This year is the 40th anniversary of Peter Tosh’s solo debut Legalize It—now available on CD in the superior, uncluttered “original Jamaican mix”—and his shoes remain vacant. Tosh’s rebelliousness was bound up with his eccentricity: he spoke in his own riddling, punning language, blew pot smoke in the faces of the most powerful men in Jamaica, and, time and again, perversely bit hands that fed him. In his way, he was full of good cheer, too. Whose day wouldn’t be brightened by the sight of this sharp-tongued, militant, six-foot-five Rasta passing by on unicycle?
 

Tosh practices smoking and cycling in a hotel hallway
 
John Masouri’s biography Steppin’ Razor reports that Tosh acquired his first unicycle at a bike shop in New York on June 19, 1978, hours before opening for the Stones at the Palladium. Masouri, who says Tosh learned to ride the unicycle by practicing in hotel hallways on the road, quotes manager Herbie Miller on the singer’s fondness for novelty items and pets:

He was young at heart and as funny as any stand-up comedian, and also spent quite some time purchasing toys and gadgets associated with youth culture and activities for his own use. So, skateboards, roller skates, slingshots, electric motorcars, unicycles and layback cycles were most precious and guarded. He also loved pets and kept fishes, a variety of rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters and birds. I once had to talk Peter out of returning from a European tour with a pet chimpanzee; for me, it was a monumental achievement since it was virtually impossible to talk him out of some things, including ‘beating the gate’ with hamsters from a previous tour.

 

In the streets of Kingston (from the book Steppin’ Razor)
 
In the clip below (an excerpt from this interview), Tosh talks about the balance of “mind and temple” required to master the one-wheeled animal.
 

 
And here’s a performance of “Johnny B. Goode” from Italian TV that begins with Tosh unicycling onto the stage and, uh, into the hearts of millions: