All About Bob Marley

Robert Nesta “Bob” Marley, OM (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981) was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers (1963–1981). Marley remains the most widely known and revered performer of reggae music, and is credited with helping spread both Jamaican music and the Rastafari movement to a worldwide audience.

Marley’s music was heavily influenced by the social issues of his homeland, and he is considered to have given voice to the specific political and cultural nexus of Jamaica. His best-known hits include “I Shot the Sheriff”, “No Woman, No Cry”, “Could You Be Loved”, “Stir It Up”, “Get Up Stand Up”, “Jamming”, “Redemption Song”, “One Love” and, “Three Little Birds”, as well as the posthumous releases “Buffalo Soldier” and “Iron Lion Zion”. The compilation album Legend (1984), released three years after his death, is reggae’s best-selling album, going ten times Platinum which is also known as one Diamond in the U.S., and selling 25 million copies worldwide.

Biography

The Bob Marley biography provides testament to the unparalleled influence of his artistry upon global culture. Since his passing on May 11, 1981, Bob Marley’s legend looms larger than ever, as evidenced by an ever-lengthening list of accomplishments attributable to his music, which identified oppressors and agitated for social change while simultaneously allowing listeners to forget their troubles and dance.

Bob Marley was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994; in December 1999, his 1977 album “Exodus” was named Album of the Century by Time Magazine and his song “One Love” was designated Song of the Millennium by the BBC. Since its release in 1984, Marley’s “Legend” compilation has annually sold over 250,000 copies according to Nielsen Sound Scan, and it is only the 17th album to exceed sales of 10 million copies since SoundScan began its tabulations in 1991.

Early Life

Bob Marley was born Robert Nesta Marley on February 6, 1945, to 50-year old white quartermaster Captain Norval Marley of the British West Indian Regiment and an eighteen-year old black Jamaican woman, Cedella Malcolm. Bob’s early life was spent in rural community of Nine Miles, nestled in the mountainous terrain of the parish of St. Ann. Residents of Nine Miles have preserved many customs derived from their African ancestry especially the art of storytelling as a means of sharing the past and time-tested traditions that are oftentimes overlooked in official historical sources. The proverbs, fables and various chores associated with rural life that were inherent to Bob’s childhood would provide a deeper cultural context and an aura of mysticism to his adult songwriting.

Norval and Cedella married in 1945 but Captain Marley’s family strongly disapproved of their union; although the elder Marley provided financial support, the last time Bob Marley saw his father was when he was five years old; at that time, Norval took his son to Kingston to live with his nephew, a businessman, and to attend school. Eighteen months later Cedella learned that Bob wasn’t going to school and was living with an elderly couple. Alarmed, she went to Kingston, found Bob and brought him home to Nine Miles.

The next chapter in the Bob Marley biography commenced in the late 1950s when Bob, barely into his teens, left St. Ann and returned to Jamaica’s capital. He eventually settled in the western Kingston vicinity of Trench Town, so named because it was built over a sewage trench. A low-income community comprised of squatter-settlements and government yards developments that housed a minimum of four families, Bob Marley quickly learned to defend himself against Trench Town’s rude boys and bad men. Bob’s formidable street-fighting skills earned him the respectful nickname Tuff Gong.

Despite the poverty, despair and various unsavory activities that sustained some ghetto dwellers, Trench Town was also a culturally rich community where Bob Marley’s abundant musical talents were nurtured. A lifelong source of inspiration, Bob immortalized Trench Town in his songs “No Woman No Cry” (1974), “Trench Town Rock” (1975) and “Trench Town”, the latter released posthumously in 1983.

At 16 years old Bob Marley met another aspiring singer Desmond Dekker, who would go on to top the UK charts in 1969 with his single “Israelites”. Dekker introduced Marley to another young singer, Jimmy Cliff, future star of the immortal Jamaican film “The Harder They Come”, who, at age 14, had already recorded a few hit songs. In 1962 Cliff introduced Marley to producer Leslie Kong; Marley cut his first singles for Kong: “Judge Not”, “Terror” and “One More Cup of Coffee”, a cover of the million selling country hit by Claude Gray. When these songs failed to connect with the public, Marley was paid a mere $20.00, an exploitative practice that was widespread during the infancy of Jamaica’s music business. Bob Marley reportedly told Kong he would make a lot of money from his recordings one day but he would never be able to enjoy it. Years later, when Kong released a best of The Wailers compilation against the group’s wishes, he suffered a fatal heart attack at age 37.

