Stephen Marley Trods In Bob Marley’s Footsteps With ‘Babylon By Bus’ Tour

Medication singer Stephen Marley, Bob and Rita Marley’s second son, has announced the dates for his Babylon by Bus tour a 19-show journey across the United States, named after Bob Marley’s promotional tour for his 1978 Babylon By Bus album.

According to Stephen’s website, the shows will feature his own songs spanning his four decade career along with tracks from his father’s extensive catalogue.

Bob’s Babylon by Bus album was recorded live from the 10,000-capacity Pavillon de Paris concerts over three nights, from June 25 to 27 in 1978, during his Kaya Tour. Among its 13 tracks are Positive Vibration, Punky Reggae Party, Exodus, Stir It Up, Rat Race, Concrete Jungle, Lively Up Yourself, War/No More Trouble, Is This Love and Jammin.

The album reportedly charted at number two in the United States, and reached number 40 in the UK, which was by Marley’s standards, disappointing.

His promotional 19-show tour for the album though, had a massive impact in Asia and Oceania where he did eight and 11 concerts respectively.

Stephen’s own concert series will commence on August 26th at the Mateel Community Center in Redwa.  The eight-time Grammy-winning star’s tour will spans the United States’ Pacific Coast, Southwest, The Rocky Mountains, Midwest and Southeast region, and will have as its final event, a show in Asheville, North Carolina on September, 26, 2021.

The Who Colt The Game artiste will also join his elder brother Ziggy for a special tribute at the 12th concert in the series which will be staged at the Beach Life Music Festival in Redondo Beach, California on Sunday September 12, in what is a continuation of Bob Marley 75th birthday celebrations which was hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unlike Stephen’s tour which will concentrate itself in the US, Bob’s Babylon by Bus Tour was aimed at popularizing himself and Reggae music in Asia and Oceania.

According Udiscovermusic, the tour commenced in Japan on April 5, 1979, and ended in Honolulu, Hawaii, on 6 May 1979.

Initially it was to have begun with two shows in the Ivory Coast in mid-March, but both concerts had been cancelled.

The first leg reportedly led Marley through Japan where he performed for the first time, while the second leg took place in various Oceanian places including New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii.

According to Udiscovermusic, Bob arrived in Tokyo on April 5, for the first of six sold-out shows, where he and his band were “greeted by mobs of mildly hysterical fans and insistent paparazzi, requiring them hastily to convene a press conference before they’d even left the airport” and which “laid the foundations for a thriving reggae scene that quickly took root in Japan”.

The reception was the same in Australia and New Zealand, where Bob visited the Maori and Aborigine communities, who welcomed him and his compatriots Rastafarian as kindred spirits and hailed him as a savior.

Babylon by Bus, although it was Bob’s first and only visit to those regions has been credited for its massive impact in propelling Reggae in that part of the world where the music prior to that, had only been heard on records or on the radio.

“As before in Europe and North America, Marley and the Wailers came, saw and conquered, turning reggae from a distant curiosity into a focal part of the popular musical fabric,” Udiscovermusic, noted.

One dollar from each Babylon By Bus 2021 Tour ticket purchased, will be donated to the Ghetto Youths Foundation, the non-profit organization founded by Stephen, Damian and Julian Marley to provide assistance, resources and opportunities to residents of Trench Town, the inner-city community in Kingston where their father’s musical skills were honed, but which is grappling with high rates of poverty.

Stephen, who celebrated his 49th birthday on April 20, began performing live at age seven, with his siblings Ziggy, Sharon and Cedella as a part of the Melody Makers, which was originally formed at the request of their mother, where he served as vocalist, guitarist and drummer.

In 1980 he and Ziggy performed on stage with their father at a free concert at Rufaro Stadium in Salisbury, Zimbabwe, to honor the nation’s Independence Celebration.

The child star also performed on Reggae Sunsplash at age 10 in 1981 where he sang Sugar Pie with the Melody Makers.

Stephen is an eight-time Grammy Award winner, three times as a solo artist, twice as a producer of younger brother Damian Marley’s Halfway Tree and Welcome to Jamrock albums, and also thrice during his time as a member of The Melody Makers.

Stephen Marley ‘Babylon by Bus’ U.S. Tour Dates:

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