Westbury Library To Present ‘A Tribute To Bob Marley’

Friday, 28 December 2012 00:00

High Tide performing free show at library

on Sunday, January 20

The Westbury Memorial Public Library will welcome reggae and calypso group Hide Tide on Sunday, Jan. 20 for a free concert featuring a musical tribute to the legendary Bob Marley.

High Tide will take the stage of the library’s meeting room at 2 p.m. and perform some of the legendary reggae star’s classic hits, including “Stir It Up,” “One Love,” “No Woman No Cry”, “I Shot the Sheriff” and “Jamming,” among others.

Established in 1997, High Tide has performed in the Nassau County Concert Series for the past 15 summers. Additionally, the group performs at libraries and parks throughout Nassau, Suffolk and Queens counties and at restaurants, nightclubs and bars.

“Musical presentations of this nature bring a world of culture to a local audience,” said group leader and drummer Michael Kohn. “The music of Jamaica, and in this particular case Bob Marley, can brighten up a winter afternoon and make those that attend feel like they are on a brief Caribbean vacation.”

Kohn, who will be joined by Joseph Lovehart, of Copiague, on guitar/vocals and David Patrick, of Freeport, on bass, added that the “smiles on the faces of the audiences we entertain” is perhaps what the group enjoys most about performing.

The library, said director Cathleen Towey, is excited to welcome High Tide and hopes the community will attend.

“I’m confident the community will enjoy this tribute to Bob Marley and his legendary reggae music,” said Towey.

Bob Marley was a Jamaican-born singer-songwriter and musician whose music was heavily influenced by the social issues of his homeland. His father was a white English-Jamaican of mixed English and Syrian-Jewish descent from England; his mother, an Afro-Jamaican.

In 1963, Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, and Cherry Smith formed a ska and rocksteady group – first calling themselves The Teenagers before later changing their name to The Wailing Rudeboys, then to The Wailing Wailers before finally settling on The Wailers. In 1966, the group became the trio of Marley, Wailer and Tosh, performing throughout the world and recording over a dozen albums until Marley’s death from cancer in 1981.

Today, more than 20 years since his death, Marley remains the most widely known and revered performer of reggae music, and is credited with helping spread both Jamaican music and the Rastafari movement to a worldwide audience. In 1999, the Bob Marley & The Wailers album Exodus was named the greatest album of the 20th century by Time magazine and in 2001, Marley was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Additionally, Rolling Stone Magazine publisher Jann Wenner, in his 1994 posthumous introduction of Marley into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, described the singer/ song­writer as “the Third World’s first pop superstar … the man who introduced the world to the mystic power of reggae.”

Wenner described Marley as a true rocker at heart who, as a songwriter, “brought the lyrical force of Bob Dylan, the personal charisma of John Lennon, and the essential vocal stylings of Smokey Robinson into one voice.”

“We are honored to present the music of Bob Marley to the Westbury community,” Kohn added. “In a small way, performances of this nature help to preserve his legacy.”

The Jan. 20 “Tribute to Bob Marley” concert featuring High Tide is free and open to the public. For more information on this event or additional programs offered by the Westbury Memorial Public Library, visit www.WestburyLibrary.org or call (516) 333-0176.