Intelligencer

Is This Love? Wailers Get Up, Stand Up

But actually it’s not love.

By Rebecca Milzoff
Published Jun 18, 2006

Have the surviving members of Bob Marley’s band finally found one love? Bunny Wailer, Rita Marley (Bob’s widow), Judy Mowatt, and Marcia Griffiths are all playing, along with producer Lee “Scratch” Perry, this Sunday for the first time in twenty years at—where else?—Woodstock. “To get everyone onstage seemed impossible,” says concert organizer , “but Junior [Burton, CEO of Legendary Records] went to Jamaica and spoke to Bunny, and Bunny said, ‘Hell, yeah!’ ” Bob Marley split with Wailer and Peter Tosh in 1974 but kept the Wailers as a backup band. Bad feelings linger. According to a source familiar with the reunion, Rita and Wailer still won’t do interviews together. “Bunny wasn’t even told that Lee was gonna be part of the ticket; they just sprung it on him last week,” says the source. “They’ve all been living deeply religious lives—they’re very much Rastafarians,” the source says. “It’s just a shame that they’re bitching at each other.”