Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeart Radio, Jim berkenstat is the rock and roll detective mysteries in the music case closed the Beatle Who Vanished, which has been optioned for a movie, So look for that on the big screen perhaps sometimes soon. Never mind Nirvana and black market Beatles. So, Jim, before the break, we were gonna was gonna get you to tell me about Bob Marley two days before this big concert in Kingston, Jamaica,
the Smile Jamaica Concert, Bob Marley and the Whalers. They're they're rehearsing at his home and gunmen descend on his house, sprayed the place with bullets. Bob Marley is struck in the I think the arm I think his manager was struck like five times, somehow miraculously survived. His wife, Rita was shot. I think she got hit in the head, but she survived. Obviously. Rumers persists that the CIA was involved.
What do you think, Well, it was really fun to read search and right this chapter because there's so many interesting ingredients that make up this mystery slash conspiracy. You know, you have international countries involved, you have intrigue going on in Jamaica. You have rock and roll with Bob Marley or reggae. I should say, there's just so many great things to this. So I first found that that US corporations were digging up most of the island of Jamaica
to mine it for box site. This is a an ore that's used to manufacture aluminum, and back in the seventies, aluminum was a big product and it was being used in a lot of construction, and this was a very inexpensive way for these big multinationals to get that product. However, the Jamaica had gotten a new prime minister at that time.
He was moving towards socialism, which really scared our government because we still remembered the Russians putting missiles on Cuba, pointing them at our country, and we were still in a Cold War with Russia, and so we didn't like the fact that the Jamaican government was turning socialist. We didn't like that their prime minister was talking to Castro
in Cuba. Henry Kissinger, our Secretary of State, went over there and tried to basically offer him a bunch of money for different programs if he would just let us go back to digging up black site and other things, and the prime ministers said nope. So next thing you know, we had had a diplomatic office down there of two people,
like the ambassador and his secretary. Next thing you know, there's ten or fifteen people down there, and suddenly there's violence going on between the two political parties as we approach the election at the end of the year for a new prime minister. So there was a thought, well after Marley was shot, the thought was that the CIA had in fact infiltrated Jamaica was trying to disrupt the election.
And also at that time, in the previous years, there had been a lot of assassin foreign assassinations by the CIA, taking out various leaders. So Bob Marley wanted to bring both sides together in peace. He wasn't political or favoring one side or the other. He just didn't like the fact that the Democraticsialists and the conservative parties were warring, and I mean literally warring because there were a lot of weapons being used. Yeah, they had their own possees, right, Yeah,
they had their own policies. And at the same time he went to the Prime Minister and said, I want to give this concert, and the Prime Minister said, yeah, sure, no problem, but he put he put his name or you know, the prime by virtue of the Prime Minister, we present this concert. So he made it look like Bob Marley was for him and trying to get people to go to the concert. This guy the Prime Minister, so that would make him look good and help with the election. But in fact it kind of put Marley
into the crosshairs. And so, as you said, these gunmen stormed into his home, shot up the place. All of the whalers escaped, but Bob was hit, his manager was hit, and his wife Rita was hit. They went to the hospital. Now, throughout most of this time, Bob had a pr guy from his record label, Jeff Walker, who was with him most of the time. So the question that people wanted to know was, well, did these CIA agents who were
posing as diplomats try to kill Bob Marley. And so one of the things I did was I dug in and found the original classified CIA documents that mentioned Bob Marley.
At this time, I also was able to locate President Gerald Ford's They get summaries of each country and what's going on, and so his summaries with respect to Bob Marley, and once I got those records, I did find that each of the CIA agents sent down there, it had their real name, then it had fake diplomatic title, and then it had their their real title with the CIA. So I found one of those agents and I was able to locate him, call him up and interview him
on this whole issue. I also talked to Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, who had become a national security advisor later under President Reagan, but he told me that he interviewed President Ford about what was going on in all the countries, including Jamaica at the time. I interviewed Jeff Walker, who was with Marley, and the real key that comes into
this conspiracy is a gentleman named Carl Colby. He had been hired by Marley's record label to film this particular concert that Bob wanted to put on, and Walker, the pr man, explained that the reason for filming this particular transert was because Bob wasn't going to be touring for a while and they could get it onto those late night rock shows that used to play on Saturday nights, very late, where you'd see film clips of rock stars performing and and maybe Saturday Night Live. So that's why
they wanted the film. Well, they hired Carl Colby, who was a young man who had gone to college and had gone to film school. But it turns out that Carl Colby was the son of William Colby, who had been the head of the CIA. So you can see how people start to put these things together because they can't explain any other you know, like Bob Marley could not have died of cancer. I'm sorry he you know, this guy was down there, so it had had to be.
