’s spankings, but where I went just to be by myself and think. It was smooth dirt, swept clean (often by me), and the plum tree had beautiful yellow blossoms. I used to pick the plums when they were green and gummy inside and break them in half and stick them on my ears, to make fabulous plum earrings.