Peter Tosh

singer; songwriter; guitarist

Personal Information

Born Winston Hubert McIntosh, October 19, 1944, in Grange Hill, Westmoreland, Jamaica; died of gunshot wounds, September 11, 1987, in St. Andrews, Jamaica; son of James and Alvera (Coke) McIntosh; children: ten, including Andrew Tosh.
Religion: Rastafarian.

Career

Singer, songwriter, and guitarist, 1960-87. With Bob Marley and Neville ("Bunny Wailer") Livingston, formed group the Wailing Wailers, 1963; name changed to the Wailers, c. 1969; solo artist, 1975-87. Made numerous concert appearances in the United States and Europe; appeared with Mick Jagger as a guest on Saturday Night Live, NBC, c. 1980.

Life's Work

One of the pioneers of reggae, Peter Tosh helped to make the soulful Jamaican music popular worldwide. For Tosh, as for many reggae artists, music was far more than mere entertainment--it was an expression of political and religious beliefs, an outlet for frustration over social conditions in the Third World, and a call to black people everywhere to "get up, stand up" and demand that their rights be respected. In the book Reggae Bloodlines: In Search of the Music and Culture of Jamaica, Stephen Davis and Peter Simon cited Tosh for his "brilliant musical charisma," noting that the singer-songwriter "was more radical than [reggae icon] Bob Marley, and some scholars of the music believe that ultimately Tosh will be remembered longer." Prolific and hard-working, the late Peter Tosh has left a legacy that illustrates the potent power of music to bridge cultural gaps and excite political fervor.

Tosh was born Winston Hubert McIntosh on October 19, 1944, in Grange Hill, Westmoreland, Jamaica. Like fellow artist Marley, he grew up in a rural farm parish, listening to both the indigenous "mento" music of Jamaica and the nascent rhythm and blues sounds beamed to the island from powerful radio stations in Florida and Louisiana. Too poor to buy a guitar, the young Tosh built one for himself using a board, a piece of tin pan, and plastic strings. Tosh's father abandoned the family when Peter was a young teenager. Desperate for work to support herself and her son, Tosh's mother migrated to Kingston in search of a job. Mother and son soon found themselves in Trench Town, a slum section of the city so named because it was built over a ditch that drained the sewage of old Kingston.

Conditions were tough for the Tosh family, and Peter soon adopted the streetwise attitudes of other Kingston youth. He was not drawn to gang activity, however: music was his passion, and through sacrifice and his mother's hard work he was able to buy a real guitar. He taught himself how to play and then gravitated to the home of Jamaican singer Joe Higgs. Higgs had found local success as a performer but still lived in the ghetto and spent much of his spare time nurturing the musical aspirations of other young Jamaicans. Interviewed by Stephen Davis Bob Marley: A Biography, Tosh recalled those early days in Kingston: "When I first came to Trench Town, Joe Higgs and all the other singers were singing on Third Street. One day I happened to pass by Third Street and heard them singing together, and I go over there and join them musically. It was only me who could play a guitar, me and Joe Higgs. That is where I first find Bob and Bunny, singing with Joe."

The "Bob and Bunny" Tosh met in Trench Town were Marley and Bunny Livingston, two friends who were in search of other vocalists to form a group. Marley and Livingston were impressed with Tosh's guitar playing (neither of them owned an instrument), as well as with his strong baritone voice. Tosh eventually secured an old guitar for Marley and taught him to use it. Informal singing sessions in the Higgs back yard slowly gave way to more serious practicing, sometimes with as many as six male and female vocalists. "The Wailers were not a trio at the time," Tosh recalled in Davis's biography of Marley. "There were plenty of us, but it was designed to be a trio. We sounded so good together that people in the community always encourage us to go to the studio and record. And we Wailers sounded good because we had good teachers."

Marley was the first to record, as a solo artist, in 1961 and 1962. His first songs had little impact other than to bolster his confidence, and he persuaded Livingston and Tosh that their trio might find success. Under Higgs and a new mentor, Rastafarian hand drummer Alvin "Seeco" Patterson, the young men developed a repertoire in the new "ska" style that was sweeping Jamaica at the time. Ska was essentially a Jamaican response to the need for a national dance music. It combined the stylings of mento, the American pulse of rhythm and blues, and the sentiments of Jamaican street culture. As Davis put it in Bob Marley: "The new Jamaican sound required a new generation of musicians as well." Marley, Tosh, and Livingston were poised to be part of that new generation.

