a short biography of bob marley

• Born February 6 , 1945 · Nine Miles, St. Ann, Jamaica
• Died May 11 , 1981 · Miami, Florida, USA (metastatic skin cancer)
• Birth name Robert Nesta Marley
• Height 5′ 6¾″ (1.70 m)
• Bob Marley was born on February 6, 1945, in Nine Miles, Saint Ann, Jamaica, to Norval Marley and Cedella Booker . His father was a Jamaican of English descent. His mother was a black teenager. The couple were married in 1944 but Norval left for Kingston immediately after. Norval died in 1957, seeing his son only a few times. Bob Marley started his career with the Wailers, a group he formed with Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston in 1963. Marley married Rita Marley in February 1966, and it was she who introduced him to Rastafarianism. By 1969 Bob, Tosh and Livingston had fully embraced Rastafarianism, which greatly influence Marley's music in particular and on reggae music in general. The Wailers collaborated with Lee Scratch Perry, resulting in some of the Wailers' finest tracks like "Soul Rebel", "Duppy Conquerer", "400 Years" and "Small Axe." This collaboration ended bitterly when the Wailers found that Perry, thinking the records were his, sold them in England without their consent. However, this brought the Wailers' music to the attention of Chris Blackwell , the owner of Island Records. Blackwell immediately signed the Wailers and produced their first album, "Catch a Fire". This was followed by "Burnin'", featuring tracks as "Get Up Stand Up" and "I Shot the Sheriff." Eric Clapton 's cover of that song reached #1 in the US. In 1974 Tosh and Livingston left the Wailers to start solo careers. Marley later formed the band "Bob Marley and the Wailers", with his wife Rita as one of three backup singers called the I-Trees. This period saw the release of some groundbreaking albums, such as "Natty Dread", "Rastaman Vibration". In 1976, during a period of spiraling political violence in Jamaica, an attempt was made on Marley's life. Marley left for England, where he lived in self-exile for two years. In England "Exodus" was produced, and it remained on the British charts for 56 straight weeks. This was followed by another successful album, "Kaya." These successes introduced reggae music to the western world for the first time, and established the beginning of Marley's international status. In 1977 Marley consulted with a doctor when a wound in his big toe would not heal. More tests revealed malignant melanoma. He refused to have his toe amputated as his doctors recommended, claiming it contradicted his Rastafarian beliefs. Others, however, claim that the main reason behind his refusal was the possible negative impact on his dancing skills. The cancer was kept secret from the general public while Bob continued working. Returning to Jamaica in 1978, he continued work and released "Survival" in 1979 which was followed by a successful European tour. In 1980 he was the only foreign artist to participated in the independence ceremony of Zimbabwe. It was a time of great success for Marley, and he started an American tour to reach blacks in the US. He played two shows at Madison Square Garden, but collapsed while jogging in NYC's Central Park on September 21, 1980. The cancer diagnosed earlier had spread to his brain, lungs and stomach. Bob Marley died in a Miami hospital on May 11, 1981. He was 36 years old. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous & MO840
• Spouse Rita Marley (February 10, 1966 - May 11, 1981) (his death, 5 children)
• Children Sharon Marley Prendergast Cedella Marley Ziggy Marley Stephen Marley Stephanie Rohan Marley Robbie Karen Julian Marley Damian Marley Ky-Mani Marley Makeda Jaknesta
• Parents Cedella Booker Norval Sinclair Marley
• Relatives Selah Louise (Grandchild) Zion David (Grandchild) Charles Mattocks (Niece or Nephew) Richard Booker (Half Sibling) Bam Marley (Grandchild)
• Always had his hair in dreadlocks
• Started every performance by proclaiming the divinity of Jah Rastafari
• Gibson Epiphone
• He is buried in a crypt at Nine Miles, near his birthplace, with his Gibson Les Paul Guitar, a soccer ball, a cannabis bud, and a Bible.
• Survived an assassination attempt, receiving minor injuries in the chest and arm (December 1976).
• Refused amputation of his cancer-affected toe due to his religious beliefs.
• Was arrested in England for possession of a joint of a marijuana.
• Following the attempt on his life, he left Jamaica and lived in England between 1976 and 1978. In England he did not live with his wife Rita, but with Jamaican beauty queen Cindy Breakspeare . In fact, the song "Turn Your Lights Down Low" was written for her. They had a son together, Damian Marley .
• My music will go on forever. Maybe it's a fool say that, but when me know facts me can say facts. My music will go on forever.
• I have a BMW. But only because BMW stands for Bob Marley and The Wailers, and not because I need an expensive car.
• Bob Marley isn't my name. I don't even know my name yet.
• I no have education. I have inspiration. If I was educated I would be a damn fool.
• [on politics] Well, everything is political. I will never be a politician or even think political. Me just deal with life and nature. That is the greatest thing to me.

