Artist Profiles: Bob Marley

“I love the development of our music.
How we’ve tried to develop, y’know? It grows.

That’s why every day people come forward with new songs.
Music goes on forever,” Bob Marley

Bob Marley was the greatest reggae musician to have come out of Jamaica. He was an innovator, who combined Jamaican rhythms with rock and African-American rhythm and blues. In the 1970s, Bob Marley became an international pop star. His reggae rhythms motivated thousands of musicians throughout the world. But Bob Marley was not only concerned with music. His lyrics spoke about social injustice and became anthems to many fans. It’s essential to mention the ideology of the Rastafari (also known as Rastafarianism) to adequately understand Bob Marley’s music.

Rastafari is an Abrahamic religious and political movement created by blacks in Jamaica, the descendants of African slaves. They believe that Africa is the birthplace of Mankind and Emperor Haile Selassie I (Ethiopia) was a 20th Century manifestation of God, who led the path towards righteousness, and is therefore worthy of reverence. Jamaican Rastafarianism accepts the use of marijuana as a sacrament and aid to meditation. Rastafarianism has gained widespread exposure in the Western world with followers in North America, Europe and Africa.

Bob Marley’s heritage was biracial. In the 1940s, a young black country woman named Cedella Malcolm had a relationship with a white foreman in his fifties, Norval Marley. They were married but never lived together. They had a child, Nesta Robert Marley, on February 6, 1945, the future Bob Marley.

Norval Marley was disinherited and spent little time with the boy. At the age of 7, Nesta went to live with is mother. It was a return to country living: going to school and church, taking care of the goats, and contributing to the harvests.

In 1955, Norval Marley died, and his mother, Cedella, sought work in Kingston, the capital of Jamaica. She left the dependent children of her family in Nine Miles (parish of St-James). Two years later Nesta moved to Kingston. In 1959, the mother and son moved to Trench Town, a ghetto in the capital. It was there that Nesta met the first rastas. The destruction of their community at Pinnacle, in the hills of Spanish Town, had driven them back towards the ghettos of Kingston.

Nesta encountered the first generation of Jamaican singers. One stood out, Joe Higgs, who lived two blocks away and became his music teacher. Joe Higgs had other young students who would later become famous artists: Pipe Matthews (Wailing Souls), Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer, Junior Braithwaite and Beverley Kelso.

While working as a mechanic’s apprentice, Nesta had his first recording experience. In 1962, a friend from work, a singer named Desmond Dekker, introduced him to Jimmy Cliff (who was 14 at the time). Cliff convinced his producer, Leslie Kong, to record three 45 r.p.m.s with Bob’s songs, “Judge not”, “Terror” and “Another Cup of Coffee”. Those first songs, made as a solo artist, did not have any commercial success and it wasn’t until 1964 – as a founding member of a group called the Wailing Wailers – that Bob first reached the Jamaican charts. The record was Simmer Down, recorded at Jamaica’s leading record label, Studio One. At Studio One, the Wailers, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Neville Livingston, joined by legendary producer Clement Dodd, recorded some of their most lasting music. The Wailers and Dodd conceived the popular song “One Love,” which has become the soundtrack for Jamaica’s tourist industry.

Over the next few years the Wailing Wailers – the nucleus of which was Bob, Peter McIntosh and Bunny Livingston released 30 songs that established them as one the emerging groups in Jamaica. McIntosh later shortened his surname to Tosh, while Livingston is now called Bunny Wailer.

Despite their popularity, the economics of keeping the group together proved too much and the two other members, Junior Braithwaite and Beverly Kelso, quit. At the same time Bob joined his mother in the United States. Marley’s time in the United States was short-lived, however, and he returned to Jamaica to join up again with Peter and Bunny. By the end of the 1960s, with the legendary reggae producer Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry at the mixing board, The Wailers were again back at the top in Jamaica. The combination of Wailers and Perry resulted in some of the finest music the band ever made. Tracks like Soul Rebel, Duppy Conqueror, 400 Years and Small Axe were not only classics, but they defined the future direction of reggae.