In the summer of 1963 Patterson helped the Wailers arrange an audition with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd, one of Kingston's leading music producers. Typically, Dodd would produce recordings by local artists and play them in tandem with American R&B releases over his own sound system at dances in the Kingston slums. The Wailers, then consisting of Marley, Livingston, Tosh, Junior Braithwaite and two female vocalists, failed to impress Dodd at first. Then, just as the group was about to leave the studio, Tosh convinced Dodd to listen to just one more song--"Simmer Down," a ska piece taking Kingston's "rude boy" gang members to task for their violent behavior. Dodd liked "Simmer Down" and invited the group back to record it as a single. He dubbed them the Wailing Wailers and offered them twenty pounds, British currency, as payment.

Davis explained in Bob Marley: "In a sense, the early 'Wailing Wailers' were the Jamaican variant of the rock group Rolling Stones. Like the English band, the Wailers had to claw their way from the bottom and succeeded by taking a tough stance on tenderness and a tender stance on toughness. The Wailers' music always seemed more dangerous than the bubbly, almost carefree ska of their contemporaries. Like the Stones, the Wailers were lustful, contemptuous, insolent, rude." Rudest of all was Tosh, who stood well over six feet tall and who was already developing the political sensibilities and fondness for marijuana that would lead him into clashes with the Jamaican police.

The Wailing Wailers recorded more than 30 sides for Sir Coxsone Dodd and also worked as backup vocalists and musicians for other local artists. They were soon wildly popular in Jamaica, with the status--if not the bank accounts--of rock stars. In fact, the Wailing Wailers were exploited by a series of Jamaican producers who pocketed profits while paying the band members scanty wages and a small flat fee for each single they released. By 1966 the band was falling apart. Marley left for the United States, and Tosh was arrested and served a brief jail term.

The group had re-formed in 1967 and began to work with producer Leslie Kong, who liked Tosh's fiery personality and his sense of irony where politics were concerned. He featured Tosh on such songs as "Stop That Train" and "Soon Come." Both of these songs, as well as Tosh anthems "Maga Dog" and "I'm the Toughest," helped to establish Tosh as an artist in his own right as well as a member of the Wailers. According to Harrison Tazwell Cook in Seventeen, Tosh "earned a title as the aggressor, the juvenile delinquent.... This was due in part to his witty anti-government songs and his sharp, sarcastic voice."

As the 1960s progressed, all of the members of the Wailers came under the influence of Rastafarianism. This complex set of mystical beliefs holds that Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia (whose given name was Ras Tafari) is a modern-day messiah who will lead blacks out of oppression and into an African homeland. Rastafarianism came to represent an alternative to violence and a restoration of dignity for ghetto dwellers in Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean.

Rejecting the standards of the white world that led many blacks to straighten their hair, Rastas let theirs mat up into long, stringy dreadlocks. They followed strict dietary rules, avoiding alcohol and drugs, but revered "ganja" (marijuana) as a holy herb that brings enlightenment to users. The Wailers incorporated Rastafarian themes into their music, singing of peace, love, racial reconciliation, and an end to the oppressive rule of the white power elite, known in Rasta circles as "Babylon."

In the meantime, Jamaican music itself was evolving from the up-tempo rhythms of ska to a slower, more meditative style called "rocksteady." This style, in turn, gave way to reggae. The reggae beat was being featured, by the late 1960s, on records released by Jamaican producer Lee "Scratch" Perry. In 1969 the Wailers began to work with Perry. He engineered their first albums, Soul Rebel and African Herbsman, and it was his decision to highlight Marley's vocals and reduce Tosh's contributions to mere harmonizing. Tosh was featured, however, on the songs "400 Years," an attack on slavery, "No Sympathy," and "Downpresser."

