Try Jah love

The Wailers - anchored by reggae icon Family Man Barrett (L) - will play Marley's entire Uprising album 
photo: Courtesy Equipe Spectra

Bugs Burnett 
 

Reggae pioneer Family Man Barrett and Canada's King of Reggae Jah Cutta remember Bob Marley
 
Bunny Wailer may be the last living "Wailer" - Bob Marley died of cancer in 1981 and Peter Tosh was murdered in 1987 - but no one has done more musically to keep the spirit of Bob Marley alive than The Wailers' original bassist and bandleader, Aston "Family Man" Barrett, who continues to tour the world with new incarnations of The Wailers, featuring young musicians paired with off-and-on past members from the 1970s.

When Family Man sued the Marley family and Island Records head honcho Chris Blackwell for $100-million in back royalties, he lost his London High Court case in 2006.

"This is the man who co-created Bob's masterpieces in the 1970s," Grammy Awards reggae chair Roger Steffens - whom Bob Marley himself personally dubbed "Ras Rojah" back in 1979 - told Hour afterwards. "In reggae, bass is the lead instrument. It's not just rhythm, it's melody. Family Man invented those bass lines himself. Bob [also] gave the band 50 per cent of all his royalties because he knew they were co-creators, and that stopped the day Bob died. Rita [Marley] stopped paying everybody."

This week Family Man refused to discuss the case with Hour. "The past is the past and I've moved on and I'll be happy to help promote any future Bob Marley releases," says Barrett.

But Montreal reggae legend Jah Cutta - a.k.a. Carlton Williams, known coast-to-coast as Canada's King of Reggae - is having none of that. "He played bass for Bob all his life and I think the world needs to show [Family Man] more respect," Cutta says. 

Cutta, meanwhile, last year released the best album of his storied 34-year career, A Me 'Dis(Stomp Records), mixed by legendary Jamaican producer Bobby Digital. Shortly after its release, his band's tour van crashed on an icy patch of Saskatchewan highway en route to Winnipeg. Cutta was thrown from the van when it crashed in a ditch and when he opened his eyes, he saw a native Indian standing above him."He deserves better than what he is getting today."

"He started praying in a different language I'd never heard before and I said, 'Pray for my friends!' When I looked up [again] he'd disappeared. The [triage] nurse at the Regina hospital told me the gentleman I saw is a pastor who passed away on that very [same dangerous] spot where he blesses [accident victims]."

Cutta has plenty of other stories too, like the time he shared a joint with Peter Tosh at Théâtre St-Denis in 1981. "After sound check he was smoking! My girlfriend told Peter, 'This is Jah Cutta! Give him a joint!' Peter replied, 'Do you know how much I paid for this? It's sensimilla!' Then Peter and I smoked. It was a special moment."

The Wailers

w/ Jah Cutta and Determination Band

At Métropolis (59 Ste-Catherine E.), Feb. 18