Bob Marley makes the cover of the 16 page Volume 1 Number 6 monthly edition of the Rocky Mountain Musical Express, ‘The Rockies’ Largest Selling Music Newspaper’, because “Colorado & Texas, two states seemingly forever caught in a country western rut, are due to receive a jolt as Jamaica’s most charismatic performers visit Houston May 20 and Denver May 22.” Local Poet & reggae enthusiast Mark Campbell marks the occasion by penning an overall overview of the ‘high energy’ sounds in the accompanying article located inside on page 6 where the San Francisco Bay Area’s *Shakers also get a nice nod. Nothing like sharing the front page with The hugely ‘smells like teen spirit’ Bay City Rollers to know you’ve made it big time in 1976! Paraphrasing the great George Gershwin, “In time the Rockies may crumble, Gibralter may tumble, They’re only made of clay, But One Love is here to stay.”
*The Shakers’ Ron Rhoades (far right in their picture) added this very interesting observation today when seeing this article: “Boulder was the first stop on our ‘Yankee Reggae’ tour in 1976….I’m pretty sure you’ll find the Billboard magazine with us on the cover too!! We had a connection to The Wailers thru the ABC booking agency back then and Bob Marley had agreed to produce our next record (if we did a few of his original songs) but Elektra/Asylum didn’t know who he was and didn’t really care because he ‘didn’t have any hit singles’ and E/A was ALL about singles. I wish I could find a way to write about our E/A recordings…it was a nightmare for us as musicians and especially reggae musicians….they took away any roughness we had which was a huge part of the feeling of that music for us and they wouldn’t let us do any dubs which was another crucial part of our sound…they turned us into shiny happy sounding white kids and when tried to fight back they said we could leave. Ugh……!”
LEGENDARY REGGAE 