As a kid in the 70’s even if you were a primarily a Rock Kid there was one man whose music cut across all divides – Bob Marley and his band The Wailers. Listening to his music today it still retains the power it had at the time. In a few short weeks The Original Wailers are back Downunder to bring the love. The band featuring Al Anderson, have a deep connection to the soul of the message they convey. One of the few people to spend the last remaining days with Bob Marley, Al Anderson remains true to the Bob Marley legacy. In the last few days of his life Bob told Al: “Al, I’m going on my journey. Please honour the music that we made together and make sure the band stays together”. He’s doing just that. Al started out on the East Coast of the U.S. and as a kid sold guitars to the likes of Aerosmith, but it was a night with Free’s legendary guitarist Paul Kossof that would change his life. We caught up with Al to share part of his Rock and Roll story ahead of the Australian Tour to find out all about his journey and to set a few ‘facts’ straight!
Mark: Good evening Sir how are you?
Al: Man I’m so sorry to have been messing up your schedule. All of a sudden I’ve been getting ready to get out of town and all of a sudden the roof is coming off! So please excuse me for being delinquent with the interview, it’s not that I don’t like to do them, I’ve got guitars to pick, amps to pick, everything. I’m the king procrastinator leaving everything till the last minute! Now I’m suffering for it!
Mark: It really is no problem at all Al, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us so close to flying out. My first question has to be what guitars are you bringing, have you chosen?
Al: I’m gonna bring like a Custom Shop Gold Top and a ‘Frankentele’, that some guy, when Jeff Beck passed, he was a big Jeff Beck fan, and a guitar builder, so he made a Telecaster and it looks like Jeff’s Esquire, and sounds amazing. It sounds so good Mark, and every once in a while I’ll play it.
Mark: So a nice white Esquire?
Al: It’s kinda off white, it’s worn, it kinda looks like it’s been through a nuclear war! It’s all Fender parts.
Mark: It’s always great to have The Wailers and the music of Bob Marley down here. You played on some wonderful albums over the years with Bob and you came to Australia on an early tour with him. What were your first impressions?
Al: I did! Australia and New Zealand are God’s country. Socially the people are, I noticed there’s a big difference between native Australians and Americans. They enjoy their social society. There’s more laughter, genuine laughter. I just noticed socially over the years, I’ve been coming to Australia regularly since 1975 or so. I’ve seen the differences over the years that have passed by, and I was just in Australia five or six months ago, I did a small run through Brisbane and Adelaide and so on we were with Spawnbreezie, and nothing’s changed. When you go to Australia or New Zealand, your territory, you step back in time. People are I think generally friendlier than most Americans. It’s not that I’m anti-American it’s just that right now Americans are on the shot list of a lot of people because of their behavior about world events: just toxic things that have put us in a position that nobody seems to like. We travel all over the world and as soon as we start speaking people go “You’re American? Ohh…” It’s like “Oh shit, we gotta step it up”.
Mark: It’s a very divisive time I think in the world and especially in the States.
Al: Oh yeah.
Mark: Let’s take it all the way back. You’ve had a completely fascinating career. One of the things I never knew and I read this in a couple of places was that you went to Berklee which must have just started out when you were there?
Al: No.
Mark: No?
Al: I want to clarify the Berklee situation. A friend of mine was a full-fledged Berklee student, and this is in the early 70’s – ’71 – ’72 and Berklee was just conceived so they didn’t have identification for people who would pay for the full year’s tuition. So I snuck into all the classes.
Mark: (laughs)
Al: All the seminars with all the Jazz greats, Mick Goodrick, Al Di Meola, Pat Metheny and I snuck into his class, his seminars and I learnt a lot from Mick – chord progressions and improvisation. So for almost the first eight months of Berklee’s conception I was able to sneak in and out of classes ’cause I was working at a bakery where I delivered milk, bread, cheese, meat and all that stuff. I would cut up everything, bag it, get on the truck and deliver it to houses. So I was in Boston because that’s where Berklee was and I befriended Aerosmith – Brad, Joey, Tom, Steven and Joe Perry. And I sold them vintage guitars that I would find all over New York City. We had a really great store called ‘We Buy’ in New York where you could find anything from the mid ’50’s to ’60, and literally for the cheapest price you could imagine. This was back in the ’70’s – 1970. So I was buying guitars in New York, I’d come up to Boston, sell them to Aerosmith and go to all of their gigs. I sold Joe a Les Paul Jr. I sold Brad a really beautiful Les Paul Standard, it was like early ’60’s, (laughs) these things are worth like hundreds of thousands now, and I’d paid peanuts for them! But at Berklee I snuck into classes to get educated, and I told a journalist like yourself that I had snuck into the classes and I don’t think he wanted to use that so he just said “He went to Berklee”. I didn’t go to Berklee, I’m not a Berklee guy, I’m not wired like that. I’m just an improvisationalist who can play with anybody almost as long as I have the chords in front of me and I know where I’m going and what to do. You know what I mean?