So my job was to go through the actual gunman coming into the house, compare that to the actual CIA books or manuals, to tell you how these things take place, how they're supposed to take place. I also learned about whether or not the CIA would ever assassinate a person who was powerful but not in power in terms of an elected position, So I wanted to know that and
then believe it or not. There was an alleged second attempt where a conspiracy theorist said that Carl Colby was at the hideout where Bob Marley was for two days recovering from his gunshot wound, trying to decide whether or not to go down and play. And at this time, allegedly Carl Colby gave him a pair of soccer shoes as a gift, and when Bob put his toe into
the soccer shoes had cut his big toe. And as many people know, Bob's cancer that he ultimately died of did start in his big toe and spread to his whole body. But when I looked at some of the facts that this person presented, for example, this conspiracy guy said that the whalers were there rehearsing. Well, the whalers had scattered like the wind. They were not at this place. And that was confirmed by Jeff Walker. So there's, you know, the thing that didn't addim. And Jeff Walker said, I
was with Carl Colby the whole time. We all knew he was the son of the CIA director. And he said, you know, we all had parents that had done things. Well, we all knew about it. We all laughed about it. And I said, did Bob Marley know that Carl Colby was the son of a CIA A director And he said, yeah,
Bob knew to it. We all knew. And he said, you know, Kyle Colby was the only cameraman brave enough to go down to the stage and start filming the concert, and it starts with a single shot because he's the only cameraman. The others were afraid that they'd be sitting targets, just as of course Bob Marley was. And in fact, Bob did not get on stage with the Whalers right away. He had some other backup band that happened to be playing that night, and they backed him up on his sons.
There's just a lot of things where you have to take what you're given by conspiracy theorists and then look through each thing and see where are the facts and where do they lead us? Would you point out Bob Marley performed that that concert despite still having a bullet lodged in his elbow right, and not only that, if you if listeners want to see that show, most of it is all contained on YouTube and they can find it there. Did you get any answers as to who
may have been responsible? Was it were they? Was it the the posse loyal to Edwards Siaga, who was my Prime Minister, Michael Manley's political rival. Well, I got a lot of answers to a lot of these questions, but I you know, I think it'd be best to leave it to the readers. Absolutely, absolutely, All right, let's grab a quick call here. John is in Wisconsin on the
wild card line. Go ahead, John, and then I have a quick question for Richard, and in a comment for Jim, Richard, I so thoroughly enjoyed the opening of your show when you describe people in different phases or places they've been Richard. In nineteen seventy five, I gra educated from my high school, and for the next couple of years I lived in my parents' basement. I had an electric fireplace, and they
had a wall hanging with the dogs playing poker. So when you say that when on, it just brings back to such warm memories. Thank you, thank you, Thank you, Jim, thank you for all the work you have done. Congratulations on your success. I remember like it was yesterday, February ninth, nineteen sixty four. I was seven years old. My grandmother was over and along with my parents and my sister, we watched the Ed Sullivan Show, which we did every week.
All of a sudden, when the Beatles were introduced, my parents and my grandmother started laughing and they said they look funny, they sound funny, they act funny, and I was confused. I was very confused. I just did not get it well. Fast forward. We eventually all loved the Beatles, the British Invasion, and the decades of great music from the many artists that followed. Jim My question is, yeah, are good classic rockers now are passing away regularly because
they're well into their seventies and then some. I'm just wondering, what do you see the future of rock and rolling? By that, I mean, you know, the traditional the drummer, the three guitarists, perhaps a keyboardist, and we've seen that era gone by, Jim, or is there any hope that will return one day? Thanks? John, great question. Yeah, thanks for your call and your kind words. I do think that we will not likely see another resurgence of rock and roll as it was with the you know, three
four guitars, maybe keyboard and drums. I think that the last time we saw that was really the nineties with the alternative rock Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Garbage, and many others. But I I don't see it. You know, I'm seeing a lot of kids are creating music on computers, you know, in their own bedrooms now, and the computers have have come so far now, software and such that they can create all these sounds. But to the ears of us
old classic rockers, it doesn't sound natural. It doesn't sound organic. You know. There's nothing like being near a stage and having someone strum the guitar and just heal the vibration and hear it. There's nothing like a real drum sound versus one that's done with a keyboard, you know. I is. Even though there are some rock bands, some new young rock bands that I think are pretty interesting, I don't know.
I don't think there's going to be this whole resurgence of rock and roll as a genre as we knew it. Just hold on your vinyl and remember and cherishing The Beatle Who Vanished. That's going to be made into a movie. Yeah, so just a quick blur Bonnette. You know. A Beatle who Vanished is really the first historical account of Jimmy Nichol.
And he was an unknown drummer whose journey from really humble beginnings to saving the Beatles First World Tour was only one part of his legend, though those thirteen Days of Fame made headlines for him. The true Mystery of Nicol is a story riddled with blacklisting, betrayal, drugs, divorced, bankruptcy, and an eventual disappearance that led many to question whether he is dead or alive. And so again that's another
big mystery. I dug into the British film, indie film company called ecox Is currently has the rights and it's the movie's in development. They're working on screenwritings and I'm very excited it's and it's something that I'm doing with Alex Orbison, the son of Roy Orbison, and Ashley Hamilton, who's the son of Rod Stewart. George Hamilton, Yeah, George Hamilton, right, stepson. I think of Road Stewart. If I'm not mistaken. Ah well,
I'm looking forward to that as well. Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to Coast am dot com for more