These are good times for veteran singer Audley Rollen. The ordained minister of religion scored his second number one within a year on the South Florida Reggae Chart with Close to You, which is the follow-up to Never Knew Love Till You.
But while the South Florida-based artist revels in that success, he is saddened by the death of legendary bass guitarist Robert “Robbie” Shakespeare who died in Florida on December 8 at age 68.
He and Rollen first met during the late 1960’s when they were living in rugged east Kingston, where Shakespeare’s family are from. Rollen was a member of The Emotions, a harmony group that also included Robbie’s older brother Lloyd Shakespeare.
Rollen and Robbie were members of The Hippy Boys Band. He said their bond formed in the fall of 1968 at the Shakespeare home where The Emotions rehearsed. Rollen, then a solo artist, was a regular visitor there.
“I started rehearsing at Robert’s home on Jacques Road. Now, at the time there were two guitars in the camp, The Majic and The Suzuki and late summer 1969 another guitar, The Edmond, came in the camp,” Rollen recalled. “The Magic belonged to a member of the group and the Suzuki belonged to me, and during the process of time Robert developed an interest in playing bass guitar, and one day before rehearsal, Robert took up The Majic and started playing it, and the owner took his guitar away from Robert and told him, ‘don’t touch my guitar, mon’!”
Rollen was more accommodating.
“Robert looked me in the eye and said, ‘Rollens, mi can play your guitar?’ And I got up off the bed and went over to the table in Robert’s room where we rehearsed and took up my big, great bass-sounding Suzuki guitar and put it in his hand and said to him, ‘Robbie, any time you want to play this, play it’. And once again he looked me in the eye and said, ‘Thanks Rollens’. Little did I know then that it would have impacted our lives the way it did, because it cemented our friendship and neither Robert nor I ever forgot that moment,” said Rollen.
Audley Rollen migrated to the United States in the mid-1970’s. He settled in Philadelphia before moving to South Florida. He was not surprised when Shakespeare made it big recording and touring with Peter Tosh and later as a member of Sly and Robbie with drummer Sly Dunbar.
They remained close and would see each other in Florida where Shakespeare also lived.
“Robert ran a good race, and he fought a good fight. His physical chapter has ended, but ours have not, and as a minister of the gospel, what I say now has nothing to do with Robert, it has everything to do with us, we who are blessed with the privilege to be here,” Rollen reasoned. “My friends, I want you to understand that this life is full of choices. We make over 100 decisions each day. We have to decide what time to get up. We have to make a decision on what clothes to wear for the day or for work and then another set for home. We must decide which way to go to work or to even go from work. We must take care of other things all day long.”
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