Bob Marley
Jamaica has produced an artist who has touched
all categories, classes, and
creeds through innate modesty and profound
wisdom. Bob Marley, the Natural
Mystic who introduced reggae to European
and American fans still may prove to be
the most significant musical artist
of the twentieth century. Bob Marley gave
the world brilliant music and
established reggae as major forces in music that
is comparable with the blues
and rock&rolls. His work stretched across
nearly two decades and still
remains timeless. Bob Marley & the Wailers
worked their way into all of
our lives. "He's taken his place with James
Brown and Sly Stone as
pervasive influence on r&b", said Timothy White,
author of the Bob Marley
biography "Catch A Fire". It is important to
think of the roots of this
legend: the first superstar from the Third World, Bob
Marley was one of
the most charismatic and challenging performers of his time.
His music
reflects only one source: the street culture of Jamaica. Later, in
1930,
Ras Tafari Makonnen was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia. Tafari claimed to be
the
225th ruler in a line that went back to Menelik, the son of Solomon.
The
Garvey followers in Jamaica, who consulted their New Testaments for a
sign,
believed that Haile Selassie was the black king that Garvey had said
would
deliver the black race. It was the start of a new religion called
Rastafari,
which Bob was into heavily. Fifteen years after, in Nine Miles
deep within
Jamaica Robert Nesta Marley was born. His mother Cedella
Booker was an
eighteen-year-old black girl while his father was Captain
Norval Marley, a
50-year-old white man working for the Jamaican Forestry
Commission. The couple
married in 1944 and Norval left Cedella to legitimize
their unborn child. Then
Bob was born on February 6, 1945. Norval's
family applied constant pressure to
Bob and, although he provided
financial support, Norval seldom saw his son who
grew up in St. Ann to the
north of the island. Bob Marley, barely into his
teens, moved to Kingston
(Trench Town) in the late Fifties. His friends Were
other street youths, also
not happy with their place in society. One friend
Neville O'Riley
Livingston was known as Bunny, Bob met Bunny when his mom took
work taking
rooms behind a rum bar owned by Toddy Livingston Bunnys father. Bob
took his
first musical steps with Bunny. They were fascinated by the music they
could
pick up from American radio stations. Especially Ray Charles, Fats
Domino,
Curtis Mayfield, and Brook Benton. Bob and Bunny also paid close
attention to
vocal groups, such as the Drifters, who were popular in Jamaica.
Bob quit school
and seemed to have one ambition, music. He took a job in a
welding shop, but
spent all his free time with Bunny working on their vocal
abilities, with the
help of one of Trench Town's famous residents, singer Joe
Higgs. Higgs held
informal lessons for aspiring vocalists. At one of those
sessions Bob and Bunny
met Peter McIntosh, who also had musical ambitions. In
1962 Bob Marley
auditioned for Leslie Kong. Impressed by the quality of Bob's
vocals, Kong took
Bob into the studio to cut some tracks; the first was
called "Judge
Not" and was released on Beverley's label. It was Bob's
first record. The
other songs - including "Terror" and "One Cup of Coffee"
-
received no airplay and attracted little attention. However, they
confirmed
Bob's ambition to be a singer. The following year Bob had
decided to form a
group. He joined Bunny and Pete to form The Wailing
Wailers. The new group had a
mentor, a Rastafarian hand drummer Alvin
Patterson who introduced them to
Clement Dodd, a record producer in
Kingston. In the summer of 1963 Dodd
auditioned The Wailing Wailers and
pleased with the results, agreed to record
the group. The Wailing Wailers
released their first single, "Simmer
Down", during the last weeks of
1963. The following January it was number
one in the Jamaican charts, where
it stayed for the next two months. The group -
Bob, Bunny and Peter
together with Junior Braithwaite and two back-up singers
were big news.
"Simmer Down" caused a sensation in Jamaica and The
Wailing Wailers began
recording regularly. The groups' music identified with the
Rude Boy
street rebels in the Kingston slums. Jamaican music had found a tough,
urban
stance. Despite their popularity the group broke apart and Bob's
mother
remarried. She then moved to the U.S and wanted Bob to come to start a
new life,
but before they left Bob met a girl named Rita Anderson and they
wed on February
10, 1966. Marley joined up with Bunny and Peter to
re-form the group, now known
as The Wailers. Rita, too, had started a singing
career, having a big hit with
"Pied Piper", a cover of an English pop song.
Jamaican music however,
was changing. The bouncy ska beat had been replaced
by a slower, more sensual
Rhythm called rock steady. The group formed
their own record label, Wail 'N'
Soul; however, the label folded in late
1967. The group however survived as
songwriters for Johnny Nash who had an
international hit with Marley's
"Stir it up". The Wailers also met up with
Lee Perry, whose genius
transformed recording studio Techniques into an art
form. In 1970 Barrett and
his brother Carlton joined the Wailers. Working
with the Wailers on those
groundbreaking sessions they were unchallenged as
Jamaica's hardest rhythm
section. In the summer of 1971 Bob accepted an
invitation from Johnny Nash to
accompany him to Sweden. While in Europe Bob
got a recording contract with CBS,
which was also Na