Bob Marley
Given Name: Robert Nesta Marley
Born: February 6, 1945
Birthplace: Nine Miles, Jamaica
Died: May 11, 1981
Location of death: Miami, FL
Cause of death: Cancer – Brain
Remains: Buried, Bob Marley Mausoleum, Nine Mile, Jamaica
Gender: Male
Religion: Rastafarian
Race or Ethnicity: Multiracial
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Singer/Songwriter
Official Website:
http://www.bobmarley.com/
Bob Marley – The first reggae performer to achieve a world-wide audience — as well as being a significant cultural figure — Robert Nesta Marley was born in Nine Miles, a small village located in the north Jamaican parish of St. Ann. His father Norval Marley was Jamaican-born but of British decent, having returned to the island following several decades of service in the British Army and married Cedella Booker, an 18-year old native Jamaican woman. Bob’s father provided financial support for his family, but had a minimal presence in his son’s life as a result of his frequent traveling; this support ended in 1955, however, when Norval died of a heart attack, forcing Bob and his mother to relocate from rural Nine Miles to the dangerous Trench Town slums of Kingston. It was here that he became active in music, inspired both by American R&B and the unique styles developing in Kingston.
At the age of 14 Marley left school to work as a welder’s apprentice, while also pursuing his musical interests with friend Neville “Bunny” Livingston (later to be known as Bunny Wailer) and an older Rastafarian singer named Joe Higgs. Sessions with Higgs provided an introduction to fellow aspiring singer Winston “Peter” McIntosh (who subsequently shortened his name to just Peter Tosh), who would complete the collaborative trio within which Marley and Livingston would operate until the mid-1970s. In 1962 Marley recorded his first two singles Judge Not and One Cup of Coffee with producer/Beverly’s Records founder Leslie Kong, and although neither song (the latter released under the Kong-invented pseudonym “Bobby Martell”) received much attention, Marley remained fully committed to establishing himself as a performer. Marley, Livingston and McIntosh then assembled a six-piece ska group they first named The Teenagers and then The Wailing Rudeboys before settling on The Wailing Wailers in mid-1963.
Kong’s questionable accounting practices ultimately brought an end to his association with the group, and so in the summer of 1963 the Wailing Wailers auditioned for Studio One owner Clement Dodd, who produced the two tracks I’m Still Waiting and It Hurts to Be Alone. Manufactured in an edition of 300, the single had a significant impact on the streetside “sound system” circuit, prompting Dodd to arrange another session soon afterward. The group member who had provided lead vocals for It Hurts To Be Alone, Junior Braithwaite, had just moved to the States with his family, and so for the next single Simmer Down the role of principal singer fell to Marley. Released on Dodd’s Coxsone label just prior to Christmas, in February 1964 Simmer Down reached the top of the Jamaican charts, attracting national attention to Marley and his bandmates.
In spite of a run of successful singles throughout the next two years (Rude Boy, Rudie, Jailhouse, One Love, Put It On) by the end of 1965 financial difficulties had whittled the Wailing Wailers line-up down to the core trio of Bob, Bunny and Peter. The following year Marley briefly relocated to the U.S., where his mother had recently established a home with her second husband in Delaware; after working for eight months to finance his music career, the singer moved back to Kingston to resume activity with the group — now simply known as The Wailers. Their recordings had already been gradually evolving from “rude boy” street anthems to more socially-conscious material, but by 1967 the influence of the Rastafarian movement on Marley and his bandmates had become the central concern behind their music.
The shift in Jamaican popular music from ska to rock-steady during the mid-1960s resulted in a significant drop in sales for Dodd, who had not instigated a corresponding shift in his label’s output. This — aggravated by the lack of financial compensation that had plagued the group from the beginning — prompted the Wailers to leave Coxsone and establish their own Wail’N’Soul’M label and shop based at Marley’s home in Trench Town. For each new release, the band (which now also included Marley’s wife Rita) would personally bring the records around to Kingston shops; unfortunately, this approach proved much too difficult to maintain, and towards the end of 1967 a lack of resources forced the singer to dissolve the label. The single Bend Down Low b/w Mellow Mood did find it’s way into the world prior to this outcome, however, and the latter track would become one of Marley’s most frequently covered songs.
For a short while the Wailers continued primarily as songwriters for other artists, but in 1970 the group began working with Lee “Scratch” Perry, an innovate producer who had established his own Upsetter label in 1968. Perry helped to transform their sound — taking them farther away from the conventional vocal harmonies of their early years and bringing a more contemporary edge to the material — and in subsequent years, their collaborations with him would come to be widely regarded as the high point of The Wailers’ (and Marley’s) career. Brothers Aston “Family Man” Barrett and Carlton Barrett from Perry’s studio band The Upsetters were brought in to provide the rhythm section for the sessions, utilizing a style developed in the studio with Perry that had helped to define the emerging reggae genre. A large number of single tracks (My Cup, Duppy Conqueror, 400 Years, Small Axe, Soul Rebel amongst them) were recorded during this period, as well as other tracks collected on the full-length albums Soul Rebels (1970) and Soul Revolution (1971). In 1971 Bob Marley traveled to Europe with American vocalist Johnny Nash, where he successfully secured a recording contract with CBS. The next Wailer’s single Reggae on Broadway (1972) had little international impact, but while promoting the single in the UK Marley was able to arrange a more lucrative deal with Island Records founder Chris Blackwell; the full-length album Catch a Fire was issued in April of 1973, at last giving the group access to a world-wide audience. Media attention to the record was considerable, and a tour of Britain and the United States (a rare occurrence for a reggae act) was quickly arranged. Bunny Wailer refused to participate in the American leg of the tour, but the remaining band — with old mentor Joe Higgs serving as Bunny’s replacement — made an enormous impact on U.S. audiences both as headliners and as an opening act for American performers such as Bruce Springsteen and Sly and the Family Stone.
The Wailer’s second album for Island, Burnin’, was released in October of ’73 and featured what would become one of Marley’s best-known tracks Get Up, Stand Up. The album also included the song I Shot the Sheriff, which was turned into an international hit via an Eric Clapton cover version the following year. Burnin’ also marked the end of the original Wailer’s collaboration, as the stress resulting from the band’s fame would induce both Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh to leave by the end of 1974. Marley spent most of the following year in the studio putting together his next album Natty Dread, utilizing a backing band that now included the female vocal trio The I-Threes (comprised of his wife Rita Marley, Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt), guitarist Al Anderson, keyboardist Bernard Touter Harvey and percussionist Alvin Patterson in addition to the Barrett brothers rhythm section. Released in early 1975 and credited to “Bob Marley and the Wailers”, Natty Dread helped to extend the singer’s international reputation, eventually placing in both the US and UK top 100.