Bob mistrusted everybody—during the first years of my management that became clear. His mistrust was, I guessed, based on bad experiences with the people closest to him and with others in the music industry and the recording business in Jamaica. He simply mistrusted everybody. Because I was the one who was making the deals and making all the money for him, over time I gradually gained a little more of his trust. But Bob still had his own way of checking up on people.
At the close of our first year together, with Bob’s star continuing to rise, I decided that the time had come to reexamine our whole accounting structure. The contract with Island was London based and thus subject to UK taxes. As record sales climbed and increased our income, Bob suddenly found himself in the 70 to 80 percent bracket of British taxpayers, the highest.
I decided to discuss the matter with Marvin Zolt whose accounting services I had used when I managed Little Anthony and the Imperials. Into my management team, I brought the later infamous team of David Steinberg, as lawyer, and Marvin Zolt, as accountant. My exposure to the intricacies of the music business over the years had taught me long ago that you needed whites to deal with whites. I held a meeting with Zolt and Steinberg about Bob’s tax situation and was referred to a contact person in DC, a client of theirs, who in turned referred me in 1975 to a tax lawyer, one Jerome Kurtz.
After getting Bob’s approval, I hired Kurtz at $7,000 per day to come to New York and advise us what to do about taxes.
Kurtz traveled from Washington to New York, examined our situation, and advised us to establish a company on the island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. This country, he said, through a treaty with the USA that dated back to 1939, was exempted by law from the US tax code. The law allowed any company registered in Tortola, and owned and managed out of Tortola, to exempt all its earnings in commission or royalties from taxes both in the US and UK. He further advised that Bob’s earnings could be moved from the US and the UK to Tortola without tax penalty and gave me the name of a attorney in Tortola, one Michael Regiles, who could set up the company.
We urgently needed to make this move in light of the renegotiated Island contract. During this time, I also had a feeling that Chris’s company was not prospering. None of his other recording artistes was selling any records. His other potential star, Steve Winwood of Traffic, wasn’t doing particularly well because he wouldn’t work. In fact, Bob was his best-selling artiste.
With this leverage, I tried dictating to Island the terms I wanted and began taking unusual risks. For example, during our London tour, we had recorded Live!, but because a live recording was not covered by the Island contract, Chris refused to accept it as part of our deal. We therefore needed a company that would own it outright. I had demanded a lot of money from Island for distribution rights to this album, but Chris had refused to pay, creating an impasse between us. Despite this impasse, Chris had Island release the album in the UK only, which led to another confrontation.
I immediately demanded payment for the UK rights, as well as a further payment for the European rights. We got a substantial sum—as I recall about $500,000—a payment that did not make Chris very happy.
This situation and other developments clearly called for another meeting between Chris, Bob, Steinberg and me. I called Michael Regiles, the recommended lawyer in Tortola, who advised me that he had an already formed company, Media Aides, that he could sell us for $1,000. I immediately sent a check to pay for the cost of the company and to open a company account at Barclays Bank in Tortola.
Forming this new company now gave me the opportunity I needed to try to correct the situation with not only Chris Blackwell and Island, but also with Danny Sims about Bob’s publishing rights that Danny had placed in Cayman Music.
What had happened was this: when Bob had been signed by Cayman Music, which was owned by Danny and “Big” Paul Castellano, the contract gave Danny control of management, recordings and publishing of Bob’s music. The songs involved included “Guava Jelly,” later recorded by Barbra Streisand, and “I Shot the Sheriff,” an early Eric Clapton hit, and other Marley classics such as “Get Up Stand Up” and “Reggae on Broadway.”
The earnings from these records were to be accounted for by Copyright Service Bureau, run by a lawyer, Walter Hoffer. His actions created and compounded the problem and would later cause a confrontation between Danny, the Mafia and me.
When Bob saw that the publishing rights from “I Shot the Sheriff amounted to about nine million dollars, he became suddenly aware of the value of the rights he had assigned to Cayman Music and began to suspect that Danny was keeping earnings from him. To escape Cayman’s publishing ownership, he decided, with Allan Cole and Yvette Morris (then an employee and one-time girlfriend of Bob), to put the names of other people on his songs. All the songs on the Natty Dread album used other names, including the single “No Woman No Cry.”
In his characteristic way, by hanging around with Danny, Bob had begun to get the hang of the intricacies of the music business. He began to learn about the difference between managing, publishing and recording. When the contract with Danny came up for renewal, Bob agreed to extend the publishing rights for another year if Danny would release the recording and management parts of the contract back to him.
Once again Bob had absorbed the goings-on until he learned enough to make his own demands.
Danny agreed to this change, and Bob proceeded, with the help of Allan Cole and Yvette Morris, to form a series of companies under the name Tuff Gong (the name of the original company he had formed and owned jointly with Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh). Tuff Gong Music, USA, was thus created and registered in the USA as a distinctly separate entity to Tuff Gong Distributions Jamaica, Tuff Gong Music, also registered in Jamaica, or Tuff Gong Records and Tuff Gong Productions, which I formed and registered in Tortola. To this US company Bob, Allan and Yvette assigned the earnings of the new songs.