Mark: I can see that image in my head now.
Al: So it wasn’t that I was a Berklee student who took the Berklee theology of music and applied it to The Wailers – uh – uh – everything with The Wailers was straight up improvisational And Blues, and kinda Country.
Mark: It must have been fascinating though to sneak into some of those lectures especially to see people like Al Di Meola and Pat as well?
Al: Oh man! He was on fire! John McLaughlan was there, Tony Williams was there, all the classic modern Jazz players – Chick Corea – they were there giving classes all day and I was able to sneak in a get an education for free until they mandated the identification cards and then that was it for me! They were good to me though, I’d been getting in for like six months straight and security would just say “I know you’re not a student here, this is your last week”. So the head of security he was very cool letting me get in there. Then they just put an end to it, but I had a good six to eight months there and I learned a lot. It really showed me the fundamentals of improv, chord changes and soloing.
Mark: So that must have really opened your mind up to all different kinds of music? I’m not sure what you were listening to prior to that but I’m guessing Jazz and Blues?
Al: Jazz, Blues and Hard Rock.
Mark: I also read a story at around that time that you almost joined Traffic?
Al: Well I got to play with them. We opened for them and I jammed with them on stage many times. I was with a group called Shakatooth an African highlighted Jazz Group. Chris Blackwell from Island Records signed us to a contract and we opened up for Traffic for two and a half weeks all over England. The group was short-lived as the drummer had his own personality who Chris Blackwell wasn’t crazy about. In those days you could be flamboyant but you had to have a manager to cover for you. So he kind of pulled us out of that contract. But I was really good friends with Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Dave Mason and Chris Wood who introduced me to Paul Kossoff.
Mark: Oh wow.
Al: Paul was the lead guitarist with Free. I became really good friends with him and I went to his apartment at Labrador Grove they’d call them the backstreet crawlers – they’d get drunk and just crawl around the back streets, knock over garbage cans getting home. He was just a really beautiful guy who was really shy and wasn’t into the limelight. And he was a avid Les Paul Stratocaster collector of all years. He had a really nice loft and I used to go over and have a couple of jars with him and a spliff and we would just talk guitars! A jam! He had my favourite amps, he had every guitar from 1954 to 1969 – everything! Strat, Les Paul, Telecaster – Marshall amplifiers and we just became really good friends. And I was at his apartment playing guitar one night and he got a telephone call from Bob Marley and Chris Blackwell and they said “Hey we want you to come over and do the overdubs for the ‘Natty Dread’ album.” And Paul said “I’ve drunk too much, I’m too far gone but there’s a young American kid in my apartment and I think he can cut it on my behalf.” And they were like “Yeah we need a guitar player right now. I’m gonna sent a mini cab for him.”
Mark: And that’s where it all began! A great story.
Al: But there’s more Mark, before Island Records I used to work for Richard Branson at Virgin with a group called Aswad and I had a number 1 with them. And because Island and Virgin were in competition when Island was throwing parties I would always go around to Island Records in Baker Street and sit around and watch people like Nico and Brian Eno, you know Jimmy Page would be walking around, all of Traffic, Roxy music, And I was like “Wow, Island is really hip.” And then I found out that Chris Blackwell was Jamaican and he had all these Jamaican artists – because I didn’t know anything about Bob Marley in America – nothing. I heard Harder They Come with Jimmy Cliff, and that guys who sang one of Bob’s songs ‘I Can See Clearly Now’, I forget the artists name, that’s how old I’m getting! (laughs)
Mark: Wasn’t that Jimmy Cliff?
