Dermot Hussey speaks with Midnight Raver about his 1974 interview with Bob Marley

Our good friend Dermot Hussey, who hosts his bi-weekly RIFFIN’ webcast and archives here at MIDNIGHT RAVER, interviewed his friend Bob Marley for the first time in 1974.  While the interview has been labeled 1975 ever since I’ve had a copy of it, Dermot notes that it was actually conducted in 1974.  This is significant because it places the interview much closer to the period immediately following the break-up of the Wailers.

I spoke first with Dermot about how he met Marley.  Here is what he had to say:

“I met Bob I think it was 1974, at Dicky Jobson’s house in Gordon Town. “Dicko” as we called him had invited me to come and listen to Catch A Fire which had just been released. Blackwell was there.  So was Joe Higgs, who as you know, was a kind of tutor for the Wailers, especially Bob who was more determined, more driven. Bob never said much that night, we were just wondering around the patio on a great Jamaica night, with a river rushing below. Dicky always lived in great houses. You won’t believe it but the original Bob interview done the same year was misplaced. I thought I put in one place at my home in Jamaica, but when I looked again it wasn’t there.

I also did a film interview at the opening of Tuff Gong at 56 Hope Road, which has been used in some of the documentaries, and that was for a weekly TV program that I produced called NOMMO, and Bob also did a version of “Redemption Song” for me in the Studio of JBC (before he recorded it) with Wire playing acoustic guitar.”

He also spoke for the very first time with MIDNIGHT RAVER about his 1974 interview with Marley, which is featured here for listening.

“At the time of the break up of the Wailers, I had approached Bob about doing an interview.  As I lived near to 56 Hope Road and in fact passed the house everyday going to work at JBC, I would wait until after he played soccer, as a ritual every afternoon and I kept asking him to do the interview.  I think a week passed.  Nothing.  Then another week, and then unknown to me Skill Cole convinced him that he should do the interview. Bob had one stipulation. He didn’t want to do it at the JBC, so find somewhere else.  I did.  A studio off Hope Road that did jingles and commercials. With all the excitement, I never remembered to note the day in 1974 that it took place. But he arrived promptly, and in the course of the interview he was very outspoken. He was clearly upset by feedback that he was getting about what Tosh was saying about it, the break up. In fact after the interview, some time after it was broadcast, he told me to destroy. it. ‘You see that interview? It could value a million dollars, as well as it could value nothin.’  I gave him a copy of the tape but against his wishes I never destroyed the tape.”