Early Wailers

In 1963 Bob Marley and his childhood friend Neville Livingston a.k.a. Bunny Wailer began attending vocal classes held by Trench Town resident Joe Higgs, a successful singer who mentored many young singers in the principles of rhythm, harmony and melody. In his Trench Town yard, Higgs introduced Bob and Bunny to Peter (Macintosh) Tosh and The Bob Marley and the Wailers legend was born. The trio quickly became good friends so the formation of a vocal group, The Wailing Wailers, was a natural progression; Higgs played a pivotal role in guiding their musical direction. Additional Wailing Wailers members included Junior Braithwaite, Beverly Kelso, and Cherry Smith but they departed after just a few recording sessions.

In 1971 Bob Marley went to Sweden to collaborate on a film score with American singer Johnny Nash. Bob secured a contract with Nash’s label CBS Records and by early 1972 The Wailers were in London promoting their single “Reggae On Broadway”; CBS, however, had little faith in Marley and The Wailers’ success and abruptly abandoned the group there. Marley paid a chance visit to the London offices of Island Records and the result was a meeting with label founder Chris Blackwell. Marley sought the finances to record a single but Blackwell suggested the group record an album and advanced them £4,000, an unheard of sum to be given to a Jamaican act.

Island’s top reggae star Jimmy Cliff had recently left the label and Blackwell saw Marley as the ideal artist to fill that void and attract an audience primed for rock music. “I was dealing with rock music, which was really rebel music and I felt that would really be the way to break Jamaican music. But you needed someone who could be that image. When Bob walked in he really was that image,” Blackwell once reflected. Despite their “rude boy” reputation, the Wailers returned to Kingston and honored their agreement with Blackwell. They delivered their “Catch A Fire” album in April 1973 to extensive international media fanfare. Tours of Britain and the US were quickly arranged and the life of Bob Marley was forever changed. Bunny Wailer refused to participate in the US leg of the “Catch A Fire” tour so the Wailers’ mentor Joe Higgs served as his replacement. Their US gigs included an opening slot for a then relatively unknown Bruce Springsteen in New York City. The Wailers toured with Sly and the Family Stone, who were at their peak in the early 70s, but were removed after just four dates because their riveting performances, reportedly, upstaged the headliner.

Bob Marley and the Wailers

Bob Marley’s third album for Island Records “Natty Dread”, released in October 1975, was the first credited to Bob Marley and The Wailers; the harmonies of Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer were replaced with the soulfulness of the I-Threes, Rita Marley, Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt. The Wailers band now included Family Man and Carly Barrett, Junior Marvin on rhythm guitar, Al Anderson on lead guitar, Tyrone Downie and Earl “Wya” Lindo on keyboards and Alvin “Seeco” Patterson playing percussion. Characterized by spiritually and socially conscious lyrics, the “Natty Dread” album included a rousing blues-influenced celebration of reggae, “Lively Up Yourself”, which Bob used to open many of his concerts; the joy he experienced among friends amidst the struggles of his Trench Town youth is poignantly conveyed on “No Woman No Cry”, while the essential title track played a significant role in introducing Rastafarian culture and philosophies to the world. A commercial as well as a critical success, “Natty Dread” peaked at no. 44 on Billboard’s Black Albums chart and no. 92 on the Pop Albums chart.

The following year Bob embarked on a highly successful European tour in support of “Natty Dread”, which included two nights at London’s Lyceum Theater. The Lyceum performances were captured on Bob’s next release for Island, “Bob Marley and the Wailers Live”, which featured a melancholy version of “No Woman No Cry” that reached the UK top 40.

Bob Marley catapulted to international stardom in 1976 with the release of “Rastaman Vibration”, his only album to reach the Billboard Top 200, peaking at no. 8. With the inclusion of “Crazy Baldhead”, which decries “brainwash education” and the stirring title cut, “Rastaman Vibration” presented a clearer understanding of Rastafari teachings to the mainstream audience that was now attentively listening to Bob. Also included was “War”, its lyrics adapted from an impassioned speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 1963, delivered by Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I whom Rastafarians consider a living God. Thirty-five years after its initial release “War” remains an unassailable anthem of equality, its empowering spirit embraced by dispossessed people everywhere.

At the end of 1978 Bob made his first trip to Africa, visiting Kenya and Ethiopia, the latter being the spiritual home of Rastafari. During his Ethiopian sojourn, Bob stayed in Shashamane, a communal settlement situated on 500-acres of land donated by His Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I to Rastafarians that choose to repatriate to Ethiopia. Marley also traveled to the Ethiopian capitol Addis Ababa where he visited several sites significant to His Majesty’s life and ancient Ethiopian history.

That same year Bob Marley and The Wailers’ tours of Europe and America were highlighted on their second critically acclaimed live album “Babylon By Bus”. In 1978 Bob and The Wailers also toured Japan, Australia and New Zealand, where the indigenous Maori people greeted them with a traditional welcoming ceremony typically reserved for visiting dignitaries.