Al: No, Jimmy did a version but Bob was a ghost writer for this guy I’m thinking of. (Al sings) It’ll come to me! But it was because of Paul Kossoff that got the substitution to go to Island Records after leaving Virgin. And after one year Aswad and the singer-songwriter Delroy Washington did an album called ‘I Sus’ and that album had one London hit for a couple of months and then it didn’t go anywhere. We kinda got dropped off the label and of course Aswad went on to become a fabulous songwriting hit crew. But I was not in that faction of Aswad, so I was looking for a job. So I went over to Island and they hired me to be a ‘Tape Op’. A Tape Operator vacuums the studio, he cleans all the ashes off of the board, he sets the tone controls. And I poured tea and made sandwiches for Elton John and Jimmy Page! Jimmy Page was doing a session at Island so I poured tea for them, and I was still a kid, just barely 20 and I got to see that Island was a really hip place to be. But I never got any invitation to do any sessions there, I was just a Tape Op. One day I was there and Steve Winward was there with John Martyn and they said “There’s something wrong with this track” and I had listened to the song 100 times because they were tracking and Steve was producing for John Martyn. And I just said “Well the bass is out of tune.” And they said “How did you know?” and I just said “I don’t know I just heard it so many times.” So they asked me what I played and I said “I can play bass and I’ve heard this track so many times” So I went in with an electric bass and I got close to the sound of the upright and I played for five minute and gave them exactly what they wanted. And then they said “OK what else can you do?” and so I told them “Well I play guitar too!” So they had me down as a bass player and guitar player. So When I went to substitute for Paul Kossoff who was slated to do the ‘Natty Dread’ album I saw Bob Marley and Chris Blackwell who said “Oh I know you, you’re a Tape Op!”
Mark: (laughs)
Al: So I said ‘Yes I am.” So they asked me to play some guitar on Bob’s solo album and I was like “well I’ve never heard his music before” but before I went to the studio Paul let me hear ‘Concrete Jungle’, ‘Catch a Fire’ and ‘Burnin” – just a few minutes to listen to where Bob’s direction was. So I got to the studio and I walked right in, I didn’t say Hi to nobody, I walked right from the mini cab, walked right in, plugged in and said “Let me hear the music, let’s go!” So they said “OK its like that huh?” and I said “Yeah I want to hear the music.” So when they’d played like 5 or 6 songs I did like two minutes of “No Woman No Cry’, ‘So Jah Seh’, ‘Road Block’, ‘Talkin’ Blues’ I thought “Yeah I get it” so I started playing a little Blues and some Country Music, some slide, acoustic guitar – and within an hour I had put down like 6 or 7 tracks. And Bob said “Wow you work really fast” and I said “And I really like what you do.” And then I went into the control room and met Bob and Chris Blackwell from when he was touring with Traffic, he remembered me because I was always sneaking in and getting everybody stoned down at the Fillmore East when they came through town. So that’s how I got the session through Paul Kossoff, I substituted for him. And Bob was so happy with my guitar work that he invited me to come to Jamaica and make music with him. But I didn’t want to go to Jamaica because I wasn’t so familiar with Jamaican culture honestly. And I just had a young son born up in Newcastle and I needed money to support him because I didn’t really have a really good job. I was getting about a hundred pounds a week as a Tape Op in 1971. And then I got the Marley situation in 1971 around December. I went from London Heathrow to Bob Marley’s mother’s house in Delaware and I slept on her sofa for like 6 months. Because Bob had a job there, I didn’t know that “Wow Bob Marley’s a big superstar in Jamaica, but he’s got a job!” He was a working class citizen in Delaware at DuPont. So we stayed there six months and then he said “Now it’s time to go to Jamaica.” And we did a video before we left London for ‘Lively Up Yourself’ and that was like a big hit at the time. That’s really how I got started with Bob. Going from London to his mother’s house and from his mother’s house to Hope Road Studios that he had just bought. He started his company Tuff Gong and I was one of his Producers and Directors, and I stayed as that throughout my whole recording and touring years – eight years of being with Bob. So if it hadn’t been for Paul Kossoff I guess you wouldn’t be talking tome now.
