I had never heard of reggae until I started working in a record shop in 1975, and the Wailers' ‘Burnin’ had recently come out. 

I went with some reggae-minded friends in ’75 to see The Wailers at the Boarding House in San Francisco when Bob, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer were all in the band. They broadcast the show on KSAN radio, so it should be findable, but I failed to bring my camera along; I didn’t even know if I’d like it. I liked it. 

When Bob and the Wailers came back to town the next year, without Peter and Bunny, I made sure to get good seats and go to that and bring my camera. 

For some reason, I tended to take color photos at the Paramount instead of black and white as I usually did. I sent the slides to be processed, and when they came back, I saw to my chagrin that you could look at a solar eclipse through them. I don’t know why I even kept them and didn’t just throw them away. 

A few decades later, enter the digital age and scanners and Photoshop, so I figured, “What the hell” and tried putting some of the woefully underexposed Bob Marley slides through there. My goodness! Images! Good ones, too! They would have been much better properly exposed, but, as the English say, “Needs must”. So I never saw these pictures till about 20 years after I took ‘em!