Cheryl JBob Marley February 6, 1945 – May 11, 1981
Bob Marley was born Nesta Robert Marley in Jamaica on February 6 1945. Today is the anniversary of his premature death from cancer aged just 36. Marley’s name is synonymous with reggae music and he is undoubtedly the most famous artist this genre has known. A testament to his popularity, the compilation album, Legend, posthumously released three years after his death is the best-selling reggae album ever, with sales in excess of 12 million copies.
Marley became friends with Neville "Bunny" Livingston (later known as Bunny Wailer) when his mother moved the family to Kingston’s Trenchtown slum after his father’s death. He left school at the age of 14 and started an apprenticeship as a welder. But his real love was music. In his free time, he and Livingston made music with Joe Higgs, a local singer and devout Rastafari. It was at a jam with Higgs and Livingston that Marley met Peter McIntosh (later known as Peter Tosh).
In 1962, Marley recorded and released his first two singles under the pseudonym of Bobby Martell. They received no airplay and attracted little attention but confirmed Marley’s ambition to become a singer. The following year he decided the way forward was with a group. In 1963, Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter McIntosh, Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, and Cherry Smith formed a band, calling themselves The Teenagers. They later changed their name to The Wailing Rudeboys, then to The Wailing Wailers. The Wailing Wailers released their first single, "Simmer Down", which went to number one in the Jamaican charts, a position it held for the next two months. In Jamaica, the band was big news.
Over the next few years The Wailing Wailers put out some thirty songs that properly established them. The new group had a mentor, a Rastafarian hand drummer called Alvin Patterson, who introduced them to Clement Dodd, a record producer in Kingston. Dodd auditioned The Wailing Wailers and agreed to record them. It was the time of ska music, the hot new dance floor music with a pronounced back-beat. Its origins incorporated influences from Jamaica's African traditions and the heady beats of New Orleans' rhythm & blues.
Despite the popularity of The Wailing Wailers, the economics of keeping the group together proved too much and three members; Junior Braithwaite, Beverly Kelso and Cherry Smith all quit.
When Marley’s mother remarried and relocated to the United States, she sent enough money for him to join her to start a new life away from the poverty of Jamaica. Before he left, he met and married Rita Anderson. In 1966, Marley moved to the US for a short time, where he worked as a lab assistant and on the assembly line at Chrysler, but the US was not for him. When he returned to Jamaica, Marley became a member of the Rastafari movement, and started to wear the dreadlocks that were to become his trademark. By 1967 Marley’s music reflected his strengthened spiritual beliefs. Jamaican music was changing. The bouncy ska beat had been replaced by a slower, more sensual rhythm called rock steady.
Marley joined up with Bunny and Peter to re-form the group, now known as The Wailers and the rest, as they say, is history.
The Wailers new commitment to Rastafarianism brought them into conflict with Dodd so Marley and his band teamed up with Lee Perry and his studio band, The Upsetters. The group formed their own record label, Wail 'N' Soul. Despite a few early successes the label folded in late 1967. The group, however, survived; initially as songwriters for a company associated with the American singer Johnny Nash who went on to have an international smash hit with Marley's "Stir It Up". And although the Perry/Wailers combination lasted less than a year it resulted in, what some say, was the finest music the band ever made.
In 1970, Aston Barrett and his brother Carlton (bass and drums respectively) joined The Wailers. They had been the rhythm core of Perry's studio band, working with The Wailers on those ground-breaking sessions. The band had an extraordinary reputation throughout the Caribbean at the start of the Seventies, but internationally The Wailers were still unknown.
In 1971 Bob accepted an invitation from Johnny Nash to accompany him to Sweden where Nash had taken a film score commission. While in Europe Marley secured a recording contract with CBS who Nash was also signed with. By 1972 The Wailers were in London, to promote their CBS single "Reggae on Broadway". Instead they found themselves stranded in Britain.
Bob Marley walked into the Basing Street Studios of Island Records and asked to see its founder Chris Blackwell. The company had been launched in Jamaica during the late fifties.
Through the sixties, Island Records had grown to become a major source of Jamaican music, from ska and rock steady to reggae. They had also embraced rock music, with such bands and artists as Traffic, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Cat Stevens and Free. When Bob Marley made his first moves with Island in 1971, he was connecting with the hottest independent in the world at that time.
Although between 1968 and 1972, The Wailers re-cut some old tracks in an attempt to commercialise their sound, their first album, Catch A Fire, wasn’t released worldwide until 1973. It was heavily promoted and was the start of a long climb to international fame and recognition. Although Catch A Fire was not an immediate hit, it made a considerable impact on the media. Island also decided The Wailers should tour both Britain and America which was pretty much unheard of for a reggae band.
