GOLDSTEIN: The beautiful friendship of Dave McLaughlin and Rita Marley

Article content

Over the years, I’ve written many pieces about my friend, Dave McLaughlin, a world-class saxophonist who was born in Kingston, Jamaica, immigrated to Canada in 1991, and has demonstrated a life-long commitment to raising money for good causes.

Inspired as a teenager living in Jamaica by a visiting music professor from Indiana State University who told him to keep practising the saxophone because he was “a natural,” McLaughlin took those words to heart and ended up touring the world and opening for the likes of the late, legendary Ray Charles.

After emigrating to Canada, McLaughlin became a Canadian citizen and, settling in Toronto, formed the popular Dave McLaughlin Band, which today performs at corporate functions, weddings and other social events.

But through all of his successes, McLaughlin never forget the lesson he learned at the parish church he attended while growing up as a child in Jamaica.

That was the message contained in Psalm 41:1 that “Blessed is the one who considers the poor” which McLaughlin took as a commandment to help young people in need to, as he puts it, “make the right choices in life, because every child can grow up to become anything — a doctor, a lawyer or a criminal.”

To honour that, McLaughlin devotes a portion of his CD sales to worthy charities, performs for free at charitable fundraisers and organizes his own gospel concerts to raise funds for academic scholarships for deserving students in need in the Greater Toronto Area.

But what I haven’t written about before is McLaughlin’s enduring friendship with Rita Marley — wife and backup singer to the late, legendary Jamaican reggae musical icon, Bob Marley,

Rita, originally from Cuba, calls McLaughlin her adopted son and was the only person she trusted to compose songs celebrating her life and that of her late husband, who died in 1981 at the age of 36 of melanoma, after 13 years of marriage.

On July 25, as he has many times in the past, McLaughlin will be flying to Jamaica as an honoured guest to perform at Rita Marley’s 79th birthday party, a major annual event.

RECOMMENDED VIDEO

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Play Video

McLaughlin grew up in Jamaica listening to Bob Marley’s iconic songs — One Love; No Woman, No Cry; Redemption Song; Jamming; Stir it Up; I Shot the Sheriff and many others — and met him as a child because of his own father’s role in helping to organize Reggae Sunsplash, a major annual musical festival in Jamaica from 1978 to 1996.

His friendship with Rita Marley was cemented two decades ago when he performed at her mother’s funeral.

Ever since then, they’ve been close.

One of the obvious things they have in common is a devotion to charity and good works.

Marley, founder and chairwoman of the Robert Marley Foundation, Bob Marley Trust, and the Bob Marley Group of Companies, has received the Order of Jamaica and the country’s Order of Distinction for her contributions to Jamaican music and culture, along with many other awards.

In 2000, she created the Rita Marley Foundation aimed at alleviating poverty and hunger in developing countries among youth and the elderly, including a scholarship program for deserving students in need.

Among her other charitable endeavours, she has adopted dozens of children in Ethiopia and helped hundreds of school-aged children in Ghana, where she was made an honorary citizen by the Ghanaian government after living there for many years.

McLaughlin’s tribute songs to Rita and Bob Marley — Let’s Celebrate Rita Marley and Let’s Celebrate Bob Marley, are available on Apple Music, with proceeds going to scholarship programs for deserving students in Toronto.