Steppin' Razor: The Life of Peter Tosh by Masouri John

Author:Masouri, John [Masouri, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857128713
Publisher: Omnibus Press
Published: 2013-05-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Lessons In My Life

The rest of 1979 will fly past in a haze of controversy, awards, artistic triumphs and romantic highs. First Peter needed to replace Donald Kinsey, who’d left to tour with his own band. Auditions were held at SIR studios in New York where they recruited a young African-American guitarist named Daryl Thompson, son of jazz tenor sax star Eli “Lucky” Thompson.

“I was playing with a rock band in New York and got a call from someone who knew Teresa Del Paso. She was Peter’s business manager at the time,” Daryl explains. “This friend asked me if I’d ever heard of Peter Tosh and I said no, I hadn’t. I was aware of Bob Marley, because I’d seen him on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. I remember thinking, ‘Who’s this guy with the funny hair singing an Eric Clapton song?’ That’s how ignorant I was and then when he started into the second song, I couldn’t tell the difference! The beat just sounded the same to me but I was coming from the Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton school, and that was the only exposure I’d had to reggae by that point.

“In the end, I decided to go and audition for kicks. Peter didn’t actually do much. He just sat in the back with these dark glasses on and never spoke to me. I remember he was sat between two beautiful women and had a great big spliff in his hand. I’d never seen a spliff before so all of that was quite new to me, and then after a while all I could see was a cloud of smoke coming from the back of the room … It was Sly, Robbie and Mikey Chung who ran the audition. They said they’d auditioned about 30 other people but they liked me and asked if I wanted to join. The thing is, I could barely understand a word anyone was saying! At one stage I thought someone had hemorrhaged because every other word was “bloodclaat” so I asked them for twice as much money as I was making with the other group, thinking they would turn me down and I could get out of there without too much fuss. I was amazed when they said, ‘Sure, no problem.’ I thought, ‘Well this is simple economics, and I can’t turn it down now …’”

Daryl had been playing guitar since the age of six. As a teenager, he’d studied with jazz masters Chuck Wayne and Pat Martino yet his heart was in rock music, especially after hearing Jimi Hendrix for the first time, back in the late sixties. Hendrix and John McLaughlin will remain primary influences. Jamaican music had never entered the equation but then Peter wasn’t interested in replacing Donald Kinsey with a reggae guitarist, but another rock or blues player.

The following evening, Daryl met up with the other band members at a hotel in Queen’s, where they’d stay overnight in readiness for an early morning flight from LaGuardia Airport.

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