It was followed a year later by Burnin', which included the songs "Get Up, Stand Up" and "I Shot The Sheriff". Again, it was a cover of a Marley song that got him noticed. Eric Clapton’s version of "I Shot the Sheriff" in 1974 was a hit and raised Marley's international profile. The Wailers broke up in 1974 with each of the three main members going on to solo careers. McIntosh began recording under the name Peter Tosh and Livingston continued as Bunny Wailer.
Despite the breakup, Marley continued recording as Bob Marley & The Wailers. The band included brothers Carlton and Aston Barrett on drums and bass respectively, Junior Marvin and Al Anderson on lead guitar, Tyrone Downie and Earl Lindo on keyboards, and Alvin Patterson on percussion. . Bunny and Peter's missing harmonies were replaced by the I-Threes, the female trio comprising Bob's wife Rita together with Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt.
In 1975, Marley had his international breakthrough with his first hit outside Jamaica, "No Woman, No Cry" from the Natty Dread album. This was followed by his breakthrough album in the US in 1976, Rastaman Vibration, which spent four weeks on the Billboard charts Top Ten.
Bob Marley & The Wailers had taken reggae into the mainstream. In 1976, when The Wailers returned to Jamaica to play a benefit concert with Stevie Wonder, they were Jamaica’s greatest superstars. The idea of the concert was to emphasise the need for peace in the slums of the city. Shortly after the concert was announced, the government called an election. The campaign was a signal for renewed ghetto war and, on the eve of the concert, gunmen broke into Marley's house and shot him wounding him in the chest and arm. His wife and manager were also wounded. In defiance of the gunmen, and despite his injuries, Marley went on to perform a brief set at the concert.
Marley left Jamaica at the end of 1976 for England, where he recorded his Exodus and Kaya albums. Exodus stayed on the British album charts for 56 consecutive weeks and included four UK hit singles: "Exodus", "Waiting In Vain", "Jamming", "One Love", and a rendition of Curtis Mayfield's hit, "People Get Ready". While travelling in London he was arrested and received a conviction for possession of cannabis.
In 1978, Marley returned to Jamaica to play the One Love Peace Concert in front of the Prime Minister Michael Manley and the Leader of the Opposition Edward Seaga. He was then invited to the United Nations in New York to receive the organisation's Medal of Peace. At the end of the year Bob also visited Africa for the first time, going initially to Kenya and then on to Ethiopia, the spiritual home of Rastafari.
Babylon by Bus, a double live album with 13 tracks, was released in 1978 to critical acclaim.
Survival, Bob Marley's ninth album, was released in 1979. It included "Zimbabwe", an anthem for the soon-to-be liberated Rhodesia, together with "So Much Trouble In The World", "Ambush In The Night" and "Africa Unite". The sleeve design of the album, comprising the flags of the independent nations, reflected Marley’s support of pan-African solidarity.
At the start of 1980, the government of Zimbabwe invited Marley to play at the country's Independence Ceremony in April, 1980. The band’s next album Uprising was to be Bob Marley’s final studio album and his most spiritual. It was an instant hit, with the single, "Could You Be Loved" a massive worldwide seller. Uprising also featured the extraordinary "Redemption Song".
The Wailers embarked on a major European tour, breaking festival records throughout the continent. This included a 100,000-capacity crowd in Milan, the biggest show in the band's history.
Despite the belief by many that Marley had lung cancer due to his high consumption of cannabis, the cancer – which would eventually take his life – began as a malignant melanoma in a wound on his toe. Marley refused amputation, because of the Rastafari belief that the body must be whole. The cancer metastasized to Marley's brain, lungs, liver, and stomach. After playing two shows at Madison Square Garden as part of the 1980 Uprising Tour, he collapsed while jogging in New York’s Central Park.
Bob Marley played his final concert at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 23, 1980. The live version of "Redemption Song" on Songs of Freedom was recorded at this show. Marley was receiving controversial non-toxic therapy in Bavaria which for a time seemed to be working but his cancer had already progressed to the terminal stage.
While flying home to Jamaica for his final days, Marley became ill. He was taken to a hospital in Miami, Florida where he died on the morning of May 11, 1981 at the age of 36.
A month before his death, Marley had been awarded Jamaica's Order Of Merit, the nation's third highest honour, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the country's culture. On Thursday May 21, 1981, was given an official funeral by the people of Jamaica which combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafari tradition. Following the service - attended by both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition - Marley's body was taken to his birthplace at Nine Mile where it now rests in a mausoleum.
