Richard ‘Bassie’ Daley

IRIE. How did you come about being part of Third World?

Richie Daley: When the band started back in 1973, I already knew Cat and had attended school with Prilly Hamilton, the lead singer. I knew just about everybody in the band because we all grew up together in the city of Kingston and went to school nearby. When they needed a bass player, they contacted me and the rest
is history.

IRIE. We’re you always a bass player?

Richie Daley: I started out as a rhythm guitar player and with Third World became a bass player.

IRIE. Tell us what it was like to play the first Third World tour with Bob Marley.

Richie Daley: That was tremendous. We went to England to see if we could make any changes in our career in terms of giving it a jolt. We went there and tried to get signed with Island Records which we accomplished.

Chris Blackwell suggested that Bob Marley was coming into town and he was going to play some dates in England. He thought we’d be a good opening band and that it would be a good thing for us to open for Bob Marley and so we did. And that’s how that came about.

IRIE. What was it like to back up established artistes in Jamaica?

Richie Daley: We had all traveled before leaving Jamaica as a band, but mostly to accompany established Artistes living abroad as musicians and as back up singers. But what we were trying to do back in 1975 was a little bit different. We were trying to get established as a band who was writing its own music and doing its own show which many would have considered very ambitious at the time.

Nobody had done this before so we didn’t have any reference to pull up on so it was a little bit frightening and intimidating. Nevertheless we pursed it and some of it worked at the time and some of it didn’t but in the long run it paid off.

IRIE. Before Third World, you were in a band called Tomorrow’s Children?

Richie Daley: Tomorrows Children, yes, it was a Jamaican top 40 band and we use to play at dances.

IRIE. Share with us your experience at the first Sunsplash with Peter Tosh.

Richie Daley: The very first Sunsplash we were doing a tour of the United States and Europe and we were invited to play the Montreux Jazz Fest in Switzerland and we passed on that to go home to play the first Reggae Sunsplash because it was something we wanted to do. It was the first big festival in Jamaica that was taking place and we just believed in it. And where as most people would think that the Montreux Jazz Fest would have been more of a worldwide career move for anyone, we thought for Jamaican music and all the elements that it involved, it would be better for music, it would be better for the country, it would be better for the overall thing rather than just ourselves if we went home to support it and that’s what we did.

IRIE. Share with us your experience at the first Sunsplash with Peter Tosh.

Richie Daley: The very first Sunsplash we were doing a tour of the United States and Europe and we were invited to play the Montreux Jazz Fest in Switzerland and we passed on that to go home to play the first Reggae Sunsplash because it was something we wanted to do. It was the first big festival in Jamaica that was taking place and we just believed in it. And where as most people would think that the Montreux Jazz Fest would have been more of a worldwide career move for anyone, we thought for Jamaican music and all the elements that it involved, it would be better for music, it would be better for the country, it would be better for the overall thing rather than just ourselves if we went home to support it and that’s what we did.