Their first albums helped the Wailers to gain a foothold in Great Britain, where a large population of Caribbean expatriates provided a ready audience for reggae music. Marley and Tosh had already done some recording with Columbia artist Johnny Nash--whose hit "Stir It Up" provided the mainstream United States with its first taste of reggae--and this fact emboldened them to seek out Island Records founder Chris Blackwell.

Blackwell was based in London and had signed a number of Caribbean acts as well as major rock stars to his label. He advanced the Wailers money to make a new album, then marketed and promoted the album when it was finished. The work, Catch a Fire, was a reggae milestone. It established the Wailers as significant ethnic artists and allowed them to make a decent, if unspectacular, living playing live concerts in the United Kingdom and the United States.

During the next three years the Wailers toured frequently, on several occasions even opening concerts for an up-and-coming American star named Bruce Springsteen. The group's second album for Island, Burnin', was released in 1973. It contains perhaps Tosh's best-known song (co-written with Marley), "Get Up, Stand Up," a call to black people to assert themselves and demand their rights. In later years "Get Up, Stand Up" became the theme song for Amnesty International, a worldwide human rights organization.

The rigors of touring finally proved too much for Tosh and Livingston. Increasingly dissatisfied with the supporting roles they had assumed to Marley in the Wailers, they left the group. Tosh became a solo artist in 1975 and signed with Virgin Records the following year. By that time he had become very serious about the political situation in his home country.

During this same period, Tosh received the first of three serious beatings at the hands of the Jamaican police, stemming from his defiant use of ganja and his disdain for the "shit-stem"--his word for the system of government that seemed so unfair to Jamaican blacks. In Reggae Bloodlines, Tosh commented: "I was taught as a boy that herb is a natural drug and medicine. Then I am with Wailers and sing songs and compose for Marley. But then I was terribly brutalized by the police and charged with ganja. Can you imagine?... Herb? Vegetables? We are the victims of Ras clot circumstances. Victimization, colonialism, gonna lead to bloodbath around here."

Tosh's response to his treatment in Jamaica was the controversial Legalize It, his debut album as a solo artist. The title song, as well as another track, "Mark of the Beast," were banned from Jamaican airwaves but became hits nonetheless. His second solo album, Equal Rights, continued to expand upon his personal political agenda. The LP came to the attention of the Rolling Stones, who signed Tosh to a recording contract under their new label. Tosh appeared occasionally as an opening act at Rolling Stones concerts and, in one of the more memorable moments from his career, sang with Mick Jagger on a broadcast of the television program Saturday Night Live.

Needless to say, Tosh exerted an influence on Jamaican politics, albeit one that was not particularly welcome by the authorities. This influence was felt most strongly during the Peace Concert held at Kingston's National Stadium on April 22, 1978. Marley was also on the bill at that concert, but Tosh performed first with the Word Sound & Power band, a potent ensemble anchored by drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare. With practically the entire political establishment present at the concert--including Prime Minister Michael Manley--Tosh launched into a diatribe on Rasta political economy, castigated politicians for the poverty on the island, and taunted police by producing a marijuana cigarette and smoking it onstage. A month later, he was arrested again on marijuana possession charges and was beaten severely by the police.

Despite scars he carried the rest of his life from at least three police beatings, Tosh refused to compromise his political and religious beliefs. His albums Mystic Man and Wanted Dread and Alive continued his militant stance while attempting to cross over to the mainstream that Marley had conquered. He was not terribly successful, and after the release of his first Capitol/EMI recording Mama Africa, he took a hiatus from touring to study traditional healing in Africa. He also fought legal battles--largely unsuccessful--to keep his various record labels from releasing his works in apartheid-ridden South Africa. Shortly after the release of his 1987 album, No Nuclear War, Peter Tosh was shot and killed at his home in St. Andrew, Jamaica. The motive for the shooting remains a mystery. The incident was variously reported as a robbery attempt, a revenge killing, or an altercation with a drug trafficker. Three assailants participated in the attack, but only one was arrested, tried, and sentenced to hang. Tosh, who left at least ten children and no will, was given an official funeral by the very politicians he had railed against so vigorously throughout his career.