Marley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Time magazine chose Bob Marley & The Wailers' Exodus as the greatest album of the 20th century.
In 2001, Marley was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
He left behind a remarkable body of recorded work.
In 2004, a cover of "Three Little Birds" by his son, Ziggy Marley, and Sean Paul was used as the title song for the film Shark Tale.
Bob Marley had 13 children.
I'm a big fan of Bob Marley, I think he is someone who changed the landscape of music and he will always be remembered as one of the greats. I drew the picture below in 1983 and I'm still as much of a fan now as I was then. Bob Marley truly is a legend.
From the official Bob Marley Website:
The Bob Marley Foundation seeks to maintain a dynamic foundation that will enable individuals, groups, and/or communities in developing nations, particularly Jamaica and Africa, to create and implement programs that assist in the empowerment of the oppressed and the elimination of generational poverty through sustainable projects. The Foundation supports non-profit organizations and NGOs that meet criteria established by the Board of Directors and seeks support by way of partnerships to benefit the many projects. The Bob Marley Foundation gives much-needed support to a world of people living in poverty. Your financial sponsorship, physical contribution, and continued support are vital. It assures that our mission and programs will continue to provide help to needed communities.
Information from wikipedia and bobmarley.com
Marley became friends with Neville "Bunny" Livingston (later known as Bunny Wailer) when his mother moved the family to Kingston’s Trenchtown slum after his father’s death. He left school at the age of 14 and started an apprenticeship as a welder. But his real love was music. In his free time, he and Livingston made music with Joe Higgs, a local singer and devout Rastafari. It was at a jam with Higgs and Livingston that Marley met Peter McIntosh (later known as Peter Tosh).
In 1962, Marley recorded and released his first two singles under the pseudonym of Bobby Martell. They received no airplay and attracted little attention but confirmed Marley’s ambition to become a singer. The following year he decided the way forward was with a group. In 1963, Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter McIntosh, Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, and Cherry Smith formed a band, calling themselves The Teenagers. They later changed their name to The Wailing Rudeboys, then to The Wailing Wailers. The Wailing Wailers released their first single, "Simmer Down", which went to number one in the Jamaican charts, a position it held for the next two months. In Jamaica, the band was big news.
Over the next few years The Wailing Wailers put out some thirty songs that properly established them. The new group had a mentor, a Rastafarian hand drummer called Alvin Patterson, who introduced them to Clement Dodd, a record producer in Kingston. Dodd auditioned The Wailing Wailers and agreed to record them. It was the time of ska music, the hot new dance floor music with a pronounced back-beat. Its origins incorporated influences from Jamaica's African traditions and the heady beats of New Orleans' rhythm & blues.
Despite the popularity of The Wailing Wailers, the economics of keeping the group together proved too much and three members; Junior Braithwaite, Beverly Kelso and Cherry Smith all quit.
When Marley’s mother remarried and relocated to the United States, she sent enough money for him to join her to start a new life away from the poverty of Jamaica. Before he left, he met and married Rita Anderson. In 1966, Marley moved to the US for a short time, where he worked as a lab assistant and on the assembly line at Chrysler, but the US was not for him. When he returned to Jamaica, Marley became a member of the Rastafari movement, and started to wear the dreadlocks that were to become his trademark. By 1967 Marley’s music reflected his strengthened spiritual beliefs. Jamaican music was changing. The bouncy ska beat had been replaced by a slower, more sensual rhythm called rock steady.
Marley joined up with Bunny and Peter to re-form the group, now known as The Wailers and the rest, as they say, is history.
The Wailers new commitment to Rastafarianism brought them into conflict with Dodd so Marley and his band teamed up with Lee Perry and his studio band, The Upsetters. The group formed their own record label, Wail 'N' Soul. Despite a few early successes the label folded in late 1967. The group, however, survived; initially as songwriters for a company associated with the American singer Johnny Nash who went on to have an international smash hit with Marley's "Stir It Up". And although the Perry/Wailers combination lasted less than a year it resulted in, what some say, was the finest music the band ever made.
In 1970, Aston Barrett and his brother Carlton (bass and drums respectively) joined The Wailers. They had been the rhythm core of Perry's studio band, working with The Wailers on those ground-breaking sessions. The band had an extraordinary reputation throughout the Caribbean at the start of the Seventies, but internationally The Wailers were still unknown.