Mark: It’s crazy how things happen, The 70’s to me was a wonderful time for music – anything goes, so much experimentation, so many genres and styles but you could like it all – I’d Listen to Free and Zeppelin but also to Bob Marley and there was nothing to stop you from doing that.
Al: Exactly!
Mark: And I just remembered it was Johnny Nash wasn’t it who did ‘I Can See Clearly Now’!?
Al: That’s right!
Mark: It must have been an inspiring time for you as a musician in the thick of it?
Al: Oh it was. As a band we put a lot into touring and rehearsing, we used to do a three hour soundcheck because Bob wanted it to sound absolutely perfect. Because if you don’t really EQ Reggae properly you get a lot of low end rumble from feedback and stuff. So we had two monitor engineers in the latter days when we got the horns, but in the early days when we were a five piece group: there was Tyrone Downey on keyboard, two guitars – Bob and myself and Carl (Carlton Barrett) and Family Man (Aston Barrett). We started in Canada as a five piece, came through the States and then came to England. By the time we got to England he had the idea of the I-Threes and then it was like a an eight piece group and then we added like three horns and so it became a really huge sound that we had to control. Bob was a workaholic, he wrote a lot of songs, we rehearsed a lot and we spent a lot of time building Bob Marley and The Wailers music world wide. And for me it was like “Oh, I’m the American guy” and I just wanted to help him get the music on American Radio, And then guys like Walter Yetnikoff wanted to sign him to CBS, Quincy Jones wanted his publishing, Michael Jackson came to get a piece of his publishing and it was then I realised that Bob Marley was taking off like an F-15! He’s really getting up there. And then he had some platinum albums, but I had no idea that he was going to become the most iconic star Jamaica had produced. We sold records all over the world and everywhere we went people just wanted to sing along. And I fucking love that!
Mark: There’s no feeling like it. You played on some of my favourite albums of his like the ‘Live’ record and ‘Natty Dread’ and ‘Rastaman Vibration’, but I always wondered why you didn’t play on Exodus?
Al: Um…. Bob had a really bad manager. He never had proper managerial direction. Everybody knew that when he took off this guy was worth money so of they could get 15-20% of it, I’ll take the crumbs from the band also because they don’t know the numbers. And Bob wasn’t mathematically astute enough, he never counted the pennies so he got this guy called Don Taylor who was a Lieutenant in the United States Army. And I didn’t like him. I said to Bob, “This guys gonna do some bad things to you” I could read his personality. He was Jamaican but he was in the United States Army as a Lieutenant, and I figured that a Lieutenant is not a stupid guy, he knows strategy and I said Bob I think he has one for you. And Bob said, “Oh I’m going to give him the opportunity” but after a year and a half of the new manager I just couldn’t take it any more. He took the crumbs out of our mouths, he took our royalties and financially it wasn’t all that the Bob Marley and The Wailers band put into it. We put so much in but we didn’t get anything but lawsuits. I never sued the Estate but there were a couple of members of the group that were stupid enough to sue and win in England against Chris Blackwell, it was a bad idea. London wasn’t the pace to sue Island Records and Tuff Gong and expect to win as a band member. And that was Family Man – he wasn’t too smart and didn’t have the right representation, so I basically left all this bullshit that was going on with the success and the finances of Bob. And when I was in Jamaica Peter Tosh didn’t like me either, but then Peter and Bunny realised that I came to help their music I didn’t come to support any single person. I did sessions with everybody in Jamaica at one time. I toured with Third World and Inner Circle, Mighty Diamonds, I did all the Sunsplash Tours so I played with all the Jamaica greats. But I was really disappointed in how the manager was handling The Wailers finances. Peter Tosh finally realised that I didn’t come to Jamaica to break up him and Bunny and Bob. This kid, I was a kid I was 20! This kid came in to help the music. It was all about the music for me. I wasn’t about money, because I lived very shabby, I lived like the poor Jamaican. I didn’t have anywhere to stay the first year so I slept on Hope Road’s floor. I knew that Bob was a great songwriter, Bunny was a great songwriter and Peter was a great songwriter and I wanted to play on their songs.
Mark: Yeah.
