Mr. Bob Marley

“I first crossed paths with Bob Marley in Jamaica in 1974 during a casual game of soccer (football in Jamaica), five guys over here, five over there. Then in 1975, after I’d moved to Toronto, he was playing at Massey Hall and I went to check out the concert. I was going in to get tickets and ran into a friend of mine who was his art director. He asked me if I wanted to wait because Bob was coming to play a sound check. Five minutes later, he came in. I nearly fell off my chair during the sound check. I was only 19, you know? I’d seen him play before. I loved Marley. He was just brilliant. After the sound check, he looked at me and said, ‘I know the face.’ That’s the Rasta Jamaican way of saying it, you know? I couldn’t believe he knew my face. That’s how I ended up on the side stage that night. I was a fashion photographer at the time, not a music photographer, so I didn’t show the photographs for more than 10 years.”

– Nigel Scott