In 1971 Bob accepted an invitation from Johnny Nash to accompany him to Sweden where Nash had taken a film score commission. While in Europe Marley secured a recording contract with CBS who Nash was also signed with. By 1972 The Wailers were in London, to promote their CBS single "Reggae on Broadway". Instead they found themselves stranded in Britain.
Bob Marley walked into the Basing Street Studios of Island Records and asked to see its founder Chris Blackwell. The company had been launched in Jamaica during the late fifties.
Through the sixties, Island Records had grown to become a major source of Jamaican music, from ska and rock steady to reggae. They had also embraced rock music, with such bands and artists as Traffic, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Cat Stevens and Free. When Bob Marley made his first moves with Island in 1971, he was connecting with the hottest independent in the world at that time.
Although between 1968 and 1972, The Wailers re-cut some old tracks in an attempt to commercialise their sound, their first album, Catch A Fire, wasn’t released worldwide until 1973. It was heavily promoted and was the start of a long climb to international fame and recognition. Although Catch A Fire was not an immediate hit, it made a considerable impact on the media. Island also decided The Wailers should tour both Britain and America which was pretty much unheard of for a reggae band.
It was followed a year later by Burnin', which included the songs "Get Up, Stand Up" and "I Shot The Sheriff". Again, it was a cover of a Marley song that got him noticed. Eric Clapton’s version of "I Shot the Sheriff" in 1974 was a hit and raised Marley's international profile. The Wailers broke up in 1974 with each of the three main members going on to solo careers. McIntosh began recording under the name Peter Tosh and Livingston continued as Bunny Wailer.
Despite the breakup, Marley continued recording as Bob Marley & The Wailers. The band included brothers Carlton and Aston Barrett on drums and bass respectively, Junior Marvin and Al Anderson on lead guitar, Tyrone Downie and Earl Lindo on keyboards, and Alvin Patterson on percussion. . Bunny and Peter's missing harmonies were replaced by the I-Threes, the female trio comprising Bob's wife Rita together with Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt.
In 1975, Marley had his international breakthrough with his first hit outside Jamaica, "No Woman, No Cry" from the Natty Dread album. This was followed by his breakthrough album in the US in 1976, Rastaman Vibration, which spent four weeks on the Billboard charts Top Ten.
Bob Marley & The Wailers had taken reggae into the mainstream. In 1976, when The Wailers returned to Jamaica to play a benefit concert with Stevie Wonder, they were Jamaica’s greatest superstars. The idea of the concert was to emphasise the need for peace in the slums of the city. Shortly after the concert was announced, the government called an election. The campaign was a signal for renewed ghetto war and, on the eve of the concert, gunmen broke into Marley's house and shot him wounding him in the chest and arm. His wife and manager were also wounded. In defiance of the gunmen, and despite his injuries, Marley went on to perform a brief set at the concert.
Marley left Jamaica at the end of 1976 for England, where he recorded his Exodus and Kaya albums. Exodus stayed on the British album charts for 56 consecutive weeks and included four UK hit singles: "Exodus", "Waiting In Vain", "Jamming", "One Love", and a rendition of Curtis Mayfield's hit, "People Get Ready". While travelling in London he was arrested and received a conviction for possession of cannabis.
In 1978, Marley returned to Jamaica to play the One Love Peace Concert in front of the Prime Minister Michael Manley and the Leader of the Opposition Edward Seaga. He was then invited to the United Nations in New York to receive the organisation's Medal of Peace. At the end of the year Bob also visited Africa for the first time, going initially to Kenya and then on to Ethiopia, the spiritual home of Rastafari.
Babylon by Bus, a double live album with 13 tracks, was released in 1978 to critical acclaim.
Survival, Bob Marley's ninth album, was released in 1979. It included "Zimbabwe", an anthem for the soon-to-be liberated Rhodesia, together with "So Much Trouble In The World", "Ambush In The Night" and "Africa Unite". The sleeve design of the album, comprising the flags of the independent nations, reflected Marley’s support of pan-African solidarity.
At the start of 1980, the government of Zimbabwe invited Marley to play at the country's Independence Ceremony in April, 1980. The band’s next album Uprising was to be Bob Marley’s final studio album and his most spiritual. It was an instant hit, with the single, "Could You Be Loved" a massive worldwide seller. Uprising also featured the extraordinary "Redemption Song".
The Wailers embarked on a major European tour, breaking festival records throughout the continent. This included a 100,000-capacity crowd in Milan, the biggest show in the band's history.