Inheriting this scenario, I realized at once that they had made two glaring errors: first they should not have registered the company in the USA because doing so made its earnings taxable; and second the company’s registration showed Yvette owning a 99-percent share with only I percent going to Bob.
After advising Bob of these errors, I proceeded to correct them.
Because I knew that in the music business the real power lies with the person who collects the money, I proceeded to register a new company, Bob Marley Music, in Tortola, and assign all earnings to this company, making them nontaxable. I also corrected the registration of the company so that Yvette Morris no longer owned 99 per cent.
We had just completed the Rastaman Vibration album, and it had come out at the same time that the contract with Danny Sims had expired. To escape Danny Sims’s ownership, Bob and I decided to put some of the new songs under the names of fictitious writers.
But because we needed to retain Bob’s visibility as a songwriter, I carefully selected the songs that I would ascribe to others. I placed such names as Allan Cole, Carlton Barrett, Family Man Barrett and Rita Marley on the songs recorded for the Rastaman Vibration album, the jacket of which read:
Bob Marley & The Wailers
Rastaman Vibration
Bob Marley Music
(Media Aides Ltd. Tortola)
The writers were listed thus:
| SONGS | WRITERS |
| Positive Vibration | V. Ford |
| Roots, Rock, Reggae | V. Ford |
| Johnny Was | R. Marley |
| Cry to Me | R. Marley |
| Want More | A. Barrett |
| Crazy Baldhead | R. Marley, V. Ford |
| Who the Cap Fit | A. Barrett, C. Barrett |
| Night Shift | Bob Marley |
| War | A. Cole, C. Barrett |
| Rat Race | R. Marley |
Changing the songwriters’ names did not affect the collection of revenue, as Bob’s company or Bob was the publisher in every case, and all the songwriters were listed at the same address. When checks payable to the fictitious writers arrived, we simply endorsed them and deposited them in the Tortola account. Frequently, the writer would be listed on the album as “R. Marley, writer,” which could be either Robert Marley or Rita Marley, in whose names many of the songs were also registered. This tactic allowed me to keep current Bob’s visibility as a songwriter while disguising his income and earnings as a songwriter from any other company that might otherwise claim them.
This kind of strategic management of a performer’s business affairs is an important part of being a manager, and I felt proud of the way I was protecting Bob’s earnings and overseeing his career growth. Until I took over as Bob’s manager, Island Records had been mainly profiting.
By now we had some rive bank accounts reflecting substantial earnings. In fact, the Tortola account at that time had deposits of up to ten million US dollars.
My spectacular success predictably made me enemies, and I found myself constantly beset from all sides. As Bob grew in stature and fame, many people who felt they could do my job better pressured him to get rid of me, concocting lies that I was robbing him.
I had to deal with constant newcomers appearing almost out of nowhere, while trying at the same time to cope with the old hands at the game such as Danny Sims.
Danny never gave up trying to get back in the driver’s seat or to prove that he was being cheated. He was always trying to influence Bob through people who would front for him. I remember one time during a tour that a Zimbabwean, Joe Stebleski, appeared out of the blue claiming that he was an accountant with Danny Sims. He insisted on meeting with our accountant in New York, Marvin Zolt, with the aim of proving to Bob that I was stealing from him. This charge was, of course, a two-edged sword, for trying to prove veiled accusations against me could expose the songwriters’ scam, which we maintained with Bob’s knowledge and approval. Sims and company seemed to suspect that new songs were being registered in the names of fictitious songwriters.
There was also continuous pressure from Chris Blackwell, whose tactic was to keep two or three people continuously purveying rumor and carrying news. Although many people have claimed that genuine friendship existed between Bob and Chris, I never saw it in all the discussions, conversations and exchanges that I had with Bob. Without any fear of contradiction, I can categorically state that no such friendship existed. What Chris and Bob had between them was mutual respect for each other’s professional and creative abilities. But there was no friendship. In fact, I don’t think Bob liked Chris.
Using the classic method of money making, Chris tried to exert complete control over his artistes by not only recording them, but also being their manager and publisher. He wanted this kind of control over Bob but couldn’t get it because Bob was the smarter of the two.
Although Chris also grew up in Jamaica, the two men came from very different cultures. Chris represented everything that Bob was against. Under the tutelage of his mother Blanche Blackwell, an heir to the Crosse & Blackwell fortune, Chris had formed Island Records (named, some would say, after Alec Waugh’s novel Island in the Sun) in 1959 and opened its London office in 1962.
Chris had seen Bob’s first two albums, Catch a Fire (1973) and Burnin’, which boasted such tracks as “Get Up Stand Up” and “I Shot the Sheriff,” meet with a strong response from the music world. And Chris had an ear for any music that was not mainstream. In fact, he shied away from traditional, mainstream material.
