BOB MARLEY FOUND THE MAN WHO GAVE HIM HIS FIRST GUITAR — 30 YEARS LATER, ON STAGE – 15,000, HE CRIED!
London, June 3rd, 1978. BOB MARLEY was in the middle of No Woman, No Cry when he stopped singing. He walked to the microphone and said something that confused 15,000 people. There was a man who changed my life. He gave me my first guitar 30 years ago in Jamaica. His name was Mr. THOMPSON. I never got to thank him.
I don’t even know if he’s still alive. Then from the back of the LYSM theater, an old man stood up, his voice shaking. He shouted four words that made BOB MARLEY cry on stage. ROBERT, I’m right here.
Hit that notification bell because we uncover the hidden gems that shape the legends we know today. To understand this moment, you need to go back 30 years back to 1948. Back to a place most people in that LONDON theater had never heard of. FRENCHTOWN, KINGSTON, JAMAICA. FRENCHTOWN wasn’t a neighborhood. It was a wound. The poorest, most desperate part of KINGSTON.
Families crammed into government yards, tin roof shacks, dirt floors, children running barefoot through streets that smelled like sewage in desperation. Most kids in Trenchtown had two futures: crime or death. Sometimes both. But there was a small wooden schoolhouse on the edge of Trenchtown. And in that schoolhouse, every Saturday afternoon, a man named Joseph Thompson taught music.
JOSEPH was 42 years old in 1948. He’d been a professional musician once, played piano in KINGSTON hotels for tourists, but an injury to his hand ended that career. So, JOSEPH became a teacher, not a wealthy one. He made barely enough to survive. But every Saturday, he opened that schoolhouse and taught music to any child who wanted to learn for free.
Always free. Most weeks, 10 or 15 kids showed up. They had no instruments. Joseph brought what he could. An old piano missing keys. A damaged guitar with three strings. A harmonica with holes rusted through. The children didn’t care. For 2 hours every Saturday, they weren’t poor. They were musicians. One Saturday in April 1948, a new boy showed up.
Small for his age, maybe 13 years old. mixed race, light-skinned, which made him an outsider, even among the poor. The other kids looked at him suspiciously. He sat in the back corner and didn’t speak. JOSEPH walked over. What’s your name, son? ROBERT, the boy said quietly. ROBERT NESTA MARLEY. You want to learn music, ROBERT? The boy nodded.
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