“Bob Marley didn’t want to hear my jazz-rock… I had to start all over again. I needed to play slower and add more feeling. Once I did, he told me, ‘That’s it, man!’” Al Anderson opens up on his tumultuous time with a reggae icon

Al Anderson with Bob Marley.

If you’ve ever spent lazy summer days digging classic Bob Marley cuts like No Woman, No Cry, Natty Dread and Revolution, you’ve feasted on the slow-burning, jazzy licks of Al Anderson.

With origins in New Jersey, he was born to create music. Looking back, he tells Guitar World: “My father was a bassist, and my mother played piano. And my father got a call once to sit in with James Brown for a few nights while James played in Northern New Jersey.