Because no one knew the real value of new, innovative music, this emphasis gave Chris an advantage, allowing him to exploit ignorant artistes, paying them only what he wished. With no other guiding light or historic precedent, Chris himself determined value. And since most nontraditional and non-mainstream music was coming from the so-called Third World, where music publishing and copyright were not well understood by the lawyers much less by the musicians themselves, he was able to get the best out of these musicians before they became popular.
In fact, he would get the best out of them at a very low cost and before they understood what he was doing. Such is the typical approach and practice of independent music companies. It is their classic way of operating in the music world.
It wasn’t surprising, then, that the musical talents in Chris’s stable achieved financial success usually only after they had left him; the careers of performers like Steve Winwood, Robert Palmer, Joe Cocker, Jimmy Cliff, and Cat Stevens, to name a few artistes who formed part of his Island anglo-rock era from 1969 to 1972, exemplify this truth.
Another reason Marley and Chris could never be truly close was the vast gulf in their personal lives. Chris, although not gay himself, had many gay and bisexual friends whom Bob, like most Jamaican macho men, abhorred. Nor did it help their relationship when Bob realized that Chris had given him an unfair deal on his first two albums.
Take Catch a Fire, which still sells today. By any standards, this album was a spectacular success. By my own reckoning, its sales must have been well over two million copies. Yet for that and two other albums, as far as I know, Chris paid the Wailers £8,000 and $12,000.
As Bob said in June 1975, “Wasn’t because of no connection that we go to England [for a recording contract]. The guys we used to deal with in England was some big pirates. Them guys kill off reggae music, kill rock steady and kill ska. Them guys for reggae music like some people is for rock, y’know, suck out the artist and sometimes them kill them.”
Bob told me he resented that Chris was always trying to put his own name on to Bob’s work as producer, a title that was inaccurate. Chris may occasionally have contributed an idea—he did this from time to time—but he never produced.
Just for the record—no pun intended—on the first contract between Bob and Island, Chris paid Bob eight percent and himself two percent as producer, although he was not really the producer. But then, such are the traps awaiting the unsuspecting and the ignorant in the music world.
Take the case of Trojan Records. Without authorization, this company put out all the early Bob Marley records in England. Try as we did, neither Bob nor I could get them to render royalty statements or make royalty payments. We tried to find the source of their organization and distribution but without luck. Eventually, we discovered that Chris was a shareholder in Trojan, that he had formed the company with Lee Gopthals, an Indian from Delhi, and was, in reality, participating in the piracy.
My research revealed that in 1968 or thereabouts Chris merged his business with a company called B&C Records that used to handle all the releases generated by the leading Jamaican labels and producers, including the Upsetters, Duke Reid, Harry J, Treasure Isle, Leslie Kong and Coxsone Dodd. I estimate that this company handled some fifty labels in all—little short of piracy.
Because of the way Chris’s business was structured, no one could figure out who was doing what. Deals were signed on top of deals; no one knew who was selling, producing, licensing or distributing what. His organization was a true hydra-headed monster. Discovering the extent of Chris’s deceit made me extremely cautious in dealing with him and more determined than ever to regain ownership of all that was rightfully Bob’s.
In 1976 Bob said, “Yes, people rob me and try fe trick me, but now I have experience. Now I know and I see and I don’t get tricked. Used to make recordings and not get royalties. Still happen sometime. All Wailers records made here [Jamaica] but then pirated to England. All them English companies rob man. Everybody that deals with West Indian music—thieves.”
For myself, I have no deep resentment of Chris; he played his part. And as distributor, he eventually opened up his checkbook and allowed me to run the show. Not the creative genius that everybody tries to make him out to be, Chris, however, earned more than his fair share. His true genius is as a smart businessman, a fact that Bob recognized. He was always anxious to finish the contracted albums and would often say to me, “Don Taylor when we a go finish these albums and get rid of this man.”
Chris and the atmosphere he created were not to Bob’s liking. More and more this fact became evident. Indeed, as time passed, it became clear to Chris that Bob was becoming independent of him, especially financially. In the 1975/76 period, for example, when we were due some $2.2 million in royalties, we discovered that Chris and Island were tight on cash. Bob and I agreed, at Chris’s request, to not demand the royalties that were due. To help Chris weather the storm and keep the company going, Bob left the money in Island in the form of a loan.
As time passed, then, Chris had been reduced to being a mere distributor, a reality that I always felt he resented. Chris had to have things his own way and would rather see you off the scene if he couldn’t.
Bob really wanted to be rid of Chris. He wanted to own himself totally, to harness his creativity for his own children rather than for Chris Blackwell. It was an ambition he never stopped emphasizing to me.
Once I realized how important this goal was to Bob, I made up my mind to work hard and speed up the delivery of the contracted albums to Island.
In the meantime, I had to deal with the unhurried Jamaican scene and make my way through Bob’s way of life. It was a way of life which, in contrast to the hectic touring days, was slow-moving and unpretentious.
Indeed, it was very much unlike the pace I had learned to live with in LA.