The Pittsburgh show took place just two days after Marley learned that the cancer that had taken root in his big toe in 1977, following a football injury, had metastasized and spread throughout his body. Bob courageously fought the disease for eight months, even traveling to Germany to undergo treatment at the clinic of Dr. Josef Issels. At the beginning of May 1981, Bob left Germany to return to Jamaica but he did not complete that journey; he succumbed to his cancer in a Miami hospital on May 11, 1981.

The Bob Marley biography doesn’t end there. In April 1981 Bob Marley was awarded Jamaica’s third highest honor, the Order of Merit, for his outstanding contribution to his country’s culture. Ten days after Bob Marley’s death, he was given a state funeral as the Honorable Robert Nesta Marley O.M. by the Jamaican government, attended by Prime Minister Edward Seaga and the Opposition Party Leader Michael Manley. Hundreds of thousands of spectators lined the streets to observe the procession of cars that wound its way from Kingston to Bob’s final resting place, a mausoleum in his birthplace of Nine Miles. The Bob Marley and the Wailers legend lives on, however, and thirty years after Bob Marley’s death, his music remains as vital as ever in its celebration of life and embodiment of struggle.

Legacy

The Bob Marley influence upon various populations remains unparalleled, irrespective of race, color or creed. Bob Marley’s revolutionary yet unifying music, challenging colonialism, racism, “fighting against ism and scism” as he sang in “One Drop”, has had profound effects even in country’s where English isn’t widely spoken. In August 2008, two musicians from the war scarred countries of Serbia and Croatia (formerly provinces within Yugoslavia) unveiled a statue of Bob Marley during a rock music festival in Serbia; the monument’s inscription read “Bob Marley Fighter For Freedom Armed With A Guitar”. “Marley was chosen because he promoted peace and tolerance in his music,” said Mirko Miljus, an organizer of the event.

In Koh Lipe, Thailand, Bob Marley’s February 6th birthday is celebrated for three days with a cultural festival. In New Zealand, his life and music are now essential components of Waitangi Day (February 6) observances honoring the unifying treaty signed between the country’s European settlers and its indigenous Maori population. When Bob visited New Zealand for a concert at Auckland’s Western Springs Stadium on April 6, 1979, the Maori greeted him with a traditional song and dance ceremony reserved for visiting dignitaries. Marley’s former manager, the late Don Taylor, referred to the Maori welcoming ritual as “one of my most treasured memories of the impact of Bob and reggae music on the world”.

A generation later a group of political refugees from Sierra Leone living in Guinean concentration camps and traumatized by years of bloody warfare in their country, found through the music of Bob Marley, inspiration to form their own band and write and record their own songs. The Refugee All Stars won international acclaim for their 2006 debut “Living Like A Refugee” and their 2010 album “Rise and Shine”, each utilizing a blend of reggae, Sierra Leone’s Islamic rooted bubu music and West African goombay.

Further evidence of Bob Marley’s ongoing influence arrived on October 13, 2010 when Victor Zamora, one of 33 Chilean miners rescued after being trapped in a San Jose mine for 69 days, asked to hear Marley’s “Buffalo Soldier” shortly after his release. Recorded in 1980 and posthumously released in 1983, “Buffalo Soldier” recounts the atrocities of the slave trade. Like so many of Bob Marley’s songs, it highlights the importance of relating past occurrences to present-day identities: “if you know your history then you will know where you are coming from, then you wouldn’t have to ask me, who the hell do I think I am?”

Bob and Rastafari

A generation later a group of political refugees from Sierra Leone living in Guinean concentration camps and traumatized by years of bloody warfare in their country, found through the music of Bob Marley, inspiration to form their own band and write and record their own songs. The Refugee All Stars won international acclaim for their 2006 debut “Living Like A Refugee” and their 2010 album “Rise and Shine”, each utilizing a blend of reggae, Sierra Leone’s Islamic rooted bubu music and West African goombay.

Further evidence of Bob Marley’s ongoing influence arrived on October 13, 2010 when Victor Zamora, one of 33 Chilean miners rescued after being trapped in a San Jose mine for 69 days, asked to hear Marley’s “Buffalo Soldier” shortly after his release. Recorded in 1980 and posthumously released in 1983, “Buffalo Soldier” recounts the atrocities of the slave trade. Like so many of Bob Marley’s songs, it highlights the importance of relating past occurrences to present-day identities: “if you know your history then you will know where you are coming from, then you wouldn’t have to ask me, who the hell do I think I am?”

