The first time I invited Bob Marley & The Wailers to the Netherlands, November 1973, was to get them to perform “Get Up Stand Up” for AVRO-TV’s TopPop program. It happened during the days that the pirate stations in the North Sea were threatened in their existence by new legislation banning offshore radio. In addition to handling Island Records’ interests in the Netherlands I dabbled at Radio Veronica’s weekly magazine and thus it looked like a natural for Veronica to embrace my artist’s “Get Up Stand Up” as an anthem of resistance. The deejays of the most popular Dutch pirate station chose the single as Alarmschijf and played it every hour on top of the hour. Subsequently we scored Bob Marley’s first Top 40 entry.

The band stayed at the Hilton Hotel, a bit of a culture shock, especially to the oldest Wailer, Seeco Patterson, who played the congas. But also to the staff of the Amsterdam Hilton. We were afraid that the guys would bring back more than just the whiffs of ganja on the 4 o’clock flight back to London, so I summoned them into the lobby of the hotel around 11 in the morning and had everybody frisked. Still Seeco got singled out at Heathrow and officers discovered hemp seeds in the lining of his pockets. 

Marley had some success with the Wailers as a trio, with Peter Tosh and Neville ‘Bunny’ Livingston, in the late 60’s in Jamaica, and he had toured internationally in the band of Johnny Nash promoting the single “I Can See Clearly Now”. When Bob completed the album “Catch A Fire” with Peter and Bunny, Island Records’ owner Chris Blackwell heard an album that sounded more coherent than anything the Wailers recorded before. Blackwell smelled a forthcoming romance between reggae and rock and got musical and marketing ideas to break Bob into rock stardom. Back in London he looked at spicing it up with engineer Tony Platt at Basing Street Studios. In an adjacent room Smith, Perkins & Smith were recording an album and Chris got the miraculous guitar player Wayne Perkins (later considered by the Stones to replace Mick Taylor) to do overdubs. Also Texan keys-wizzard John ‘Rabbit’ Bundrick (in later years a mainstay in The Who), who played in various different settings of Island Record’s stalwarts The Free, was brought in, together with Cat Stevens’ keyboardist Jean Roussell. The result was amazing. The updated version of “Catch A Fire” enjoyed a more forceful sound, more roots rock and still reggae. The world started appreciating the rasta-movement, their views on civil rights in Africa and latent racism in Europe. The world slowly but surely started to realize the importance of Bob Marley and his music, philosophically, socially and politically

In July 1975 I took a couple of Dutch journalists to London to see Bob Marley & The Wailers live in concert at the Lyceum in London. The show got recorded for his breakthrough album “Live”, which spawned the iconic single “No Woman, No Cry”. I’m mighty proud that my vocals are present on most of the songs. But don’t ask me to identify my timbre.

The Amsterdam Hilton proved to be a great starting point for future continental touring. The management would always facilitate a kitchen for Bob’s cook, so the band could obey the dietary regimen of the Rasta movement. I saw lots of dried fish and porridge on the table. With the hotel’s convenient presence at the flanking the Noorder Amstelcanal, a couple of times I chose transport by boat for the band by boat instead of taxis. We even held a press conference on board of one of Lover’s famous tourist flotilla through the canals of the city.

Bob Marley was a fanatical soccer player. He brought his own soccer coach on tour. Jamaican national football star Allan ‘Skills’ Cole had played professionally for the Atlanta Chiefs and for teams in Brazil. Bob amazed me by holding a ball in the air during some twenty minutes during a soundcheck at the Ahoy in Rotterdam! Even more amazing to see him do that with the foot that must have already been hurting a lot because of the cancer in his big toe. One Sunday morning in his suite at the Hilton Bob asked me to invite his hero Johan Cruijff to spend the day. My former boss Kellerman was a friend of the popular tenor Willy Alberti, whose daughter, etc. Anyway, a string of phone calls later I managed to get the Legend of Dutch Soccer on the phone, but the conversation ended on the wrong foot. ‘I have absolutely no interest in those guys’, Johan said. ‘No way’. A pity. Two chain-smokers, both considered demi-gods by their fans, both recognized for their philosophic remarks, both great at keeping the ball in the air, it would have been a unique meeting of similar but opposite stars. Johan never could have guessed that Marley’s “Three Little Birds” would eventually become an anthem at the stadium of his team Ajax. The afficionados have been chanting it since 2008. And when in 2018 the crowd spotted son Ky-Mani Marley at a game, the whole stadium burst out into his father’s tune.

May 11, 1977, Marley & The Wailers played at the Forest National in Brussels, Belgium. I think I was the first in the world to have the album “Exodus” roll off the press and I loaded 2000 copies in my Audi 80 and drove from Amsterdam to Brussels with reporter Harry van Nieuwenhoven as my co-pilot. He was promised an exclusive interview with the Rastaman, I think in the Royal Windsor Hotel. Unfortunately we got stuck in an hours-long traffic jam at the Moerdijk Bridge, in those days a famous clogged traffic artery. After three hours of standstill it looked like we might miss the press conference for which copies of the newly minted album were essential. Worse yet, Harry ran out of cigarettes and went from nervous to stir-crazy. Checking a roadmap, we found a ferry not too far away. Breaking all the rules we drove on the cold shoulder until we could almost smell the ferry, but where’s the exit? A dried-up ditch ran parallel along the motorway. I risked it. The car started moaning and bitching, but we made it to a meadow, crossed it until we saw a gate in the distance. Harry opened it and, lo and behold, we arrived right at the ferry. We drove onto the pontoon, ignoring a long line of cars waiting to do the same. Cars followed behind us, drivers got out and started pounding on our roof. Harry’s anxiety grew into paranoia. The captain tried to find out what had happened but when the crowd wanted us off, he threw his hands in the air and fled back to the wheelhouse. Across the Hollands Diep we made our exodus from the boat way over the speed limit and arrived at the Brussels hotel the same minute the press gathering started.

