Life is suppose to be spiritual, said Ziggy Marley. It's a gift from the Almighty.
"People have to know there is more to living than physical things," Marley told the Deseret News during a phone call from Kingston, Jamaica. "The spiritual side of things is very important. There is so much more that makes life full."Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers - featuring Marley's brother Stephen and sisters, Cedella and Sharon Prendergast - will play the Saltair pavilion, Monday, March 4. The show begins at 7:30 p.m. with opening guest Jr. Gong (comprised of more Marley siblings Julian and Damian).
"The spiritual message isn't from us or me," explained Marley in his Jamaican tone. "It comes from a higher source, you know?"
And along those lines, Marley (born as David Marley 26 years ago to the late reggae king Robert Nesta "Tuff Gong" Marley and his wife Rita) has an different agenda for his band's music.
"My goal for our music is to get it to the people," he said. "We play music not for commercial success but for the people. Success to me does not mean money. We don't write songs just for people today as much as for people 100 years from now. It's definitely timeless, but also universal."
Whether the songs are about powers - both divine and political - or ecological concerns, they all hit listeners with an urgency that can't be missed, though it can be interpreted in different ways.
"What does matter to me is that people understand something of what we are singing," Marley said. "Everybody will have their own ideas of what the song is about. But the message is universal. Politics, nature and what is happening all over the world is important to who we are and where we live."
Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers hit the music scene in 1988 with a platinum-selling "Conscious Party." Both "Conscious Party" and the follow-up "One Bright Day" in 1989 won Grammys for Best Reggae Recording. The group's new album "Free Like We Want to Be" has already garnered another Grammy nomination. Still, putting those corporate credentials aside, the Melody Makers is the same group that had been performing since they lived in the ghettos of Jamaica.
Through the years, the Melody Makers have caught the attention of various awareness groups. In 1992, Ziggy Marley was appointed Youth Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations Environment's Global Youth Forum and traveled to the Earth Summit in Brazil.
The Marley sibs have also taken some of the awareness into their own hands. They dedicated the proceeds of the new track "Hand to Mouth" to Jamaica's underprivileged children attending the Melrose All-Age School in their homeland.
"Free Like We Want 2 B" continues the Melody Makers' continual evolution of music. Like life, the group has managed to explore different avenues. The 1991 album "Jahmekya" funneled a little hip-hop in the mix and "Joy and Blues" (1993) was a return to its original groove. "Free Like We Want 2 B" manages to mix a lot of that old roots sound with a vibrant combination of everything dancible - reggae, hip-hop and good ol' rhythm and blues.
"My influences are my father and my mother," Marley said. "I listened to Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke, also.
"Now, I listen to the radio, but keep listening to other sounds sent by the Almighty Father and Earth Mother," he added reverently.
Those two entities, he said is where his real soul lies, even though he is often compared to his late father, a music critic's inevitable tendency that Marley has dealt with successfully since he entered the music business.
"My identity," he said out loud, as if pondering the very sound of the word. "I was born by myself but carry the spirit and blood of my father, mother and my ancestors. So I am really never alone. My identity is through that line. But I don't need an identity. I just need to know my music. Through that is where I find myself."