Al: There wasn’t any money back in 1974. There was no money. Until ‘Natty Dread’ was released and then we had ‘No Woman No Cry’, four or five number ones in Britain and now the money’s coming. It just wasn’t very evenly distributed. But I ended up leaving Bob Marley because he became very involved with Michael Manley the man opposing Edward Seaga. They kept threatening to murder Bob Marley and the Wailers if we supported Michael Manley the opposing Prime Minister. And bob supported the opposing Prime Minister and the agents that were working for this really evil force in politics in Jamaica would see me and they would pull me over on the side of the road and tell me to tell Bob that he better not have anything to do with making Michael Manley the next Prime Minister or they were gonna kill everybody. When they had the attempted assassination, I left four days before it happened. I told Bob “Bob they’re coming to get you” and he just said “I don’t care, you tell them to come.” And he knew exactly the guys that tried to kill the whole band for their political views. I had nothing to do with politics, I had just had a young son so I didn’t want to get into politics with Bob or anybody.
Mark: That was a close shave.
Al: And Peter wasn’t into politics or any of the opposing Prime Ministers so he offered me a job with Word Sound and Power and I couldn’t turn it down. So instead of getting shot at Hope Road, and Bob did get shot, his manager got shot five times, his wife got shot, they just shot at everybody at Hope Road and missed, and that was getting too close to home for me. So I pulled out of Bob Marley and the Wailers and joined Peter Tosh’s group. And we did ‘Legalize It’ and ‘Equal Rights’. And it was a great decision for me because I got to help another artist. I introduced Peter to The Rolling Stones and they signed them to Rolling Stones Records. So it was a good thing for him, and me.
Mark: It sounds like you were always immersed in music from a young age did you come from a musical family Al?
Al: My mother played piano, my father played bass, my aunts and uncles and cousins all played either guitar or some other instrument. And we’d get together on Christmas and New Years and just jam. But I was the youngest one, they used to call me little Al, and I didn’t know anything about guitar playing, bass or any wind instruments. So I just listened and fund a love for guitar, and my uncle was a really good guitar player, and my cousin too. So they showed me a few things but I never took it seriously until I was around 15 years old. I had a paper route and I bought a bugle! And so I learnt that and then went on to play trombone, but trombone was too smally and spitty so I decided to play bass, as my father was a bass player. And then I joined a little group and one of these club owners came to us and said “You learn these 15 songs and I’ll give you 400 bucks a week to play in my club.” Now we were all underage, but I learned the 15 songs and I was playing guitar. I thought “Wow playing guitar you can get paid.”
Mark: (laughs)
Al: And so I decided to do that for the rest of my life.
Mark: And the rest is history, we’re based in Perth and you’ve actually sold out the Perth date.
Al: I love Perth man. I love Australia, it embraced Bob Marley and the Wailers from the early days before even Europe. When we were playing these shows of 60,000 and 80,000 the aborigines would come down and demand they were let in and they got in, and everyone loved what we were doing. Then we took it into New Zealand and the Maoris said that Bob was one of us, he looks like us: and they just embraced him. Australia and New Zaland showed us nothing but love, the native people and the other people. I go there every year and its always the same. I could easily leave America and live in The Gold Coast, Melbourne or Perth or the South Island of New Zealand and love it.
Mark: If you could have been a ‘fly on the wall’ for the creation of any great album in the history of Rock and Roll what would you have loved to have seen being made? Just to see how the magic happened?
Al: Wow! I think the Are You Experienced? Album because of the diversity. With Mitch, Noel and Jimi and a three piece you gotta make up a lot of sound. I would love to see how they recorded. If you can make three musicians sound like they did! Wow!
Mark: Still turning people on to music to this very day. And we close with an easy one – what is the meaning of life?
Al: Compassion for your fellow men and women and children. And teach to the whole of God, Sun, Moon and Stars and all the five elements. You have to obey the Lord and be humble to our brother, sister and child and all animals and all living things.
Mark: That’s a wonderful answer, thank you so much Al for talking to the Rockpit today it’s been an absolute pleasure. We’ll see you in a few short weeks in Parth and have a safe trip over.
Al: Do me a Favour Mark. When we do come into the concert make yourself known and we’ll catch up. I have a copy of our first vinyl for you.
Mark: I look forward to shaking your hand my friend.
Al: God bless, take care.
The Original Wailers 2023 Australian Tour TICKETS HERE