By Richard Lee

Reggae superstar Peter Tosh would have turned 80 today. Tragically, he was murdered by gunmen in 1987.

I had the pleasure of spending some time with Tosh during my days as a music journalist.

In fact, one of my strangest and most memorable interviews was the time I sat down with him in 1983 just after he had released his Mama Africa album. His record company, EMI, had arranged a series of interviews to promote the record.

When I arrived at the EMI offices in Manhattan, a publicist brought me into a conference room, but instead of introducing me, she just pointed to Tosh in the corner and said, “There he is.” He was playing a small Casio keyboard, something that was new in the U.S. and probably not yet available in Jamaica. He was fascinated with the instrument and kept playing without acknowledging my presence.

I was in a bit of dilemma. I was there to do an interview, but I was hesitant about interrupting a legend like Peter Tosh while he was making music. Finally, he looked up and said, “Whenever you’re ready, mon.” So I asked my questions. He answered them, but he would start playing the keyboard while he was answering and eventually stop talking and would just play and occasionally sing. This went on for a while, and I was getting little useful information for my story.

I decided to go out out on a limb, so I mentioned that my wife Anne was eight months pregnant and that the baby kicked whenever we played reggae. He immediately stopped playing the Casio, and the tone of our conversation improved tremendously. He thought it was great that the baby kicked when we played reggae. He told me reggae was based on the rhythm of the human heart. We talked a while more. I got what I needed for my story, and it ran in our next edition.

A few weeks later, I got a call from his road manager, who told me Tosh had just landed in New York, where he was doing a show. He said he showed him my article, and Tosh said it was one of the best pieces he had read about reggae. I suspected the road manager was just trying to set me up for some type of favor, but then Tosh got on the phone himself to tell me how much he enjoyed the article. He invited me, Anne and our 15-day-old daughter Meredith to his concert. We took him up on the offer and managed to say a quick hello after the show.

Like many of my experiences in journalism, I use the Peter Tosh story in my classes as an example of what can happen if you take a chance and ask a question out of left field.

Happy birthday, Peter. Rest in power.

Richard Lee, executive director of the Jandoli Institute, is a former music journalist who often writes about the intersection of music and current events. Below is a review of the Peter Tosh concert mentioned in this post — written under his then-15-day-old daughter’s byline.

Categories: Jandoli Institute, Media, Pop Culture, Richard Lee, richleeonline, Uncategorized