Lee Jaffe was rarely without his camera while hanging with The Wailers’ inner circle during the 1970s. The American captured some key moments of the group recording, smoking weed, playing football, and jamming with Stevie Wonder.

He also snapped them cooling out with The Jackson 5 at Marley’s Hope Road home in March, 1975.

The Jacksons were one of the biggest acts in pop music at the time. Marley was a rising star, having parted ways with fellow original Wailers Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer one year earlier.

While in Kingston for a show at National Stadium, the brothers — Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael — popped by the Marley home with their mother Katharine.

Jaffe remembers the occasion well.

“When they arrived (at Hope Road) Bunny, Bob and (Wailers bassist Aston Barrett) Familyman were there, and of course lots of others as was usual. There was lots of respect from Bob regarding the Jackson’s music but in truth The Wailers were on a very different path,” Jaffe told the Jamaica Observer. “The Wailers were about revolution, and the message in the lyrics advocated powerfully for social change. On the other hand, Bob and Bunny’s enthusiasm on meeting them was tempered, certainly not star-struck; they were greeted gladly and were happy to take photos with them but you could feel a certain reticence.”

The star of the siblings was Michael, then 16 years old. Hit songs like Ben and Got To Be There had already shown hints of him having a promising solo career.

Jaffe, who first met Marley in 1973 in New York, remembers that “Michael seemed particularly shy and I felt he didn’t really know what to make of us. The other four Jacksons were more enthusiastic but it seemed to me like tourists in the Amazon viewing an isolated, vanishing tribe.”

The Jacksons’ gig was promoted by Jamaican Chester McCullough. Junior Tucker, billed in those days as Jamaica’s Michael Jackson, was one of the supporting acts.

Marley died in 1981 at age 36. Michael Jackson died in June 2009 at age 50.

Born in New York City, Jaffe lived in Jamaica for five years during the 1970s. He played harmonica on Marley’s Natty Dread album, and took the iconic ganja field cover photo for Legalize It, Tosh’s 1976 album.

Jaffe, now 67, has co-written two books about his experience with Marley and The Wailers — Bob Marley & The Wailers: 1973-1976 with French university lecturer Dr Jeremie Kroubo Dagnini; and One Love: Life with Bob Marley and the Wailers, with Roger Steffens.