SOUTH FLORIDA. In a 2005 interview with NPR Radio, singer Bobby Caldwell talked about his love of West Indian culture, especially Jamaican music. In fact, he had an indirect relationship with reggae legend Bob Marley.
Bobby Caldwell
“I spent most of my childhood in Miami, which was a dumping ground for all kinds of music — Haitian, reggae, Latin, pop, R&B, culture. I mean, it was really a cosmopolitan city. But my mom, who was a real estate broker, sold Bob Marley his house in Miami, and I became friends with Bob Marley through friends and we got pretty close to where I really felt like I was in Jamaica.” Caldwell recalled. .
The blue-eyed soul singer best known for the 1978 slow jam What You Won’t Do For Love died on March 14 in New Jersey. His popular hit single was released in 1978, three years before Bob Marley died in a Miami hospital at the age of 36.
What won’t you do for love distributed by TK Records, an independent Miami-based company known for releasing a number of disco hits by KC and The Sunshine Band and George and Gwen McCray in the mid-1970s.
TK Records was owned by Henry Stone, whose close friend was Noel “King Sporty” Williams, a colorful Jamaican singer and producer, co-writer Buffalo Soldier with Marley.
Marley, whose mother, Cedella Booker, had lived in Miami since the early 1970s, was a regular visitor to Magic City, where he often hung out with King Sporty, who was the husband of soul singer Betty Wright.
Caldwell was also a session guitarist/keyboardist for TK Records. He befriended several Jamaican musicians, including members of the band Inner Circle, who settled in Miami shortly after Marley’s death.
In 1982, Caldwell released Jamaica, a song he wrote in honor of Marley.
