Reggae has never been short of personalities who delivered the goods on stage. Think of Roy Shirley, writhing across the boards like a crazed preacher; Nicky Thomas rebuking any audience that lacked respect; or The Abyssinians, their velvet robes shimmering as they acted out Biblical tableaux. But one Jamaican star was truly, arrestingly unique. He would strut the stage dressed in a mortar board and gown, handing out lessons in life and warning about “the shitstem” to those lucky enough to be in his presence. By contrast, you might also find him astride a unicycle, looming large even when balanced on one wheel. Sometimes he simply strode the boards as a living lesson in survival, dignity and strength, scolding the Oppressor Man, as one of his records had it. He was Peter Tosh. You’d never mistake him for another.
Buy classic Peter Tosh albums on vinyl.
Peter Tosh spent the best part of a quarter of a century at the pinnacle of Jamaican music. He was one of the original Wailers, alongside Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer, writing genuine classics. He was the most musically accomplished of the trio, offering remarkably acrid lead vocals and asides, and heartrending, soulful harmonies. He played guitar, percussion, keyboards, melodica and harmonica, ran his own record label, Intel Diplo HIM, and helped found the famed Tuff Gong imprint.
He worked with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and his image was the inspiration for 2 Tone’s mascot, Walt Jabsco. He adopted Rastafarianism before Bob Marley. He called for the legalisation of marijuana in an era when other stars kept consumption and opinions on the downlow. But most of all, he had attitude. Nobody was going to fool with him, be they politicians, rivals or wayward lovers; his music was highly astringent, full of righteous fire. And his classic albums, among them Bush Doctor (1978), Wanted Dread And Alive (1981) and No Nuclear War (1987), drew you into his world, where he was a perpetual outsider, always restless, always searching, refusing to accept being treated as a second-class citizen just because he came from the Jamaican ghetto.
Listen to the best of Peter Tosh here.
Childhood and growing up
Peter Tosh was born Winston Hubert McIntosh at Grange Hill, Westmoreland, near Jamaica’s west coast, on 19 October 1944. Heavily associated with slavery, the parish is famous only for being the place Tosh was born. He was raised by aunts, first at Grange Hill, then Trench Town, Kingston, where he moved aged 15. He’d intended to become a welder, but fate had bigger plans.
Tosh was fascinated with music, and learned the guitar by sight: he watched another guitarist play, and copied him. Near the start of the 60s, Tosh ran into Joe Higgs, a key figure in the development of reggae music, who tutored this lanky kid in singing and introduced him to two fellow ghetto youths under his tuition, Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer. The three teamed up to form a group known as The Wailers.
Early fame
Higgs was recording for Studio One, a label at the heart of Jamaica’s burgeoning ska scene, and the trio, along with a shifting cast of further members, began cutting hits for the company in 1964. Though they modelled themselves on The Impressions, The Wailers’ sound was uniquely Jamaican. Tosh was initially the singer most likely to become the group’s leader and a solo artist. On records such as Jumbie Jamboree, Amen and a version of The Temptations’ Don’t Look Back, he sounded entirely in charge. Righteously powerful on titles such as The Toughest (1966), Treat Me Good (ditto, which gave him his nickname, Steppin’ Razor) and Rasta Shook Them Up (1967), he covered everything from rude-boy braggadocio to Rastafarianism in an unmatched manner.
