Had he lived another five years, Bob Marley would have started a radio station in Jamaica dedicated to playing reggae, according to broadcaster and musicologist Dr Dennis Howard.

Marley’s 80th birthday was celebrated globally on February 6. The singer-songwriter died in May 1981 from cancer at age 36.

The reggae king died nine years before the birth of Irie FM, the all-reggae station for which Howard was the first programmes manager.

“Bob would embrace an all-reggae station wholeheartedly. In fact, he would have initiated one if he was alive,” he told the Jamaica Observer. “He would definitely want to hear more traditional reggae, but would love the work of Chronixx, Protoje, Lila Ike, and Kabaka Pyramid who are expanding the reggae sound.”

Irie FM was a game-changer when it debuted in the summer of 1990 in Ocho Rios, helping to expose the music of upcoming dancehall acts and producers. It was also largely responsible for the success of the roots revival of the early 1990s, led by Garnet Silk, Tony Rebel, and Everton Blender.

Marley was a member of The Wailers with Bunny Livingston (later Bunny Wailer) and Peter Tosh in the early 1970s, the dawn of roots-reggae. The trio and many of their counterparts had difficulty getting their songs played on mainstream stations like Radio Jamaica.

Howard remembers management at the State-owned Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) being more receptive to Marley’s rebel sounds, especially as his solo career took off in the mid-1970s.

“The JBC played more reggae than the other station (Radio Jamaica) as part of its mandate was to promote Jamaican culture,” said Howard, who started his broadcasting career there in the early 1980s.

He recalls a similar focus at Irie FM when it launched 35 years ago.

“We played a lot of Marley in the early days of Irie FM. We revived a lot of legendary reggae artistes and made their music relevant again,” noted Howard, who hosts Echos, a show that airs twice a week on
riddim1radio.com.