Soul Almighty the formative years

-->...excerpt From the Roger Steffens archives...
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LINER NOTES: Soul Almighty the formative years Vol. 1

Marley in the Sixties

by Roger Steffens

Here, after three decades, is a long-awaited look at some of the most intriguing and highly anticipated material of Bob Marley's entire career, compelling experiments that have been locked away in the vaults ever since the late 1960s. These are soul shots, almighty riddims based on the tumultuous sounds of the inner city from the time when America was in upheaval; sounds of Bob Marley with Aretha Franklin's band members, produced by Danny Sims, Arthur Jenkins, and their associates, for the label they co-owned with reggae/pop pioneer Johnny Nash. This is Bob Marley as you've never ever heard him before. In addition to powerful alternate r&b versions of 11 of Bob's most interesting late-'60s compositions, there are four tracks of which even the titles have never been revealed prior to this album.

"These are not demos." confirms co-producer Sims, from his current home in Beverly Hills. "These are complete songs exactly as Bob wanted them to sound." The story of how they came to be is a long and fascinating one; one in which Sims played a crucial part during the five years in which Marley was signed to his company as songwriter and performer. And it is a tale that could never be told till now.

"We always knew of the existence of these tapes." admits Sims, his voice still containing a hint of deep south drawl scraped and shaped by the grit of New York. "But we had so many other labels and albums and acts to keep track of. And with all the legal battles that went on during the past fourteen years, it would not have been right for us to release these things until everything had been settled. So this material couldn't have come out sooner than now. Now is the right time."

The pre-Psychedelic Sixties dawned as the nation was in the height of its cold war frenzy. In New York City, a young man who had been born in Mississippi arrived in town to open a supper club in the heart of the Great White Way at 47th St. and Broadway. It was called Saphire's, and the proud new owner was Danny Sims. His place was the first black club south of 110th St., and became a 24-hour-a-day hangout for the cream of show business celebrities from Broadway stars to swingers and singers.

"It was about that time that I began palling around with Johnny Nash, the Texas singer who was having such success on the Arthur Godfrey Show," recalls Sims. "In '63 Johnny asked me to promote a Caribbean concert tour, which is how I first saw Jamaica. The tour was a success, and it lead me to open a concert promotion company called Hemisphere Attractions. I brought into the Caribbean and Central and South America people like Sammy Davis, Jr., Paul Anka, Brook Benton, Ben E. King, Solomon Burke, Aretha Franklin, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Patty LaBelle, Otis Redding and lots more. In 1964, when Dinah Washington died, I absorbed her Queens Booking Agency, and ran one of the biggest African-American agencies of that time."

Nash and Sims decided to form a record label to be called JODA (after Johnny and Danny), and had an immediate success with a song called "Let's Move and Groove." "It was Johnny Nash's biggest hit in the black community ever," Sims recalls. "There was a very popular African-American disc jockey in Los Angeles at the time who called himself 'The Magnificent Montague.' He played Johnny's record all the time, and he would yell over the air while it was spinning, "Burn, baby, burn!" Montague's highly charged rap began making waves just as the L.A. riots of 1965 torched the city. "The feds said that our record was creating the riots," laughs Sims. "'Burn baby, burn!' became a slogan all over the black communities in America." Then, shuddering at the memory, Sims turns solemn. "I thought I was dead. So many of our people were being killed then.

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