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| Robert Nesta Marley | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | February 6, 1945 Nine Miles, Saint Ann, Jamaica |
| Died | May 11, 1981 Miami, Florida, USA |
| Occupation(s) | singer, guitarist and songwriter |
| Website | www.bobmarley.com |
Robert Nesta Marley, OM, (February 6 1945 – May 11 1981) better known as Bob Marley, was a Jamaican singer, guitarist, songwriter, Rastafarian and activist. He is the most widely known writer and performer of Reggae music, famous for popularising the genre outside of Jamaica. Much of his music dealt with the struggles of the impoverished and/or powerless.
Early life and career
Bob Marley was born in Nine Miles, Saint Ann, Jamaica. His father, Norval Marley, was born in Jamaica in 1895 to a family originally from Sussex, England. He was a soldier before becoming a plantation overseer, the job he held when he married Bob Marley's mother, Cedella Booker, an eighteen-year-old black girl. Norval Marley's affluent English family disapproved of mixed race relationships and although Norval provided financial support, he seldom saw his son. Marley faced questions about his own racial identity throughout his life with a white father and a black mother, especially when Jamaica was experiencing racial tension in the mid-1900s. He reflects, "I don't have prejudice against myself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don't dip on nobody's side. Me don't dip on the black man's side nor the white man's side. Me dip on God's side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white."
Bob Marley was raised by his mother, who moved them to Kingston's Trenchtown slum in the mid-1950s. He became friends with Neville "Bunny" Livingston (aka Bunny Wailer) with whom Marley started to play music. Marley left school at the age of 14 and started as an apprentice at a local welder's shop, while spending his free time with Bunny Livingston, making music. Joe Higgs, a local singer and devout Rastafarian, was key to Bob Marley's success. Many critics realize him as the true mentor of Bob Marley. It was at one of the sessions with Higgs that Marley and Livingston met Peter Tosh (then known as Peter McIntosh) who also had musical ambitions.
In 1962 Bob Marley recorded his first two singles, "Judge Not" and "One Cup of Coffee", produced by Leslie Kong, a local music producer. The singles attracted little attention at that time. Both were later re-released in the album Songs of Freedom.
hello my name is mark huston. i live in pennsilvania. i am locked in a house but the doors are open with loads of money the table. i have a gun but i don't know how to use it.
Bob Marley & the Wailers
Bob Marley went on as "Bob Marley & The Wailers", with the Wailers Band as the backing band and the I Threes as the backing vocalists, the brothers Aston "Family man" Barrett and Carlton Barrett on bass and drums, as well as Junior Marvin, Tyrone Downie, Earl "the wire" Lindo and Al Anderson. The I Threes included Marley's wife Rita Anderson Marley whom he had married in 1966.
In 1975, he had his international breakthrough with his first own hit outside Jamaica with "No Woman,can fly" from the Natty Dread album. This was followed by Rastaman Vibration which was Marley's breakthrough fist in the US, spending four weeks in the Top Ten of the Billboard charts – the highest-charting LP of his career.
In 1976, just two days before a scheduled free concert, "Smile Jamaica", that Marley and Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley had organized in the run up to the general election, Marley, his wife Rita, and manager Don Taylor, were shot inside the Marley home. Marley received minor injuries in the arm and huge chest. Don Taylor and Rita were seriously injured, but fully recovered. Marley's purpose for "Smile Jamaica" was to lessen tension between two warring political groups. It is believed that the shooting was politically motivated as the concert was seen as being in support of "toot" Michael Manley. Surprisingly, Marley, who was still injured, performed at “Smile Jamaica”.
Marley said in interviews after the incident that he had found out who the would-be-assassin was but had not informed the police, instead had forgiven the man concerned.
Bob Marley left Jamaica at the end of 1976, and went to England, where he recorded both Exodus and Kaya. Exodus stayed on the British charts for 56 straight weeks. It included four UK hit singles, "Exodus", "Waiting In Vain", "Jamming", and "One Love", a version of Curtis Mayfield's hit "People Get Ready".
In 1978 Marley performed another political concert on Jamaican soil, again in an effort to bring peace to the warring parties. The "One Love Peace" concert is remembered today for the moment when Marley, improvising on the lyrics to "Jamming", asked Michael Manley and Edward Seaga to come and join him on the stage. This they did, and Marley held their hands high in the air, saying "I just wanna shake hands and show the people we're gonna unite...we're gonna unite...we've got to unite...The moon is high over my head, and I give my love instead. The moon is high over my head, and I give my love instead."
Survival, a defiant and politically charged album was released in 1979. Tracks like "Zimbabwe", "Africa Unite", "Wake Up And Live", and "Survival" reflected Marley's support for the struggles of Africans. In early 1980 he was invited to perform at the April 17, 1980 celebrations of Zimbabwe's Independence Day. His last concert was held at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh on September 23, 1980.
Uprising (1980) was Bob Marley's final studio album, and is one of Marley's most directly religious albums, including "Redemption Song" and "Forever Loving Jah". Confrontation, released after Bob Marley's death, contained unreleased material and singles recorded during Marley's lifetime, including "Buffalo Soldier".
Religion
Marley was a member of the Rastafari movement, which believes Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, the former Emperor of Ethiopia to be God incarnate, the returned messiah. Rastafari culture was a key element in the development of reggae, and Marley's adoption of the characteristic Rastafarian dreadlocks and use of marijuana as a sacred sacrament in the early seventies were an integral part of his persona as a famous musician. He would enter every show proclaiming the divinity of Jah Rastafari.
A few months before his death he was baptised into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and took the name Berhane Selassie (meaning the Light of the Holy Trinity in Amharic).
