Randy Spendlove, head of motion picture music at Paramount Studios, is no stranger to musical biopics. His list includes “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Rocketman” and “Walk the Line.” When it came time to bring the story of reggae icon Bob Marley to the big screen, his challenge remained the same as ever: “How do you tell the story of a legendary figure? How do you achieve that? And how do we make sure we get the most out of Bob?”
Early meetings were held during the pandemic with Marley’s sons Ziggy and Steven as well as director Reynaldo Marcus Green via Zoom. The answer would be to authentically preserve and enhance Bob Marley’s live recordings – with actor Kingsley Ben-Adir singing.
However, the first complication the team had to overcome was obtaining the music rights.
While Marley’s family owns many aspects of his estate under the management of the House of Marley, Primary Wave Music Publishing owns an 80% stake in the singer’s music. In addition, Universal Music, Island Records and other companies also own a percentage.
“There were different companies that had different rights to the music,” Spendlove explains. Ultimately, it came down to timing. As Spendloff says: “He was getting the right message out and making the film for the right reasons. It was about getting the music together, always in sync with the family and the pieces and parts were a huge effort, but I think people realized it was the right time.”
The film begins after the Smile Jamaica concert and subsequent assassination attempt in December 1976. The story then follows Marley as he travels to London to record his album “Exodus” and returns to Jamaica to perform at the One Love Peace Concert.
Designing the film’s soundtrack proved to be another challenge.
Marley had an extensive catalog from which to draw. Of course, the film featured hit songs like “I Shot the Sheriff,” “No Woman, No Cry,” and “Redemption Song.” But narrowing it down was no easy task.
“We looked at all the music, some of it before Exodus,” Spendlove says. “As we told the story, and I put the story together, the songs came in and out of the cut as we tried to figure out how the narrative and lyrics of the song fit where we were at a certain point in Bob’s life.”
With Marley’s 1973 film “I Shot the Sheriff,” set early in the film, the idea was to show it as a younger Marley was getting his start. “He’s already a star in his own right,” Spendlove explains. “It was a matter of knowing what the band was going to work on at that moment. Then you record that song so it feels like Bob has an idea and a band writes the song and records it.”
There was a live recording of Marley, captured with just two microphones on stage. The track must be re-recorded for the movie.
“I dropped the drums and used Bob’s voice with Kingsley as the actor and mixed it because he also sings in the room,” says Spendlove.
And yes, Ben Adir sings.
Early on, Ben-Adir expressed his main interest to Spendlove – singing with the right accent and perfecting Marley’s mannerisms. “He worked every day with a vocal coach and with a guitar teacher. He worked with our team for weeks on pre-recordings,” Spendlove says. “That’s who he plays in those practice scenes when he writes and sings. When he writes songs on the couch, he sounds very close to Bob. He wanted Bob’s voice to shine. Therefore, Pope and Kingsley’s voice was largely intertwined.
It wasn’t the only track to be re-recorded. “When we started, we recorded for two weeks. We chose musicians from Ziggy’s and Stephen’s bands and members of the Wailers. “We recorded 40 songs, matched them to the recordings, the live recordings and figured out how to complement them with the right sound,” explains Spendlove.
Ziggy Marley featured on guitars and Stephen Marley played bass. “He would also fill in on vocals. It was about tapping into his family and making sure that as custodians of the material, we could take this journey from something that was recorded in the mid-’70s as a live recording on stage with two microphones to a theatrical sound,” Spendlove explains. “With Stephen and Ziggy at the helm, we can apply the drums and bass and get that fidelity.”
Of the 40 tracks recorded, only 22 made the film’s soundtrack. For Ziggy Marley, “Ambush In The Night” is the one song he hoped would make it to the end. “That was a song that directly addressed the situation that happened in the movie.”