The rod, the bandwagon and the handshake

Robert Nesta Marley (1945-1981), the singer, songwriter and guitarist from Nine Mile, St Ann who became the most widely heard voice Jamaica has produced. He formed The Wailers with Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh in the early 1960s, moving through ska and rocksteady at Studio One before the group's roots-reggae work with Lee "Scratch" Perry and then the international run on Island from Catch a Fire (1973) onward. Shot at his Hope Road home in December 1976 two days before the Smile Jamaica concert, he played anyway, left for London, and returned in 1978 to join the hands of Michael Manley and Edward Seaga on stage at the One Love Peace Concert. He died of melanoma in 1981, aged 36, and was awarded the Order of Merit. His catalogue remains the single largest route by which the rest of this archive reaches the world. He married Rita Anderson in 1966 and had children with several other women during the marriage; Cedella, Ziggy, Stephen, Sharon (adopted), Stephanie (adopted), Robbie, Rohan, Karen, Julian, Ky-Mani, Damian and Makeda are all recognised among his children, several of them Grammy-winning musicians in their own right. His state funeral was attended by Prime Minister Edward Seaga and ranking members of both major political parties, presided over by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, with his coffin carried by members of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. More than 40,000 mourners are reported to have queued to view the body, and over half of Jamaica's population is said to have lined the roughly 55-mile funeral route from Kingston to Nine Mile, an event Bradley calls, second perhaps only to independence, the largest and most unifying single occasion in the island's history.

The entanglement of Jamaican popular music, sound systems and artists with the garrison politics of the PNP and JLP from the late 1960s, in which songs were adopted as party anthems and communities were divided along political lines.

The "rod of correction," a staff carried by PNP leader Michael Manley during the 1972 election and popularly linked to a gift from Emperor Haile Selassie I, which became a potent biblical-and-Rastafari political symbol woven through the reggae campaigning of the period.

Delroy Wilson (5 October 1948 - 6 March 1995) was a Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae singer often described as Jamaica's first child star, having begun recording for Coxsone Dodd's Studio One at around age 13 in the early 1960s. Among his best-known records is the Lee "Scratch" Perry-associated "Better Must Come" (1971), later adopted as a campaign theme by the People's National Party. He recorded prolifically across three decades before his death in Kingston at 46.

Clancy Eccles (1940-2005) was a Jamaican ska and early-reggae singer, songwriter and producer who brought an overtly political dimension to his music. Recording on labels including Clandisc and New Beat, he produced artists such as Alton Ellis, Joe Higgs, Lord Creator ("Kingston Town") and Larry Marshall, and helped Lee "Scratch" Perry establish the Upsetter label in 1968. A committed socialist, he advised Michael Manley's PNP and organised the musical "Bandwagon" for the 1972 election campaign.

Held on Saturday 22 April 1978 at Kingston's National Stadium before a reported crowd of 30,000, the One Love Peace Concert grew out of a ghetto gang truce signed on 5 January 1978, reportedly brokered by two men from opposing political camps who had met while detained together at Gun Court: the PNP-aligned Bucky Marshall and the JLP figure Claudie Massop. After securing the Twelve Tribes of Israel's endorsement, they travelled to London to persuade Bob Marley to headline, judging Kingston unsafe for the negotiation. On the night, Peter Tosh opened his set by denouncing Prime Minister Michael Manley and opposition leader Edward Seaga, both seated in the front row, over ghetto conditions and police brutality, then lit a spliff on stage; he was arrested and beaten by police on a ganja charge months later. During the Wailers' closing performance of "One Love", Bob Marley brought Manley and Seaga up on stage and joined their hands, the image the concert is remembered by, even though the underlying truce collapsed within weeks.

Max Romeo is a Jamaican singer whose "Sipple Out Deh", released in the UK as "War inna Babylon" and produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry, is a landmark of mid-1970s political reggae: its title, Jamaican patois for slippery or dangerous, set the tone for protest songs on government corruption, ghetto gun violence and police heavy-handedness. He followed it with the directly anti-government "No Joshua No" and "One Step Forward". Despite the "War inna Babylon" album's critical standing, Romeo has said he was paid only 2,500 Jamaican dollars for it. Romeo wrote it himself, and it was turned down for recording by John Holt, Derrick Morgan, Roy Shirley and Slim Smith before producer Bunny Lee persuaded Romeo to voice it himself; it became a UK pop hit despite the BBC's broadcast ban.

Winston Hubert McIntosh (19 October 1944 - 11 September 1987), born in Westmoreland, was the most confrontational of the three original Wailers and the one whose politics never softened. He met Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer through Joe Higgs, who gave free singing lessons to young people in Trench Town, and the three began singing together in 1962. Tosh's importance to the group was practical as well as vocal: he was a self-taught guitarist and keyboardist at a time when neither of the others played, and he also handled melodica, percussion and violin. He left in 1974 with Bunny Wailer, after Chris Blackwell declined to release his solo album, and made a career of unambiguous protest — Legalize It (1976), Equal Rights (1977), Bush Doctor (1978) for the Rolling Stones' label with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Mama Africa (1983) and No Nuclear War (1987). At the One Love Peace Concert in April 1978 he lit a spliff on stage and lectured the assembled politicians on cannabis law; that September he was arrested at Half Way Tree and severely beaten in police custody, leaving him with a broken hand and head injuries. He was killed at his Kingston home on 11 September 1987 when three men came demanding money — the gunman was Dennis "Leppo" Lobban, a man Tosh had previously tried to help. Two others died with him.

"Let the Power Fall on I" (1971), Max Romeo's declaration that became one of the PNP's most-used campaign songs in 1972, tying reggae's spiritual language of deliverance to electoral politics.

"Better Must Come" (1971), Delroy Wilson's hopeful reggae hit on Dynamic Sounds, adopted as an anthem of Michael Manley's PNP in the 1972 election and remembered both as a people's cry for change and as a case study in political appropriation.

Ahead of Jamaica's 1972 general election, Michael Manley's PNP ran a touring campaign show called the Musical Bandwagon: a decorated flatbed truck touring the island for roughly six months before polling day, serving as a mobile stage for major reggae acts including Bob and Rita Marley, Alton Ellis, the Chosen Few, Dennis Brown, Scotty, Inner Circle, Tinga Stewart and Judy Mowatt, all performing in support of the party. It ran alongside Manley's use of a ceremonial staff at rallies, popularly linked to a gift from Haile Selassie and dubbed the Rod of Correction, reinforcing his self-styled "Joshua" image with Rasta-sympathetic voters. The tour is also remembered for carrying songs including "Better Must Come" and "Let the Power Fall on I" into the campaign, with the producer Clancy Eccles among its key organisers.

"Beat Down Babylon" (1972), Junior Byles's fierce Rastafari protest record produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry, capturing the militant, change-is-coming mood of early-1970s Jamaica.