Tosh's lifelong defiance of the "crime ministers who shit in the House of Represent-a-Thief" has left a lasting legacy that exceeds the bounds of the music world. Black rioters in Los Angeles echoed his sentiments--"I don't want no peace, I want equal rights and justice!"--when they took to the streets in 1992 to protest the Rodney King police brutality case ruling. Assessing Peter Tosh's contributions as a performer, songwriter, political force, and religious mystic, Stephen Davis and Peter Simon concluded in Reggae Bloodlines, "Many who [encountered] Tosh for the first time in full cry got that eerie, impossible-to-resist feeling of staring the entire black race dead in the face."

Works

Selective Discography

• With the Wailers Soul Rebel, Trojan, 1971.
• Catch a Fire, Island, 1972.
• Burnin', Island, 1973.
• African Herbsman, Trojan, 1973.
• Best of Bob Marley and the Wailers, Studio One, 1974.
• Solo albums Legalize It, Virgin, 1976.
• Equal Rights, Virgin, 1978.
• Bush Doctor (includes "Don't Look Back," with Mick Jagger), Rolling Stones Records, 1978.
• Mystic Man, Rolling Stones Records, 1979.
• Wanted Dread and Alive, Rolling Stones Records, 1981.
• Mama Africa, Capitol/EMI, 1983.
• No Nuclear War, Capitol/EMI, 1987.
• The Toughest, Capitol, 1988.

Further Reading

Books

• Davis, Stephen, Bob Marley: The Biography, Doubleday, 1985.
• Davis, Stephen, and Peter Simon, Reggae Bloodlines: In Search of the Music and Culture of Jamaica, revised edition, Da Capo, 1992.
• Davis and Simon, Reggae International, Knopf, 1983.
• Erlewine, Michael, and Scott Bultman, editors, All Music Guide: The Best CDs, Albums, and Tapes, Miller Freeman, 1992, pp. 895-96.
• The Marshall Cavendish Illustrated History of Popular Music, volume 16, Marshall Cavendish, 1990, pp. 1881-1893.
• White, Timothy, Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley, Holt, 1983.

Periodicals

• Down Beat, December 1987.
• Jet, October 26, 1987.
• Rolling Stone, October 22, 1987.
• Seventeen, March 1988.

Other

• Peter Tosh: Red X-Stepping Razor (film documentary), 1992.

— Anne Janette Johnson

See Peter Tosh Lyrics

• Born: October 19, 1944, Westmoreland, Jamaica
• Died: September 11, 1987, Kingston, Jamaica
• Active: '60s, '70s, '80s
• Genres: Reggae
• Instrument: Vocals, Guitar
• Representative Albums: "Scrolls of the Prophet: The Best of Peter Tosh," "Live at the One Love Peace Concert," "Legalize It"
• Representative Songs: "Legalize It," "Brand New Second Hand," "Equal Rights"

Biography

Singer, musician, composer, and rebel Peter Tosh cut a swathe through the Jamaican musical scene, both as a founding member of the Wailers and as a solo artist. He toured with the Rolling Stones and had an international hit with a duet with Mick Jagger, then toured again to equally rapturous world audiences as the headlining act. His words would cause an uproar at the One Peace concert, but then unlike fellow Wailer Bob Marley, Tosh always made his true feelings known. He was born Winston Hubert McIntosh on October 19, 1944, in the small rural village of Grange Hill, Jamaica. Like so many young island teens searching for a better life, he left home at 15 and headed for Kingston. Once there, he made his way to Joe Higgs' tenement yard, joining other aspiring youths eager for the vocal coaching lessons the singing star provided to local teens. Amongst these youthful wannabes were Bunny, Bob Marley, and the much younger Junior Braithwaite; the four, buttressed by backing vocalists Cherry Green and Beverley Kelso, joined forces initially as the Teenagers before eventually settling on the moniker the Wailers.

