Peter Tosh

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Peter Tosh with Robert Shakespeare and the Word, Sound and Power Band on the Bush Doctor Tour, Cardiff, 1978

Peter Tosh (born October 19, 1944 in Church Lincoln , Westmoreland , Jamaica , † September 11, 1987 in Kingston ; actually Winston Hubert McIntosh ) was a Jamaican singer .

He was a co-founder of reggae , which he made internationally known from the early 1970s with the roots reggae band The Wailers (later Bob Marley and the Wailers ). Tosh was an integral part of them from 1963 to 1974. In his songs, mostly political or religious, he sang about the lack of equality for blacks and the legalization of cannabis.

In addition to his musical work, he spread the message of the Rastafarian movement.

Life

youth

Winston Hubert McIntosh (aka Peter Tosh) was born on October 19, 1944. He was the only child of Alvera Coke , a Lincoln Church resident in Westmoreland Parish on the island of Jamaica. Peter's father was James McIntosh , the preacher for the local Savanna-la-Mar church that Alvera attended. However, Peter was just one of the many children James McIntosh fathered. He played no role in his son's life and he even refused to recognize him as such. The two first met when Peter was ten years old.

Peter Tosh grew up in Church Lincoln in Westmoreland, Jamaica, where he was raised by an aunt. In 1957 he moved with her via the intermediate station Savanna-La-Mar to the capital Kingston , where they lived in Denhamtown . When he was 15 years old his aunt died and he was taken in by an uncle who lived in Trenchtown .

Through his enthusiasm for American rhythm and blues , his passion for music developed more and more.

family

Andrew McIntosh was born on June 19, 1967 , the son of Peter Tosh and Shirley Livingston , sister of Neville O'Reilly Livingston, better known as Bunny Wailer . In total, Peter had ten children.

In 1974 Peter and Shirley had a serious car accident in which his partner died and he suffered serious head injuries. He was on his way back from a visit to Bob Marley. Peter Tosh tried to deal with the death of his girlfriend with the song Why Must I Cry (appeared on the album Legalize It ).

death

A week after the album No Nuclear War was released , Tosh returned to Jamaica to his home in Kingston on September 11, 1987. Three armed men appeared there and asked for money. Their leader was Dennis "Leppo" Lobban, an acquaintance of Tosh. Tosh had taken care of him after a long prison term and tried to find a job for him. When Tosh explained that there was no money in the house, the three of them refused to believe him. They held him in the house for several hours to extort money. Meanwhile, more and more friends came to the house who wanted to celebrate his arrival in Jamaica. Frustrated with the dwindling prospect of seeing money, Lobban killed Tosh with two headshots. The other two started to shoot each other. Several people were injured, including DJ Jeff "Free-I" Dixon fatally.

Lobban was arrested and given the death penalty, which was later commuted to prison. He denied being the killer.

After his death

Tosh's son, Andrew McIntosh , also became a reggae musician . In 2004 he released the album Andrew Sings Tosh: He Never Died , in which he remembers his father.

On June 6, 2003, the best of Peter Tosh album: The Best of Peter Tosh 1978-1987 . His signature is on the cover: Wolde Semayat , his Ethiopian name, which means son of thunder .

In 2012, Tosh was posthumously awarded the Order of Merit , the third highest Jamaican order of merit.

On October 19, 2016, the Peter Tosh Museum opened in Pulse Center, Trafalgar Road, St Andrew. The celebration took place on the 72nd birthday of Peter Tosh and Jamaica's Prime Minister Andrew Holness gave the opening speech. The date also marks the 40th anniversary of the song Legalize It .

music

The Wailers

Reggae musician Joe Higgs taught Tosh to play the guitar. He also got the nickname Stepping Razor , which indicated Tosh's hot temper. Through him, Tosh met Bob Marley and Neville O'Reilly Livingston (aka Bunny Wailer ) in the early 1960s , who had moved to Kingston with their families from the small village of Nine Miles . Together with Franklin Delano Alexander Braithwaite (alias Junior Braithwaite ) and the background singers Beverley Kelso and Cherry Smith, they founded the band The Wailers (later also The Wailing Wailers ) in 1963 . The band had previously played under many other names, including The Wailing Rudeboys and The Teenagers . Driven by Higgs, the Wailers worked diligently on arrangements. Encouraged by him, they ended up at the end of 1963 for an audition with Clement Seymour “Sir Coxsone” Dodd in his Studio One .

The result was a number of successful releases on Studio One , such as the first song Tosh sang, Hoot Nanny Hoot and One Love . In February 1964, The Wailers even landed a number one hit in Jamaica with Simmer Down (this one was still Ska- style). Many well-known songs followed until Junior Braithwaite and the two backing singers left The Wailers in 1965. For this reason, The Wailers soon broke with Clement Dodd's label and signed to Rainford Hugh “Lee Scratch” Perry , Upsetter Records . Although this collaboration didn't pay off financially, it brought all three of them musically immensely, and so The Wailers remain the most successful group on the island.

In 1970 two new musicians joined the band: the brothers Aston Francis "Family Man" ("Fams") Barrett and Carlton Lloyd "Carlie" Barrett , who acted as bassist and drummer, respectively. During this time, the music , which had been dominated by ska, changed to rocksteady and what went down in music history as roots reggae .

