New Netflix series looks at mysterious events in lives of rock legends

In December 1976, armed gunmen burst into Bob Marley’s compound in Kingston, Jamaica, and fired up the place.

The reggae superstar was left with bullets in his body.

The common thinking was that it was the work of either of Jamaica’s major political parties, angry he was planning a peace concert as tensions grew in the country.

Or was it the work of the CIA, alarmed by the reggae superstar’s immense influence on African American youth?

What was the real story behind the fatal shooting of Sam Cooke, one of the best songwriters of the 1960s?

The official story went that he was angry when a hooker ran out with his cash and clothes from a motel room.

Thinking she was hiding in the motel manager’s office, Cooke tried to break his way in – and was apparently shot by the terrified manager.

However his colleagues including singer Etta James was that it was the work of gangsters who had wanted a share of his lucrative business empire – he had his own record label, publishing and management – and had been rebuffed.

These are just two mysterious or controversial stories involving major music figures being investigated in a new eight-part original documentary Netflix series called ReMastered.

Helmed by award-winning filmmaking brothers Jeff and Michael Zimbalist, different teams look at the stories behind the stories.

The schedule, according to the announcement is:

Who Shot the Sheriff? (premieres October 12) tackles the Marley shooting.

Tricky Dick and the Man in Black (November): concerned by the amount of support US rock musicians had for leftwing causes, President Richard “Tricky Dicky” Nixon invited Johnny Cash to the White House.

Cash’s politics became more conservative than ever before.

Who Killed Jam Master Jay? (December 2018): someone that Run DMC’s Jam Master Jay knew well was allowed into a Queens, New York City recording studio in 2002 where he was shot to death.

Six people were there but the killer was never identified, Was it one of his long-standing childhood friends who had been paid to assassinate him?

Massacre at the Stadium (January 2019): a Chilean army officer was convicted of shooting political singer-songwriter Victor Jara, along with 3000 of his followers, at a stadium.

Jara was an outspoken critic of CIA-backed Pinochet dictatorship.

The army official says he knows who did the actual killing.

Later episodes will look at how the US music industry claimed ownership of the Zulu lion hunting song The Lion Sleep Tonight (it made $15 million from its use in The Lion King while the real writer lives in poverty), the shooting of apolitical band The Miami Showband during “the troubles” in Ireland in the mid-70s, and the myth of bluesman Robert Johnson making a pact with the Devil to be a success.