Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer
Peter Tosh performs with his M-16 Stratocaster guitar during his last concert in Jamaica at the National Arena in 1983. - Contributed
On September 11, 2007, while the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the United States America were being marked the world over, another significant milestone slipped through, almost beneath the radar. For while it was the sixth anniversary of the plane bombings that have become known simply as '9/11', it was also the 20th anniversary of the death of Winston Hubert McIntosh, more popularly known as Peter Tosh.
His death and birth dates are not far apart, as on October 19, 2007, he would have been 63 years old.
One of the founding Wailing Wailers, along with Robert 'Bob' Marley and Neville 'Bunny Wailer' Livingston, Peter Tosh was killed at his home in Barbican, St. Andrew, along with broadcaster and singer Jeff 'Free I' Dixon and Winston 'Doc' Brown.
In 1988, Dennis 'Leppo' Lobban was found guilty of the murders and sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life imprisonment.
Tosh's death was the untimely end to a life that began in Belmont, Westmoreland, and a musical career that was linked with Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer when, along with Junior Brathwaite, Beverly Kelso and Cherry Smith, the Wailing Wailers was formed in 1962. The association lasted from their ska hit Simmer Down through the 1973 Island Records album releases Catch A Fire and Burnin'. The Wailers split the following year and in 1976 Tosh's solo full-length debut Legalise It came out, with a striking picture of him in a marijuana field on the cover.
The Bush Doctor, Mystic Man and Wanted Dread and Alive albums followed, as well as tours with the Word, Sound and Power band, driven by the drum and bass of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, but after the 1983 Mama Africa Tosh went on an extended break. And, as he planned a full-fledged return with No Nuclear War, he was murdered.
No Nuclear War won him a posthumous Grammy, one of the very few honours to be officially given to Peter Tosh. And there have been none in his homeland.
Former manager Herbie Miller, who was associated with Tosh for six years beginning with the Legalise It album, pointed out that "Peter is greatly misunderstood.
way of expression
The fights with the police, the way he would express himself on stage, the fact that he saw what some call bad words as a simple way of expression ... the open use of herb, one of the things that brought him into physical conflict with the police ... Jamaican people did not understand the stance a man like Peter Tosh would take to win the right to smoke his herb, a right in his estimation.
"Some of them still think he should not have addressed the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition at the concert at the stadium," Miller said. That event was the One Love Peace Concert on April 22, 1978, during which Peter Tosh gave an extended speech in between songs, saying among many other things that, "I am not a politician, but I suffer the consequences".
That performance was released as Peter Tosh Live at the One Love Peace Concert by JAD Records.
"You know how many people wanted to talk to them like that? He was speaking on behalf of every poor man, every man whose ancestors were on the plantation, not owning it but keeping it going," Miller said.
only celebration
Since 1991, Worrell King of King of Kings, has been keeping the only significant Peter Tosh celebration in Jamaica going, with the annual 'Tribute to Peter Tosh' taking a break last year. This year, the free event will be held at Independence Park, Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland, on Saturday, October 20. It starts at 10:00 a.m. with Tosh's music being played, then performances in the evening.
King was not a confidante of Tosh, but says "what I do is look at the work. The work is what I am very much interested in".
And the concert has generated significant interest, as King said "through the Internet I have received so many calls from overseas". He points out that "in Jamaica it does not happen that way. The media, give thanks for what they have done, but more needs to be done".
In fact, it is more than the media houses which he feels fall short on Tosh, as King said "in my estimation the entire population in Jamaica, to include media houses, has been taking Peter Tosh very lightly. They have not recognised the work that the man has done in the reggae industry".
He pointed out that many people do not know that Tosh's Creation has been included in the Anglican Church's hymnal.