Success was immediate; the group's debut single, "Simmer Down," was an instant hit, and the band's career was off and running. Tosh's talent didn't end with his vocal skills as he was also an excellent guitarist; his playing was first showcased in 1963 on the Wailers' single "I'm Going Home." He was also a gifted songwriter, as was Bunny Livingston, which helped the band survive Marley's hiatus from the group while he went to work in the U.S. in 1966. The Wailers, by then reduced to a trio with the departure of Braithwaite, Green, and Kelso, continued on without him. During this time, the remaining duo, with Constance "Dream" Walker filling in, continued releasing singles now credited to either the Wailers, Tosh, or Livingston alone. Thus, over the next year, Tosh's dance-friendly "Hoot Nanny Hoot," "The Jerk," a cover of Sir Lancelot's calypso hit "Shame and Scandal in the Family," the R&B-fired "Making Love," and "It's Only Love," a duet with Rita Marley, all arrived from Studio One. "Rasta Shook Them Up" celebrated Haile Selassie's Jamaican visit, while Tosh also offered up the rudie-fueled "The Toughest."

With Marley's return, the Wailers departed Studio One and launched their own short-lived Wail'n'Soul'M label. With its demise, they returned to the studio circuit. Sessions with producer Bunny Lee went nowhere, but Lee and Tosh had a rapport, and between 1969 and 1970, the Wailers cut a string of instrumentals for the producer and released them under the alias Peter Touch. Tosh was now attempting to learn to play the melodica, and the singles chart his progress on the instrument. "Crimson Pirate," "Sun Valley," the almost psychedelic "Pepper Seed," "The Return of Al Capone," "Selassie Serenade" (actually a rather frenetic version of "Blue Moon") and more, were the end results.

However, in 1971, Tosh made the momentous decision to pursue a true solo career in conjunction with his work with the Wailers. His debut single, "Maga Dog," was cut with producer Joe Gibbs. The song had initially been recorded by the Wailers with Coxsone Dodd, and in its original rhythm arrangement was suspiciously similar to "Simmer Down."

Gibbs would totally re-create it, slowing the tempo down and creating a rhythm perfect for the latest dance rage, the John Crow skank. The single was a major hit and became a favorite of the DJs, with a flood of versions quickly following. The equally hard-hitting "Dem Ha Fe Get a Beating" arrived soon after. In the brief period Tosh spent with Gibbs, he recorded a clutch of seminal numbers, including "Arise Blackman," "Black Dignity," and "Here Comes the Judge." The latter track was built around the haunting rhythm from the Abyssinians' "Satta Massa Gana," but lyrically hearkened back to Prince Buster's "Judge Dread," as Tosh's magistrate tries and convicts Christopher Columbus, Sir Francis Drake, and Vasco da Gama for myriad of crimes against black people. Even on a cover of "Nobody's Business," Tosh's militancy shines through, with the line "Leave my business and mind your own," carrying a definite hint of menace in the delivery. Jumping on the current bandwagon for golden oldie medleys, the singer also delivered up a trio of rude boy hits, Desmond Dekker's "Rude Boy Train" and "007 Shanty Town," and his own, "I'm the Toughest." Tosh split with Gibbs before the end of the year, allegedly over the lack of money he'd received from "Maga Dog." The artist's retaliation was swift and the self-produced "Once Bitten" was allegedly aimed directly at the producer. That single utilized the "Maga Dog" rhythm, as did its follow-up, "Dog Teeth." Initially, Tosh was releasing his latest self-produced solo singles via the Wailers' own Tuff Gong label, but soon the artist set up his own label, Intel Diplo HIM (Intelligent Diplomat for His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie). The label was inaugurated with "Dog Teeth," with "Ketchy Shrub" following before the end of 1971.

As the Wailers' international breakthrough began, Tosh had less and less time to devote to his solo career. However, a few singles did arrive during 1972, including "No Mercy" and "Can't Blame the Youth." More followed in 1973, among them "Mark of the Beast," "Foundation," "What You Gonna Do," and a re-recording of "Pound Get a Blow," originally a single released by the Wailers back in 1968. At the end of the Wailers' 1973 U.K. tour, Livingston announced he would no longer tour outside of Jamaica with the band. The group initially carried on without him, completing a tour of the States, then a second tour of Britain. Tensions were already high between Tosh and Marley, and the situation finally came to a head on November 30, in Northampton. It ended with a punch up and Tosh quitting the band. Although the Wailers reunited six months later for a benefit show, and again in late 1975 for another benefit concert, the group itself was now defunct, and the Wailers went their separate ways.