Before the rise of Bob Marley, Rastafari doctrines and practices were sporadically referenced in Jamaican popular music throughout the early 60s. The Jamaican jazz percussionist Oswald Williams, aka Count Ossie, inspired by African burru drumming established several Rastafarian camps in the 1940s where he invited musicians to be a part of his musical experiments. Ossie led a troupe of Rastafarian Nyabinghi drummers on the 1960 hit “Oh Carolina” by the Folkes Brothers, marking the first incorporation of Rastafarian practices into Jamaican popular music.

Don Drummond the acclaimed lead trombonist with Jamaican super group The Skatalites is credited with introducing Rastafari to ska, the dominant music genre of the early 60s and the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. The titles of some of the Skatalites’ greatest instrumentals recorded between 1964-1965 including “Addis Ababa”and “Tribute to Marcus Garvey” reflected Drummond’s Rastafarian faith.

The title track to “Natty Dread” (1974) the first Bob Marley album to chart in the US, provided an affirmation of Bob’s unyielding faith: “Don’t care what the world say (Natty Dread) I’n'I couldn’t never go astray (Natty Dread)”. “Rastaman Vibration” Marley’s highest US charting album (at no. 8 ) rightfully proclaimed Rasta as offering “a new time, a new day” on its title track. Released in 1976, “Rastaman Vibration” also included “War” a stirring equality anthem, its lyrics taken from an address by Haile Selassie I to the United Nations’ General Assembly in 1963. “War’s” globally pertinent lines (“until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes…until the ignoble and unhappy regime that holds our brothers in Angola, in Mozambique, in South Africa, in subhuman bondage, have been toppled and utterly destroyed everywhere is war”) and the reverence with which Marley regarded His Majesty’s words transformed his performances of the song into spellbinding displays. The title track of 1977′s “Exodus” was a clarion call to heed the guidance of Rastafari: “Many people will fight ya down when ya see Jah light/let me tell you if you’re not wrong then everything is alright”.

Bob Marley’s most overtly political album “Survival” released in 1979 offers several direct references the Rastafarian way of life. “One Drop” advocates for “the teachings of His Majesty, are we not want no devil philosophy”; “Africa Unite” champions oneness among the Diaspora, declaring: “How good and how pleasant it would be before God and man to see the unification of all RastamanÉWe are the children of the Rastaman”. Although it is common nowadays to see people from various walks of life wearing their hair in dreadlocks and donning the red, green and gold colors of the Ethiopian flag, these representations of an uncompromising African identity developed by Rastafarians were once contemptuously viewed as deviations from accepted cultural norms. “Survival’s” “Ride Natty Ride” details the opposition Rastafarians have endured: “all and all you see a-gwaan/is to fight against the Rasta man so they build their world in great confusion to force on us the devil’s illusion”.

Final Years and Death

In July 1977, Marley was found to have a type of malignant melanoma under the nail of one of his toes. Contrary to urban legend, this lesion was not primarily caused by an injury during a football match in that year, but was instead a symptom of the already existing cancer. Marley turned down doctors’ advice to have his toe amputated, citing his religious beliefs. Despite his illness, he continued touring and was in the process of scheduling a world tour in 1980. The intention was for Inner Circle to be his opening act on the tour but after their lead singer Jacob Miller died in Jamaica in March 1980 after returning from a scouting mission in Brazil this was no longer mentioned.

The album Uprising was released in May 1980 (produced by Chris Blackwell), on which “Redemption Song” is particularly considered to be about Marley coming to terms with his mortality. The band completed a major tour of Europe, where they played their biggest concert, to a hundred thousand people in Milan. After the tour Marley went to America, where he performed two shows at Madison Square Garden as part of the Uprising Tour.

The final concert of Bob Marley’s career was held 23 September 1980 at the Stanley Theater (now called The Benedum Center For The Performing Arts) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The audio recording of that concert is now available on CD, vinyl, and digital music services.

Shortly after, Marley’s health deteriorated and he became very ill; the cancer had spread throughout his body. The rest of the tour was cancelled and Marley sought treatment at the Bavarian clinic of Josef Issels, where he received a controversial type of cancer therapy (Issels treatment) partly based on avoidance of certain foods, drinks, and other substances. After fighting the cancer without success for eight months, Marley boarded a plane for his home in Jamaica.

While flying home from Germany to Jamaica, Marley’s vital functions worsened. After landing in Miami, Florida, he was taken to the hospital for immediate medical attention. He died at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami (now University of Miami Hospital) on the morning of 11 May 1981, at the age of 36. The spread of melanoma to his lungs and brain caused his death. His final words to his son Ziggy were “Money can’t buy life”. Marley received a state funeral in Jamaica on 21 May 1981, which combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafari tradition. He was buried in a chapel near his birthplace with his red Gibson Les Paul (some accounts say it was a Fender Stratocaster).