Biography of Bob Marley

Born of a White Jamaican father in his fifties, and a 19-year-old Black Jamaican mother, Bob Marley transcended the humility of his rural beginnings to become not just a million-selling recording artist but, more importantly, a quasi-religious figure, the confidant of kings, and a beacon of hope for the oppressed of the world. His story is one of rising hopes and dashed promise, eventually ending in triumph at his untimely death at 36.At the age of 16 in 1961, he recorded his first solo effort Judge Not! for pioneer Leslie Kong's Beverly's label. It, and its follow-up One Cup of Coffee, failed. Undiscouraged, Bob came under the tutelage of Joe Higgs, who helped train him and his colleagues Bunny Livingstone and Peter Tosh in the fundamentals of rhythm and harmony. An exacting taskmaster, Higgs waited until the end of 1963 before he let the group, now known as The Wailers, audition for Sir Coxsone Dodd's Studio One, the preeminant outlet for "people's music" on the island. The result was an immediate #1, "Simmer Down," which was followed by a 2 1/2 year string of hits. During one week in 1965 The Wailers had five of the Top Ten hits on the charts at once, leading to the appellation, "Jamaican Beatles." But financial success did not follow, and Marley fled to the States for eight months in 1966, working on the night shift of a Chrysler plant in Delaware in order to make enough money to start his own label, called Wail 'n Soul 'm. "Bend Down Low," "Stir It Up," and many other songs that would be remade in the 70s were released on The Wailers" own limited pressings, but they were never able to get far enough ahead monetarily to make the venture a true success, and in 1969 they declared their retirement. It was a brief respite, however, because Leslie Kong beckoned them back to the studios to cut what is truly reggae's first album, as opposed to a mere collection of singles, called The Best of the Wailers. Kong died shortly after, and the record stalled. Soon Lee "Scratch" Perry agreed to a 50-50 deal with the group and produced what many feel was the finest work of their career together, the landmark Soul Rebels in England. Again, The Wailers were left out of the financial picture, and despite the album's critical praise, they saw no money from Perry.In 1972, The Wailers signed with Island Records, whose boss Chris Blackwell gave them $8,000 to cut an album, tiny money in the rock world but a fortune to a Jamaican. The result was the breakthrough Catch a Fire, an incendiary collection of island ire and Biblical prophecy, spiced with the bawd of "Kinky Reggae." Again, critical accolades were tempered by tiny sales, and after the follow-up Burnin' the group broke up. Marley took over the band, which included the essential underpinning of bassist Family Man Barrett and his drummer brother Carlton, who had served as The Upsetters band in Lee Perry's studio. He added a female trio, The I Threes (his wife Rita, Judy Mowatt, and Marcia Griffiths). Natty Dread, Marley's 1974 solo debut, was the album that put him into the public's eye once and for all, especially in the UK. By 1976, Marley was so big internationally, cracking the US Top Ten with that year's Rastaman Vibration album, that it was felt his endorsement could swing a national election in Jamaica. Marley eschewed "politricksters" but was maneuvered into performing at the "Smile Jamaica" concert in Kingston in December 1976 by Prime Minister Michael Manley, who was running for reelection. Two nights before the show, gunmen broke into Marley's compound in Kingston and shot him in the chest and arm, shot his wife in the head, and wounded his manager five times in the groin. Miraculously, all survived, and the concert became one of the most stupendous shows of courage and power in modern musical history, as Marley performed a 75-minute set, defying the gunmen to come and finish him off.A fourteen-month exile from Jamaica followed, during which time he began touring in support of his 1977 album Exodus. But at the end of the European portion, Marley was diagnosed with melanoma cancer. A small part of a toe was removed, and Bob cancelled the remainder of the tour in order to recuperate. He returned with the reflective Kaya album in 1978 and, in the summer of that year, was awarded the United Nations Peace Medal in NY "on behalf of five-hundred million Africans." Cited particularly was his appearance at Jamaica's "One Love Peace Concert" the previous April in which he forced Manley and right-wing rival Edward Seaga to shake hands onstage as he danced wildly between them.By 1980, Marley was the biggest star The Third World had ever seen, and a major figure in the world of rock as well. In April, he headlined the celebration of Zimbabwe's Independence. His summer stadium tour of Europe that year sold out everywhere, and he played to 100,000 fans in Milan who seemed to know the words to every song. Returning to the States in September of 1980, he agreed to be the opening act to The Commodores at Madison Square Garden, an attempt to reach the African-American audience that had remained strangely impervious to his message of repatriation and Rastafari. The day after the Garden shows, Marley collapsed in Central Park, and doctors diagnosed an incurable cancer, giving him less than three weeks to live. He eventually sought a cure in a controversial cancer clinic in Germany run by an ex-Nazi SS doctor, who kept him alive until the following May. On the morning of May 11, en route home to Jamaica, Marley passed away in a Miami hospital.His funeral, ten days later in Kingston, was the largest in the history of the Caribbean, and new Prime Minister Seaga delivered an eloquent eulogy. Marley was buried in the one-room shack in which he lived as a child, in the village of Nine Mile, St. Ann's, a site that has become a shrine for visitors from all over the world.Dying without a will ("Rasta no believe in death," he said repeatedly), Marley created a legal tangle that was not unravelled until the end of 1991, when his widow Rita and Island label chief Chris Blackwell joined forces to gain control of his works, placing them in trust for the family, which included eleven children by seven women. A prolific composer, he left scores of unreleased works in the vaults. His art director, Neville Garrick, described his achievement best when he said "Bob Marley wrote the new Psalms." ~ Roger Steffens