©DENNISMORRIS
WHEN photographer Dennis Morris went on tour with Bob Marley in November 1973, the Wailers were finding England tough going. It was freezing, venues were half-empty and the band couldn’t get food that met the vegan-like restrictions of the Rastafari I-tal diet. The last straw was agig in Northampton where it snowed –something Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer told Morris was an ominous sign. The tour was abandoned, but not before Morris took several portraits of Marley, such as the one opposite, shot backstage before ashow in Bournemouth.
“He always had aquiet moment where he sat with aspliff meditating, getting ready, working out how he would deliver the best show to get his message out,” recalls Morris, ahead of aLondon exhibition of his Marley photographs. “The music was the vehicle for the message. Alot of the venues could fit around 1,000 to 2,000 people, but reggae hadn’t crossed over yet and they were empty. But Bob played every gig like it was sold out. When he came back two years later, the Lyceum was the gig of gigs because word had spread, just like Bob knew it would. They came from every corner of the country to see the man.”
“You could feel the message being picked up by the crowd”
The Portraits Of The King exhibition and book features photos taken between 1973 and 1980, some of which have never been seen before. Morris first met Marley at the Speakeasy in London in May 1973 during the Catch AFire tour. Still in his teens, Morris was invited to accompany the Wailers when they returned to the UK in November. Although nobody initially published those photographs, Morris used his knowledge of Marley’s performing style to capture some striking images when he returned to the Lyceum in 1975. “I got the shots that went on the covers of Melody Maker, NME and Time Out and that’s how I became a rock photographer,” he says. “But my influence was reportage, and it’s why these images are so personal.”