Despite the belief by many that Marley had lung cancer due to his high consumption of cannabis, the cancer – which would eventually take his life – began as a malignant melanoma in a wound on his toe. Marley refused amputation, because of the Rastafari belief that the body must be whole. The cancer metastasized to Marley's brain, lungs, liver, and stomach. After playing two shows at Madison Square Garden as part of the 1980 Uprising Tour, he collapsed while jogging in New York’s Central Park.
Bob Marley played his final concert at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 23, 1980. The live version of "Redemption Song" on Songs of Freedom was recorded at this show. Marley was receiving controversial non-toxic therapy in Bavaria which for a time seemed to be working but his cancer had already progressed to the terminal stage.
While flying home to Jamaica for his final days, Marley became ill. He was taken to a hospital in Miami, Florida where he died on the morning of May 11, 1981 at the age of 36.
A month before his death, Marley had been awarded Jamaica's Order Of Merit, the nation's third highest honour, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the country's culture. On Thursday May 21, 1981, was given an official funeral by the people of Jamaica which combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafari tradition. Following the service - attended by both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition - Marley's body was taken to his birthplace at Nine Mile where it now rests in a mausoleum.
Marley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Time magazine chose Bob Marley & The Wailers' Exodus as the greatest album of the 20th century.
In 2001, Marley was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
He left behind a remarkable body of recorded work.
In 2004, a cover of "Three Little Birds" by his son, Ziggy Marley, and Sean Paul was used as the title song for the film Shark Tale.
Bob Marley had 13 children.
I'm a big fan of Bob Marley, I think he is someone who changed the landscape of music and he will always be remembered as one of the greats. I drew the picture below in 1983 and I'm still as much of a fan now as I was then. Bob Marley truly is a legend.
Picture by Cheryl J
From the official Bob Marley Website:
The Bob Marley Foundation seeks to maintain a dynamic foundation that will enable individuals, groups, and/or communities in developing nations, particularly Jamaica and Africa, to create and implement programs that assist in the empowerment of the oppressed and the elimination of generational poverty through sustainable projects. The Foundation supports non-profit organizations and NGOs that meet criteria established by the Board of Directors and seeks support by way of partnerships to benefit the many projects. The Bob Marley Foundation gives much-needed support to a world of people living in poverty. Your financial sponsorship, physical contribution, and continued support are vital. It assures that our mission and programs will continue to provide help to needed communities.
Information from wikipedia and bobmarley.com
Deep Pencil
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Artist Quirk
and wonderful research of a legendary man!
i cant believe he had 13 children, i dont know how he had any time to be creative!
i really love the song "No Woman No Cry" and often get it stuck in my head for absolutely no reason . . .
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I guess he had the easy part of the 13 children.
Thought Zone
Geez, what a waste, imagine what else he could have given us.
Really nice tribute Cheryl.
Rhythmatism
Zentertainment
"No woman, no cry" is beautiful. "Is this love" is another fabulous one. "Buffalo Soldier" was the first song that brought me to his music so it will always be one of my all-time favourites. Evokes strong memories of that time in my life
Rhythmatism
Zentertainment
Rhythmatism
Zentertainment
The sad thing is yes, if he'd had amputated the toe early on or maybe sought mainstream treatment he may have survived.
It's incredibly sad and does seem like such a waste of life but I do respect his total commitment to his faith. I don't understand it but I respect it.
That's what music is about.
Rhythmatism
Zentertainment
“My music will go on forever. Maybe it's a fool say that, but when me know facts me can say facts. My music will go on forever.” Bob Marley
20/20 Filmsight
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Hunt Famous
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Fat Cult
Techbreak
His popularity is almost disconcerting... while his songs have been overplayed, in the right mood, a little Marley seems to move everyone...
Consumption Malfunction
Equal and Opposite
Arses and Elbows
Footy Power
The police must have planted that cannabis on him.
Pop Culturist
Of course the iconic Buffalo Soldier is still one of my favourite Marley chill tunes.
Love your etching.
Stay well
MNG
Rhythmatism
Zentertainment
I've never felt his music has been overplayed but I guess that could be because I'm a fan.
I think his popularity is because his music conveyed messages of peace and love and also the importance of standing up for what's right, it just strikes a chord in people. Plus the music is awesome
Rhythmatism
Zentertainment
Rhythmatism
Zentertainment
I miss the days when you ordered import vinyl and waited excitedly for it to turn up. The instant gratification of getting things online is great but there is something to be said about anticipation.
Kaya is fabulous! Thanks for the compliment on my humble pencil scratching.
Great post and very interesting.
Heath