Tosh's first post-Wailers solo single, "Brand New Secondhand," was a new version of a song initially recorded by the Wailers for Lee Perry. However, it was Tosh's follow-up, "Legalize It," that packed the greatest punch and swiftly becoming a ganja anthem even though the single was slapped with a radio ban.

In 1975, Tosh signed to the Columbia label in the U.S., and began work on his first solo album. Sessions were held in Kingston at Treasure Isle studio, Miami, and even in Tulsa, OK. A number of the tracks were new versions of old songs, including "Burial" and "Ketchy Shuby." The resulting album, Legalize It, arrived in 1976 to acclaim both at home and abroad. With interest running high, Tosh set off on tour, accompanied by a band comprised of the Sly & Robbie rhythm section, keyboardists Earl "Wire" Lindo and Errol "Tarzan" Nelson, and guitarists Donald Kinsey and American Al Anderson. Sony/Legacy's Live & Dangerous album captured one of the band's steaming shows in Boston during this tour. Like Marley, Tosh was moving effortlessly into a hybrid style that paid homage to American rock, but was still shot through with strong Jamaican roots. However, Tosh's lyrical vision was much darker than his former bandmate's. Love always ended in tears, as on "Why Must I Cry" and the country & western-tinged "Til Your Well Runs Dry," both updated Wailers' numbers; while "Burial," ostensibly about a gangster but with pointed political overtones, was never going to endear him to the mass market. Tosh's follow-up album, Equal Rights, was even more uncompromising. Recording began just a few months after its predecessor was completed and again featured the deep dread rhythms of Sly & Robbie, Earl Lindo's atmospheric keyboards, and Anderson's funky rock guitar, amongst a host of other guest Jamaican session men. Bunny Livingston also joined his former bandmate on backing vocals; Tosh himself had guest starred on Livingston's own solo album, 1976's Black Man Heart. More focused than Legalize It, Equal Rights revolved around the themes of the plight of blacks around the world, and particularly in South Africa and Rhodesia. A new version of "Downpressor Man," the original cut coming with Lee Perry earlier in the decade, was turned into a dread classic. However, the most seminal tracks were the new songs -- the anthemic "Get Up, Stand Up," the menacing rocker "Stepping Razor," and the artist's personal manifesto, "Equal Rights." This was to be Tosh's final album for Columbia. In Jamaica, events were spinning out of control, politically inspired violence was rampant, and gang warfare had reached a level so extreme that a rogue army unit decided to put a permanent end to the combatants. In late 1977, they gunned down ten members of the Skull gang, whose members were mostly Rastafarians, killing five. This event, known as the Green Bay Massacre, so shocked the island that, for a brief moment, the gangs put aside their differences and called a truce. The One Love Peace Concert was organized to help cement this cessation of violence with a billing headed by Marley, who returned to the island for the show.

The concert was held on April 22, 1978, and Tosh was slated to appear right before his former bandmate. His performance was captured for posterity on the Live at the One Love Peace Concert released in 2001. Tosh's set comprised his most militant numbers -- "400 Years," "Stepping Razor," "Burial," "Equal Rights,""Legalize It," and "Get Up, Stand Up," and if that was not enough, between songs he spoke at length in a series of uncompromising speeches that scathingly attacked the government, the opposition, and the concept of peace itself. Although the audience appreciated his words, the government and the press did not, and the Jamaican papers the next day were filled with rabid condemnations. The singer, however, remained unrepentant. Tosh's performance had also impressed visiting British rock star Mick Jagger, who'd been backstage that night. The Jamaican now signed to the Rolling Stones' own label, and that summer toured the States opening for the band. The two singers joined forces on a cover of the Temptations "(You Gotta Walk And) Don't Look Back," a song Tosh had previously recorded with the Wailers. Tosh would also briefly unite with Marley during the latter's Burbank, CA, concert for a show-stopping "Get Up Stand Up."