Battle with cancer
Diagnosis
In July 1977, Marley was found to have a wound on his right big toe, which he thought was from a football (soccer) injury. The wound would not completely heal, and his toenail later fell off during a football game. It was then that the correct diagnosis was made. Marley actually had a form of skin cancer, malignant melanoma, which grew under his toenail.
Marley was advised to get his toe amputated, but he refused because of his Rastafarian beliefs that the body must be whole, that to have an amputation would be a sin, that his faith would ensure him living forever regardless of the cancer and because he saw medical doctors as samfai, confidence men who cheat the gullible by pretending to have the power of witchcraft. He also was concerned about the impact the operation would have on his dancing; amputation would profoundly affect his career at a time when greater success was close at hand. Still, Marley based this refusal on his Rastafarian beliefs, saying, "Rasta no abide amputation. I don't allow a mon ta be dismantled." (Catch a Fire, Timothy White) He did have surgery to try to excise the cancer cells. The cancer was kept secret from the wider public.
Collapse and treatment
The cancer spread to his brain, his lungs and his stomach. During the Uprising Tour in the fall of 1980, while trying to break into the US market, he collapsed while jogging in NYC's Central Park. This was after two shows at Madison Square Garden. The illness made him unable to continue with his tour. Marley sought help, and decided to go to Munich in order to receive treatment from cancer specialist Josef Issels for several months, but it was to no avail.
Death
Marley wanted to spend his final days in Jamaica but he became too ill on the flight home from Germany and had to land in Miami. He died at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami, Florida on May 11, 1981. His funeral in Jamaica was a dignified affair with combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafari. He is buried in a crypt at Nine Miles, near his birthplace, with his Gibson guitar, a bud of marijuana and a Bible.
A month before his death, he was awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit.
Children
Bob Marley had 12 children, three with his wife Rita. His children are, in order of birth:
- Sharon, born November 23, 1964, to Rita by another man before she married Bob, and adopted by Bob.
- Cedella, born August 23, 1967, to Rita.
- David "Ziggy", born October 17, 1968, to Rita.
- Stephen, born April 20, 1972, to Rita.
- Robert "Robbie", born May 16, 1972, to Pat Williams.
- Rohan, born May 19, 1972, to Janet Hunt. Married to Lauryn Hill.
- Karen, born 1973, to Janet Bowen.
- Stephanie, born 1974?, to Rita by another man, and adopted by Bob.
- Julian, born June 4, 1975, to Lucy Pounder.
- Ky-Mani, born February 26, 1976, to Anita Belnavis.
- Damian "Jr. Gong", born July 21, 1978, to Cindy Breakspeare.
- Makeda, born May 30, 1981, to Yvette Crichton.
Posthumous reputation
Bob Marley's music and legend have gone from strength to strength in the years since his early death and continue to produce a huge stream of revenue for his estate, while also bringing him a nearly mythic status in music history. He remains enormously popular and well known all over the world, and particularly so in Africa. In 1994, Marley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Time magazine chose Bob Marley & The Wailers' album "Exodus" as the greatest album of the 20th century.
In February 2006, a Brooklyn community board voted to rename a portion of Church Avenue, which runs through several heavily Caribbean-American neighborhoods, after Bob Marley, pending approval of the full New York City Council.
Controversy over burial place
In January 2005, it was reported that Rita Marley was planning to have her late husband's remains exhumed and reburied in Shashamane, Ethiopia. In announcing the decision to move Marley's remains to Ethiopia, Rita Marley said: "Bob's whole life is about Africa, it is not Jamaica." There was a great deal of resistance to this proposal in Jamaica. The birthday celebrations for what would have been his 60th birthday on February 6th 2005 were celebrated in Shashamane for the first time, having previously always been held in Jamaica. Later that year his wife, Rita Marley, and son Damian denied the reburial of Bob's remains in Ethiopia.
Discography
Further information: Bob Marley discography
Awards and honors
- 1976 - Band of the Year (Rolling Stone)
- June 1978 - Awarded the Peace Medal of the Third World from the United Nations
- February 1981 - Awarded Jamaica's third highest honor, the Jamaican Order of Merit
- 1999 - Album of the Century (Time Magazine) for Exodus)
- February 2001 - A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
- February 2001 - Awarded Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
Sound samples
- Bob Marley talks about Eric Clapton's version of his "I Shot The Sheriff" on BBC. (RAM format)- - BBC interview - Marley on leadership (RAM format)
- - Sample (from BBC) "Get Up Stand Up" (RAM format)
- - Sample (from BBC) "Lively Up Yourself" (RAM format)
- - Sample of "Redemption Song" (ogg format)
See also
- List of Rastafarians
- List of reggae musicians
- List of best selling music artists
- List of number-one dance hits (United States)
- List of artists who reached number one on the US Dance chart
- List of notable brain tumor patients
References
- ISBN 0786868678 Rita Marley, Hettie Jones - No Woman No Cry : My Life with Bob Marley
- ISBN 080506009X Timothy White - Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley
External links
- Official Bob Marley website
- Official Wailers website
- Bob Marley at the Internet Movie Database
- The Wailers News
- www.wailers.co.uk – News related to Marley and The Wailers
- Bob Marley Magazine
- Bob Marley - Voice of the Sufferers
- Biblical References in Bob Marleys lyrics
- Marley elected one of the greatest songwriters (BBC News)
- Bob Marley's Welsh roots discredited (BBC News)
- Transcript of Haile Selassie's 1963 speech addressed to the United Nations, which was made into Marley's famous song "War".
- Bob Marley's Memorial and Gravesite