The Life of Bob Marley

Bob Marley was born February 6, 1945. During the month of February, cities all over the country are celebrating the birth of the legendary reggae star. The life work of Bob Marley is an amazing collection of music that has an eye-opening, positive message that needs to be carried on for the generations to come.
Roger Steffens is a former road manager for Bob Marley and the Wailers. He has traveled all over the world speaking about the importance of reggae music and giving video presentations of rare Bob Marley footage. On Friday, February 23 at 7:30 p.m., AS Presents is bringing Roger Steffens, who will bring his rare collection to Chico State’s Harlen Adams Theatre. Roger will be presenting a variety of rare materials, including unreleased video of a Bob Marley concert in New Zealand. He also will feature a tribute to the late Joe Higgs, with video of Joe Higgs and Ras Michael singing "Redemption Song."
The Synthesis was able to catch up with Steffens and talk about Bob, the history of reggae and why Bob would be happy with our world today.

How did you originally get involved with Bob Marley?
I met him in 1978 in Santa Cruz. In 1979, I had just started the Reggae Beat radio show in LA. I was invited to go on the road with him for two weeks by Island Records. This was amazing, because they actually asked if I would mind going on the road with him, so my partner Hank and I did, all over Southern California. The highlight of this trip was at the Roxy, when I sat alone with him for a sound check where Bob played all the instruments. This was a truly amazing experience.

You mentioned a radio show you started. Can you tell me more about that?
We had the only reggae radio show in LA for years. It was an NPR station called KCRW. It was started in October of 1979.

How significant has Bob Marley’s music remained in the music industry over the years?
One fact alone, Bob is responsible today, each year, for 50 percent of all reggae sold in the world, 20 years after his death. That is an astonishing figure. Ask any reggae buyer at the major record stores and they will tell you the same.

How did you get involved with presenting you footage on Bob?
I was invited to show some unreleased films in my collection by the American Film Institute for the National Video Festival in 1984. I was approached by a man with the name Bob Wisdom, he was a DJ in New York, and associated with the film festival. He said one of the most important aspects of video the public does not know of, is that the underground video collectors act as historians for the material that would have otherwise been lost. Even though they are what you would call bootlegs, they are very important films to understand the life of Bob Marley and the history of reggae. He wanted to expose the history to the public and that is how it started. Now I’ve been presenting it for 17 years.

I understand you opened a reggae display at The Queen Mary Ship.
It was the flagship of the British line during the 1930s. It is now a hotel and convention center in Long Beach. I have a major exhibition that opened there on January 20. It is the world’s first reggae museum. There are 6,000 items included in the museum. 1,000 of those [items] are Bob Marley material. It is the whole history of reggae music from the ‘50s to the present day. It is open seven days a week from 10 AM to 6 PM. It will be up until September 30^th.

What is a highlight of doing your video presentations?
At Reggae On The River in 1992, with 5,000 people under the stars on Friday night of the festival. The crowd gave the feeling of a spiritual experience that felt like we had called forth Bob’s spirit among us. It makes the hair on my skin rise when I think about it.

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