The mutual ways with Perry separated in 1972. The Wailers signed a contract with the Englishman Chris Blackwell and with his label Island Records .

By that time they had already started their own label called Tuff Gong . They set up the studio at 56 Hope Road in Bob Marley's house.

On April 13, 1973, the album Catch a Fire was released , one of the first roots reggae works and raised reggae to a completely new level. Songs like Trenchtown Rock , Stir It Up or the Tosh-Marley co-production Get Up, Stand Up made the Wailers musicians world-wide.

However, as international success grew, so did the tensions within the group. Tosh in particular did not trust Blackwell and also noticed that Marley was becoming a big star, while the other Wailers were in his shadow. Highlighting Marley also later resulted in the band being renamed Bob Marley And The Wailing Wailers . After Tosh and Livingston were mostly only allowed to appear as backing singers on the Burnin ' album , irreconcilable rifts arose which led to their separation in 1974. Tosh left the band.

Collaboration with other artists

Word, Sound and Power

Peter Tosh with Robert Shakespeare on the Bush Doctor Tour, Cardiff , 1978

After recovering from his car accident (see above), he signed a recording deal with Capitol Records and embarked on a solo career. He worked with other musicians and eventually formed the band Word, Sound and Power with drummer Lowell "Sly" Dunbar and bassist Robert Shakespeare . Together they re-recorded old songs like Downpressor Man . Three years later, in 1976, the first album was released: Legalize It was the name of the work in which they called for the legalization of marijuana . In 1977, Equal Rights , another roots reggae long player, was released, peppered with inflammatory content. Were discussed in addition to the apartheid policies of South Africa the equally racism in general, the Tosh appeal to African unity and the rebellion against political grievances ( Get Up, Stand Up opposed).

Shortly after the album was released, Tosh performed with his Word, Sound and Power Band among many other artists at the One Love Peace Concert on April 22, 1978 in Kingston. There he reprimanded Prime Minister Michael Norman Manley and opposition leader Edward Philip George Seaga for their inaction in terms of helping the poor, while calling for marijuana to be legalized. He also attacked the "Shitstem" (a Rasta term for "system"), which in his opinion was used to suppress the blacks in the former English colony of Jamaica. In response to these statements, the Jamaica Constabulary Force arrested him for drug possession. He was beaten by several police officers while in custody.

The Rolling Stones

Tosh soon signed to the Rolling Stones label after Mick Jagger saw Tosh perform at the One Love Peace Concert. During this collaboration, Tosh released three albums. The first, Bush Doctor , was published in 1978. On this album he sang a duet with Mick Jagger, (You Gotta Walk) Don't Look Back . He then played the opening concert on the band's US tour before starting work on the 1979 albums Mystic Man and 1981 Wanted Dread And Alive . For the latter album he also recorded a song, the original version of which, sung by Bob Marley for Dutch producer Ted Pouder , became the inspiration for the song Fools Die (For Want of Wisdom) .

Solo career

In 1983 the album Mama Africa was released , on which the cover version Johnny B. Goode by Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry was included. The August 1983 concert at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles was captured on the Peter Tosh Captured Live DVD . At that time, Peter Tosh was known in many countries. In early September 1987 he released the album No Nuclear War and planned to follow the album on a tour. The album was awarded a Grammy on March 2, 1988 for Best Reggae Recording .

Discography

Studio albums

The Wailers

Solo career with the Word, Sound and Power Band

Live albums

  • Live & Dangerous Boston 1976 (2001)
  • Live at the One Love Peace Concert 1978 (2000)
  • Live at the Jamaica World Music Festival MoBay 1982 (2001)
  • Captured Live (1984)

Compilations

  • African Herbsman (1973)
  • The Toughest (1988)
  • Collection Gold (1994)
  • Honorary Citizen (1997)
  • Scrolls of the Prophet: The Best of Peter Tosh (1999)
  • Arise Black Man (1999)
  • Dread and Alive (2002)
  • The Essential Peter Tosh - the Columbia Years (2003)
  • The Best of Peter Tosh 1978–1987 (2003)
  • Can't Blame The Youth (2004)
  • Black Dignity (JAD) (2004)
  • Talking Revolution (2005)
  • The Ultimate Peter Tosh Experience (2009)

Film / concert recordings

  • Steppin 'Razor RED X (DVD 2005)
  • Captured Live (DVD 2002)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Posthumous: Order of Merit to Peter Tosh , Der Standard, October 16, 2012. Accessed November 6, 2012.
  2. ^ Howard Campbell | AP: Jamaica celebrates reggae legend Peter Tosh with new museum . In: The Washington Post . October 18, 2016, ISSN  0190-8286 ( washingtonpost.com [accessed November 21, 2016]).
  3. ↑ grammy.com - Past Winners Search . Retrieved February 20, 2012.

literature

Web links

Commons : Peter Tosh  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Tosh, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES McIntosh, Winston Hubert (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Jamaican singer
DATE OF BIRTH October 19, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Church Lincoln , Westmoreland , Jamaica
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1987
Place of death Kingston , Jamaica