A year later I took my ex to a show in the south of the Netherlands. PinkPop Festival founder Jan Smeets was a big fan of Marley’s and organized a gig with British reggae formation Steel Pulse opening for the Wailers at the skating rink of Geleen in the province of Limburg. My ex got me out of the dressing room at 7 PM to see the Doors. I think the placard at the wall advising 7:00 Doors Open had confused her. At the show Bob played most of the songs of the Kaya album to a small but very appreciative crowd. Here’s a comment left by one of his fans: ‘ It was awesome and never forget this excellent concert! We'all sitting on the ground and the waterpipe weeped gently down all the rows, while the joints and hash pipes followed. Everyone was one with each other and we were quite stoned I must say, very nice! Bob and his Band were great and I still think it's worth writing about! WoW what a man! One of the most rare good concerts I've ever experienced. It touched me!’

When I first heard the tapes of the double album Bob recorded live on tour in the USA, “Babylon By Bus”, I immediately decided that “Stir It Up” was my contender for the number 1 spot in the Dutch hit parade. I was so enthusiastic about it that it didn’t even occur to me to ask Island Records for permission, and I rushed the single into the stores within two weeks. I had nothing to complain about radio support, radio-plugger Ben did a great job and it didn’t take long for Bob Marley to enter the Top 40. Phil Cooper from Island in London immediately climbed into the phone. How on earth could I do that? Didn’t I know that Bob Marley and Island Records owner Chris Blackwell had argued over “Stir It Up” and that Chris, despite Marley’s desperate pleas, absolutely did not want the song released? ‘That single must be taken off the market, immediately’. No way, because I wanted to show that I was right – and apparently Marley too – and that that song could reach number 1.

Meanwhile “Stir It Up” shot up to number 2 in the National Chart (which was competing with the Top 40 at the time for the title ‘the only real Dutch chart’). In London, a few people got quite nervous because Blackwell’s word was law, and the man was not to be trifled with. A message arrived by telex to terminate the arrangement for BMG-Ariola to distribute Island Records, which would also have consequences for parent company Bertelsmann in Germany. In other words, dismissal was on the horizon for a large number of Ariola employees. I always got along quite well with Phil Cooper, and he sold my solution internally: if the single reached number 1, the affair would be hushed up, and if it didn’t, I would leave the company and take all the blame (which was fair enough because no one else could be blamed for my initiative).

I immediately mobilized Rien van Wijk, director at AVRO-TV’s TopPop to go and film Marley in Jamaica. That would be the solution: one appearance on TopPop and the record would reach number 1. Phil Cooper thought that to be a funny joke and killed it on the spot by telling me that he didn’t want to help me win the bet against him. Rien was furious that a week in Jamaica had slipped through his fingers and was very keen to get his revenge and let me win my bet. We had been stalled at number two for five weeks, and it couldn’t last much longer. The single would soon start to drop! On Thursday afternoon, at Rien van Wijk’s house, we came up with a trick that might work. I had possession of a 16mm copy of the film shot in 1973 at the Rainbow in Finsbury Park, London. Nothing had been done with it thusfar. However,... “Stir It Up” was, of course, not part of it. Bob didn’t play it that night. So With two smart guys at AVRO-TV, he worked all weekend to cut and edit that 37½ minute film frame by frame so that no one could see this was not the real deal: here stood Marley, live, singing "Stir It Up." On Monday evening around half-past seven, "Stir It Up" aired on AVRO-TV's TopPop, and by Friday we hit number 1 with Bob Marley in the National Chart!

Island Records told its licensees that whoever would increase the sales of Bob Marley the most would win a trip to Jamaica and stay with Bob at his mansion in Kingston, at 69 Love Lane. I felt that I would win big time. Not only was all my press in the Netherlands and Belgium positive, and did we chart with all Bob’s albums, also all concerts in Brussels, The Hague, Rotterdam and Amsterdam were sell-outs. And on top of that I got “Stir It Up” to number 2 in the Top 40 and… number one in TopPop. Thus trailering mega-sales for the double album “Babylon By Bus”. Artisan Stance Oort was our exclusive supplier of gold records and she got more and more calls from us to rush gold and platinum record awards. But much to my surprise international director Phil Cooper declared Lars-Olav Helan of Sonet Records in Denmark to be the winner. I congratulated Lars on a great job and was impressed that he beat me. Everywhere outside the Benelux my colleagues wanted to release “Stir It Up”, which would have helped boosting sales, so Lars was handicapped and still beat me!

Years later Lars and I met again at the MIDEM music convention in Cannes, January 1999, and reflected on the good old days. He apologized for having taken the trip to Jamaica. ‘No hard feelings’, I told him. But then he revealed what really happened: ‘You never took Phil to Yab Yum or other whorehouses, and I did. That’s why I won!’

Once again, I regretted that of the holy trinity Sex Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll I only cared about the last two.