Remembering reggae legend Peter Tosh: Chris Blackwell recalls the making of The Wailers' Catch a Fire

Extract from an interview with Chris Blackwell – originally published in Hot Press in July 2022:

The 1972 Jamaican crime movie The Harder They Come, co-produced by an uncredited Chris Blackwell, helped reggae music begin to cross over.

“It was the major thing, because it gave you a feel of what the music and the life was all about, and it was very well done. I was in Brixton when they showed it and the whole cinema was full of smoke!”

The movie starred Jimmy Cliff, who had been working with Blackwell, but parted company with Island before the breakthrough came, taking an offer from EMI. The same week, three other young Jamaicans – Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer - walked through the door. Here’s how Blackwell describes the scene.

“They were immediately something else, these three strong characters… As I took the measure of them, I thought, Fuck, this is the real thing.”

“It wasn’t the same week, it was the next day,” Blackwell corrects me before taking up the story. “They were stranded in London with no money, no way to get back to Jamaica. I said yes because I was pissed off Jimmy Cliff had left. I guaranteed them some money for the trip back to Jamaica and to do the record.”

There must have been – and there was – people who told Blackwell he was never going to see that money again.

“That’s the advantage of owning a company and not working for one,” he smiles. “Because I’d have been fired, but I believed in them.”

A couple of months later, Blackwell turned up – as instructed - at the small shop in Kingston out of which the Wailers ran their Tuff Gong Label.

“I was hoping they’d recorded something,” he says, reasonably enough. “I spoke to Rita [Marley] who was running the shop who said ‘I think you’ll like it’. They came and picked me up at my hotel – Peter, Bunny, and Bob – and we went to the studio, listened to the recordings, and I knew they were great.”

These was the original Jamaican version of the first Wailers Island album, Catch A Fire. As brilliant as these recordings were, Blackwell was canny enough to take them back to London to add something more.

“I did want them to open up. Bob already knew ‘Rabbit’ Bunderick [keyboard player with both The Who and Free, who added synth and clavinet] but Wayne Perkins [the American guitarist you can hear on ‘Slave Driver’, ‘Stir It Up, and ‘Baby We Got A Date’] couldn’t get a grip of the reggae rhythm at all. He found it eventually and gave the album it’s incredible opening.”

Read the full interview with Chris Blackwell here.

Catch a Fire – the original 1973 'Zippo lighter' hinged album sleeve