Tributes to Johnny Nash & Bob Marley

 

I Can’t imagine you not being around anymore.
Thank you for starting and giving me a
fabulous career in music.
And thank you for all of the Good Times
in my life. You did it man.
I love you so much.
Until I see you again in heaven.
John Rabbit Bundrick

Songwriter John “Rabbit” Bundrick worked with Bob Marley in the early 1970s, when Marley was a songwriter for Johnny Nash and Danny Sims.

As if by magic, Bob arrived at our house in Sweden in the summer of 1971. Hecame to write songs with and for Johnny Nash and to help in the recording of the soundtrack for a film in which Johnny was starring with Christina Schollin. Bob and I were brought in as songwriters since Johnny had the music rights to the film. We also published everything we turned out, whether it was used or not. We lucked out and wrote the film theme song. Sadly, nobody has ever heard it, or seen the film. We had the big premiere in Stockholm, and the next night the film closed.

I had never heard of Bob or reggae before, so obviously I thought, “What the hell is this?!” I have often eaten those very words since then. One minute Bob wasn’t there, and the next minute Bob was there. We all worked hard and played hard.

Bob was shy of, or didn’t respect, the Swedish musicians Johnny had hired, and he usually stayed away from them. When they did approach him he mumbled and stared at them with a far distant glare. Then he would coyly move away to escape from them, grumbling something that sounded a lot like “Rass-Claat”, or “Blood-Claat”, or something that I’m sure nobody could quite make out.

In the studio and at home Bob taught me how to follow him with a reggae feel that I never knew existed. He would play the “Chink-A” rhythm on the guitar, then yell out to me, “Hey, Rab, mon. On de organ you play dis, mon; Chu wah ka cha ka cha ka Chu wah ka cha ka cha ka.”

John “Rabbit” Bundrick & Johnny Nash ‎– Vill Så Gärna Tro – Want So Much To Believe Vol. 1 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Label:
Mellotronen ‎– MELLOLP 12, Klubb Super 8 ‎– none
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album
Country:
Released:
Genre:
Style:

Tracklist

A1 Masquerade Dance
A2 North Scene
A3 Live In The Country
A4 Mr Sea
A5 More Questions Than Answers
A6 Diminished Tune
B1 Mine All Mine II
B2 Rollin’ In Clover
B3 Fanny Big Horn
B4 Pretty Woman Blues
B5 Back To The North Scene
B6 Second Wind

Companies, etc.

When we moved from Stockholm to London, we lived in an apartment building on Totenham Court Road. My cat got squashed in the elevator……(mushy)…
Bob had a specialty soup that he made in the kitchen called Fish Head Soup.
He had it on the stove and left the room.
Lol…Marlene came down to the kitchen when Bob was out of the room,
She saw & smelled it and thought it was junk stuff, so she threw it all
Down the garbage shoot… when Bob came back for his soup it was gone.
 
He went mad….yelling at us all, but when he found out Marlene did it,
He gave her a cuddle and said it’s all ok. He was after Marlene during our whole
time together….lol
I had to watch them all when Marlene was around….She was a good catch….
Bob Marley 
Chris Blackwell brought me in on keyboards,
because I worked with Bob in Stockholm with Johnny Nash
for a year, before moving to London…
Bob taught me himself the Reggae Organ style
In a studio in Stockholm, so 
So when Island acquired  Bob from Danny Sims,
Johnny & Bob’s manager & publisher,
Chris Blackwell came straight to me to do the job.

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