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Bob Marley: Biography, Albums, Facts & More

Posted by House of Marley on May 21st 2024

Bob Marley isn’t just one of the most influential figures in music. He’s a cultural icon.

That’s because Marley was so much more than a musician. He was a songwriter, artist, and activist, uplifting generations with his message of One Love. He’s also the inspiration behind House of Marley’s series of sustainable speakers, turntables, and headphones.

Even if you don’t know his songs, you know his face and his legacy. And now, through our brief Bob Marley biography, you’ll know his story.

Early Life and Background

Like so many who go on to change the world, Marley came from humble beginnings. Those origins are where our story starts.

Birth and Family Background

Robert Nesta Marley was born in Nine Miles, Jamaica, on February 6, 1945, to Cedella Malcolm and Norval Sinclair Marley. [1]

Although he briefly lived with his father, Norval, in Kingston for 18 months, Marley spent most of his childhood in the rural community of his birth with his mother, Cedella Malcolm. [2]

Early Musical Influences and Trench Town

As a teen in the late 1950s, Marley moved to a neighborhood known as Trench Town, just outside of the Jamaican capital. Named for the sewage trench over which it was built, Trench Town had a reputation for being a rough-and-tumble place—and one where Marley had to learn to fight for himself.

Despite the chaos and poverty, it was in Trench Town that Marley’s love of music flourished. A new genre called “ska” was taking over the Jamaican music industry, and Marley found himself drawn in. This local fusion of soul and R&B, coupled with the oral storytelling history of his upbringing in Nine Miles, would have a profound impact on Marley’s music. [3]

The Rise of The Wailers

By 16, Bob Marley had already devoted himself to music, recording a few songs as a solo artist to little fanfare. But it wasn’t until a little later that Marley found success with his band The Wailers.

Formation and Early Success

In 1963, Marley, with friends Neville “Bunny” O’Riley Livingston and Peter McIntosh (Peter Tosh), formed a band. The group went through several name changes, including:

• The Teenagers
• The Wailing Rudeboys
• The Wailing Wailers
• The Wailers

It was under this last name that the band’s first single “Simmer Down” topped the Jamaican charts in 1964.

Despite some lineup instability, the group’s popularity grew at home. However, finances were always an issue, and in 1966, Marley married Rita Anderson and moved to Wilmington, Delaware, pausing the band to work odd jobs in the US and be with his mother. Rita Anderson, who became Rita Marley after marrying Bob, was not only his wife but also a collaborator in his music career, providing backing vocals on many of his tracks and helping to preserve his legacy after his passing.

The Transition to Reggae

In their early years, The Wailers were playing the music of the time: Jamaican ska and R&B. But when Marley returned to Jamaica, the times were changing—and so was popular music. A new style of Jamaican music called “reggae” was on the rise.

Reggae took the up-tempo, offbeat rhythm of ska (and slower rocksteady) and slowed it down even further.

By 1970, the Wailers had partnered with Lee “Scratch” Perry, a guiding force in dub and reggae music. Together with Perry’s team of musicians, The Wailers laid the groundwork for the sound of roots reggae—a sound that Bob Marley made famous around the world.