In 1970 Aston ‘Familyman’ Barrett and his brother Carlton (bass and drums, respectively) joined the Wailers. They came to the band unchallenged as Jamaica’s most formidable rhythm section; a reputation that continued during the following decade. Meanwhile, the band’s own reputation was, at the beginning of the 1970s, an extraordinary one throughout the Caribbean. But internationally the band was still unknown.

Things changed in 1972 when The Wailers signed to Island Records. It was a revolutionary move for an international record company and a reggae band. For the first time, a reggae band had access to the best recording facilities and were treated in the same way as a rock group. Before the Wailers signed to Island it was considered that reggae sold only on singles and cheap compilation albums. The Wailers’ first album Catch a Fire broke all the rules: it was beautifully packaged and heavily promoted. And it was the start of a long climb to international fame and recognition.

The Catch a Fire album was followed, a year later, by Burnin’, an LP that included some of the band’s older songs, such as Duppy Conqueror, Small Axe and Put It On, together with tracks like Get Up Stand Up and I Shot The Sheriff. The latter, of course, was also recorded by Eric Clapton, whose version hit number one in the U.S. singles chart.

In 1974 Bob Marley & The Wailers released the remarkable Natty Dread album and, in the summer of that year, toured Europe. Among the concerts were two shows at the Lyceum Ballroom in London which, even now, are remembered as highlights of the decade. The shows were recorded and released as Live!, together with the single No Woman No Cry, both made the charts. By that time Bunny and Peter had officially left the band to pursue their own solo careers.

Rastaman Vibration, the next album in 1976, entered the American charts. It was, for many, the clearest sign of Marley’s music and beliefs, including tracks such as Crazy Baldhead, Johnny Was, Who The Cap Fit and, perhaps most meaningfully of all, War, the lyrics of which were taken from a speech by Emperor Haile Selassie.

The following year brought fresh achievements by the band. They released the Exodus album, which properly established Marley’s international superstar status. It remained in the British charts for 56 straight weeks, and the three singles from the album – Exodus, Waiting In Vain and Jamming – were all high sellers (Jamming was the band’s first-ever Top 10 hit in Britain). They played a week of concerts at London’s Rainbow Theatre – in fact, they were to be the Wailers’ last London shows of the Seventies.

In 1978, the band continued its charts success with the release of Kaya, an album that hit number four in the UK chart the week of release. That album saw Marley in a different mood; an album of love songs and, of course, tributes to the power of ganja. The album also provided two charts singles, Satisfy My Soul and the memorable Is This Love.

There were two more events in 1978, both of which were of extraordinary importance to Marley. In April that year, he returned to Jamaica (he had left in 1976, following the shooting that had almost cost his life) to play the One Love Peace Concert in front of the Prime Minister Michael Manley and the then Leader of the Opposition Edward Seaga. And at the end of the year, he visited Africa for the first time, going initially to Kenya and then on to Ethiopia, spiritual home of Rastafari. He was to return to Africa in 1980, this time at the official invitation of the Government of Zimbabwe to play at the country’s Independence Ceremony. It was the greatest honor afforded the band, and one that underlined the Wailers’ importance in the Third World.

Bob Marley & The Wailers released the clamorous Survival album in 1979. A European tour came the following year: the band broke festival records throughout the continent, including a 100,000 capacity show in Milan. Bob Marley & The Wailers were the most important band touring that year and the new Uprising album reached every chart in Europe. It was a period of maximum optimism and plans were already being made for an American tour, in company with Stevie Wonder, that winter.

At the end of the European tour, Bob Marley & The Wailers went to America. Bob played two shows at Madison Square Garden but, immediately afterwards, he became seriously ill. Cancer was diagnosed.

Bob Marley fought the disease for eight months. The battle, however, proved too much. He died in a Miami Hospital on May 11, 1981.

A month before the end Bob was awarded Jamaica’s Order Of Merit, the nation’s third highest honor, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the country’s culture.

