Contribution of Marley's Wailers played down in court

The man who signed Bob Marley today played down the contribution of his backing band, the Wailers, who are claiming around £60m (€87.2m) of the reggae legend’s estate.

Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records, told a British High Court hearing in London that by the time of the band’s first success, he had no intention of getting involved in contracts with anyone other than Bob Marley.

Aston “Family Man” Barrett is claiming he is owed royalties from a contract signed with Island in 1974, together with earnings from songs he had co-written with Marley.

He is suing Universal/Island Records and the Marley family which he claims has failed to honour any of the agreements he understood had been made on a partnership basis with the singer.

Mr Blackwell, 68, who said he started his career in the record business selling discs from the back of his car in Kingston, Jamaica, said that one of the “risks” he took in his life – giving Bob Marley a £4,000 advance to produce his first album – “paid off many times over”.

Stephen Bate, representing Aston Barrett, asked whether he agreed that his client on bass and his brother, Carlton, on drums gave the Wailers “a unique sound”.

“I will never deny the importance of the Barretts,” replied Mr Blackwell, “but it really was all about Bob Marley.”

Mr Bate said Carlton’s drumming and Aston’s bass lines gave the Wailers a unique edge over all their contemporaries in the early Seventies in Jamaica.

“There were other great drummers in Jamaica,” said Mr Blackwell.

He said Bob Marley had chosen the Barrett brothers to play in his band “but it could just as well have been someone else”.

Asked by Mr Bate whether Mr Blackwell feared the Barrett brother might leave Bob Marley, he replied: “To me it didn’t matter. My interest was Bob Marley.”

Mr Blackwell said that when the original Wailers, Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston, left the band, they needed to draw up a new contract in 1974.

Mr Bate: “It was quite clear there was an expectation that the Barretts would sign this 1974 contract?”

But Mr Blackwell denied he had any intention “of getting into legal relations” with the brothers.

“By the time that contract came along the status of Bob Marley had risen to such a degree that there was no longer the need to present the image of a band.”

He said the contract was signed only by Marley and didn’t apply to the brothers.

Aston claims that the Wailers’ troubles began after 1981 when Marley died of cancer.

He said neither he nor his brother, who was murdered in 1985, received much money from that date.

The hearing was adjourned until tomorrow.