Back in Jamaica that autumn, Tosh was arrested for drug possession, taken to jail, and beaten so badly he required 30 stitches to close the gaping wounds in his cracked skull. Even with these severe injuries, the artist began work on his next album, Bush Doctor, co-produced with Robbie Shakespeare. A much more "Jamaican" album than its predecessors, the record featured the exquisite Tamlins on backing vocals, and some of the island's top session men, led of course by Sly & Robbie, but boasting Keith Richards' seminal guitar on two tracks. Musically, the album may have sounded less dread, but new versions of "I'm the Toughest" and "Dem Ha Fe Get a Beaten" suggested that Tosh wasn't going soft. However, thematically Bush Doctor was less a cultural album than a religious one. Mystic Man arrived in 1979, and again featured a lighter touch, although songs like "Rumours of War" and "Jah Seh No" were as tough as anything Tosh had offered up in the past. The year also saw the release of the wittily titled "Buk-In-Hamm Palace" single and a re-recorded "Stepping Razor" for the soundtrack for the legendary film Rockers. The highlight of 1980 was a spectacular appearance at Reggae Sunsplash, and the year also brought the excellent "Bombo Klaat" single, a Jamaican-only single released on Tosh's revived Intel Diplo HIM label. A duet with Gwen Guthrie, "Nothing but Love," was offered up to the rest of the world. The slowing output was deliberate as Tosh needed the time off to continue his recovery from the beating he'd received at the hands of the police.

However, he returned with a vengeance in 1981, releasing the Wanted Dread & Alive album, which shot into the lower reaches of the U.S. chart, and toured both the U.S. and Europe. After all that activity, the artist took the next year off, returning in 1983, with a phenomenal cover of "Johnny B. Goode" which landed in the lower reaches of the U.S. Top 50. The single was a taster for his new album, Mama Africa, which also arrived that year. Another tour followed, including a concert in Swaziland and headlining appearances at the Reggae Superjam festival in Kingston. Captured Live, released the following year, was recorded during these tours. Tosh then disappeared off the musical map for the next three years, and it wasn't until 1987 that a new single, "In My Song," arrived. In September, it was joined by the album No Nuclear War.

Staying at Tosh's home during this time was an old friend of the Wailers, Dennis Lobban. However, he left in a fury after an argument with Tosh's girlfriend, Marlene Brown, returning a few days later on September 11, with a gang of friends. Lobban later claimed he had merely intended to threaten the artist, and perhaps rob him, but panicked. The end result was that Tosh and all six of his friends who were hanging out in the room were shot in the head. Tosh lay dead, as did the radio DJ Jeff "Free I" Dixon and a third friend. Marlene Brown, ex-Soul Syndicate drummer Carlton "Santa" Davis, and two other of Tosh's friends miraculously survived. Lobban was arrested and sentenced to death. Jamaica had forever lost one of its most talented artists and eloquent spokesmen. However, Tosh's legacy remains undiminished, and since his death a number of compilations have appeared to safeguard his memory. Heartbeat's The Toughest focuses exclusively on early recordings with Dodd and Lee Perry, while Trojan's Arise Black Man picks up the story with cuts for Bunny Lee, Perry, and Gibbs. Columbia remastered both Tosh's albums for release in 1999, and two years earlier compiled the Honorary Citizen three-CD box set. This boasts a disc devoted to singles released only in Jamaica, a second disc of songs recorded live, and a third of hits and favorites. Scrolls of the Prophets, released in 1999, is a compilation drawn from Tosh's major-label recordings of 1976-1987. Tosh's back catalog with the Wailers is equally well-served and his influence, even in death, remains strong. ~ Jo-Ann Greene, All Music Guide

Can't Blame the Youth Buy this CD	Stepping Razor Red X [Video/DVD] Buy this CD	Talking Revolution Buy this CD	Legalize It [Speigel Edition] Buy this CD	Black Dignity: Early Works of the Steppin' Razor Buy this CD
Black Dignity: Early Works of the Steppin' Razor Buy this CD	Arise Black Man Buy this CD	Best of Peter Tosh [Disky] Buy this CD	Premium Gold Collection Buy this CD	Essential Peter Tosh: The Columbia Years Buy this CD

Show More Albums Show Fewer Albums

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)