On Thursday May 21, 1981, the Hon. Robert Nesta Marley O.M. was given an official funeral by the people of Jamaica. Following the funeral – attended by both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition – Bob’s body was taken to his birthplace where it now rests in a mausoleum. Bob Marley was 36 years old.

Several posthumous albums showed various sides Marley:

Rebel Music (1986), Talkin’ Blues (1991) in which most of the tracks are from a 1973 KSAN-FM (San Francisco) broadcast. Natural Mystic: The Legend Lives On (1995) was a sequel to 1984’s best selling compilation Legend.

The most comprehensive and ambitious reissue program ever for the recordings of Bob Marley, extending for more than a year and spanning more than 18 albums, was kicked off March 27, 2001, with the release of a special expanded 2 CD edition of his groundbreaking Catch a Fire (Island/UME). One of the two CDs comprising the Catch A Fire: Deluxe Edition was the original, previously unreleased, version of the album recorded in Jamaica in September 1972, including two songs, “High Seas or Low Seas” and “All Day All Night,” not included on the other CD, a new digital remaster of the U.K. remixed and overdubbed 1973 album which became Marley’s crossover breakthrough.

In 2003, Heartbeat Records released a collection of recordings by Bob Marley and The Wailers, recorded at Studio One. Greatest Hits at Studio One, culled from the over 100 tracks the Wailers recorded at Studio One, features many of their early top-selling songs like “One Love,” “Simmer Down,” “Jailhouse,” and “It Hurts to Be Alone.” Also included are many of the group’s top requested songs from the Studio One catalog along with alternate versions of some of their popular hits

In May of 2003 family members of Bob Marley discovered several eight-track recordings by the late singer. The previously unheard songs, recorded in the 1970s, were remastered by Marley’s son, Ziggy.

Discography:

Soul Rebels (Receiver, 1970)
Soul Revolution, Pt. II (Jad, 1971)
Catch a Fire (Island, 1973)
Burnin’ (Tuff Gong, 1973)
Natty Dread (Tuff Gong, 1974)
Rasta Revolution (Sanctuary / Trojan, 1974)
Live! (Tuff Gong, 1975)
Rastaman Vibration (Tuff Gong, 1976)
Exodus (Island, 1977)
Kaya (Tuff Gong, 1978)
Babylon by Bus (Tuff Gong, 1978)
Survival (Tuff Gong, 1979)
Uprising (Tuff Gong, 1980)
Confrontation (Tuff Gong,1983)

Books:

Bob Marley by Stephen Davis, Plexus Publishing Ltd, 1994
Bob Marley by Bruce W. Talamon & Roger Steffens; W. W. Norton & Company, 1994
Bob Marley – Songs of Freedom, Hal Leonard Corporation (December 1, 1995)
Bob Marley: Soul Rebel: The Stories Behind Every Song 1962-1981 by Maureen Sheridan Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1999
Complete Lyrics of Bob Marley by Bob Marley and Noel Hawks, Music Sales Ltd, 2001
Rasta Heart: A Journey Into One Love by Robert Roskind, One Love Press, 2001
Bob Marley: Talking (Bob Marley in His Own Words) by Ian McCann, Bob Marley, Omnibus Press, 2003
Every Little Thing Gonna Be Alright, by Roger Steffens and Hank Bordowitz, Da Capo Press, 2004)
60 Visions: A Book of Prophecy by Bob Marley, Tuff Gong Books, 2005
No Woman No Cry by Rita Marley, Hyperion, 2005
Bob Marley and the Wailers: The Definitive Discography by Roger Steffens, Leroy Jodie Pierson, Rounder Books, 2005
Marley Legend by James Henke, Chronicle Books; Har/Com edition, 2006
Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley by Timothy White Owl Books, 2006
56 Thoughts from 56 Hope Road: The Sayings and Psalms of Bob Marley by Cedella Marley and Gerald Hausman, Hampton Roads Publishing Company, 2002
Before the Legend by Christopher John Farley, Amistad, 2006
The Book of Exodus, Three Rivers Press, 2006