International Stardom and Iconic Albums

While Marley and his band enjoyed growing success with a handful of albums in Jamaica, it wasn’t until the early 70s that The Wailers became a worldwide force. Once they reached the mainstream, however, there was no stopping the reggae movement from going global.

Collaboration with Island Records

On a trip to London in 1972, Marley landed The Wailers a big-time album deal with Island Records (after their previous label, CBS Records, abandoned them). [1] The band’s deal with Island Records was unheard of at the time; the group was advanced £4,000 to make an album.

Their first album with Island, Catch a Fire , saw The Wailers tour the US opening for acts like Bruce Springsteen and Sly and the Family Stone. The record itself may not have been a smash, but it was only the beginning.

Groundbreaking Albums and Hits

Through the years, Bob Marley and his band produced some standout records with Island, such as:

• Burnin’ – On Burnin’ , Marley and his crew hit their stride. This record has the mega-hits “Get Up, Stand Up” and “I Shot the Sheriff,” as well as some other powerful songs.
• Natty Dread – This was the first album to be released under the Bob Marley and the Wailers moniker, and it features the iconic track “No Woman, No Cry.” The tour for Natty Dread also spawned a fourth record, Bob Marley and the Wailers Live! —a musical tour de force that’ll make anyone a fan.
• Exodus – Released in 1977, Exodus was Marley’s ninth studio record and arguably his most popular. Well-known tracks include “Jamming,” “Three Little Birds,” and “One Love/People Get Ready.”

Rastaman Vibration – Another Island Records classic, this album features the poignant anthem “War,” along with a handful of excellent songs that feel at home on any reggae music playlist.

There are also must-listen hits from across Marley’s career that don’t feature on these albums. Crank up your speakers and give these tracks a spin:

• Could You Be Loved
• Buffalo Soldier
• Redemption Song
• Is This Love
• Sun is Shining
• Smile Jamaica
• Punky Reggae Party

To date, Marley’s records have sold more than 75 million copies, gracing turntables around the globe. [1]

Political Activism and Rastafari

If Marley had stuck only to music, he still would have been one of the most influential figures of our time. However, his contributions to the world went beyond the rhythm and melodies of reggae.

Marley’s Rastafarian Beliefs

Bob Marley didn’t invent Rastafari, but he certainly popularized it. Developed in the 1930s in Jamaica, Rastafari is a religion, a political movement, and a way of life. [2] It’s a combination of Protestantism, mysticism, and political consciousness that promotes belief in a single God known as Jah.

Marley’s return to Jamaica after working in Delaware saw him formally convert to Rastafari, wearing his hair in dreadlocks and promoting the use of the holy herb, marijuana (or “ganja”).

Throughout his musical career, Marley shared the Rastafarian beliefs with the world, though he converted to Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity before his death.

Political Influence and Advocacy

Marley was also a pro-peace, pro-African advocate who made politics a central part of his music. Listen to some of his songs, and you’ll hear the message loud and clear: “Better to die fighting for freedom than to be a prisoner all the days of your life.”

A revolutionary for his entire career, Marley’s fight against colonialism and racism will always be remembered—particularly in Zimbabwe, where the group performed on the day that former British colony Rhodesia was renamed. [3]

The Battle with Cancer and His Final Days

Like all good stories, this one also has an end. However, the final years of Marley’s career were just as bright as the first ones, filled with worldwide tours and successful albums.

Diagnosis and Treatment

In 1977, Marley was diagnosed with skin cancer on his big toe. Despite this news, Marley continued touring and recording, playing to bigger and bigger crowds.

Unfortunately, during that time, the cancer spread to his liver, lungs and brain. Two days after Marley received this news, he played his final show on September 23, 1980, in Pittsburgh.

Although he received treatment for his illness, Marley eventually passed away on May 11, 1981, surrounded by loved ones in a hospital in Miami.

Legacy and Posthumous Recognition

Of course, the story doesn’t truly end there. Since his passing, Bob Marley has continued to change the world through his activism, his children, and his music.

Some of his biggest accomplishments happened years after his death; Marley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001. [4]

Marley’s 11 kids also carry on his legacy; they are:

• Sharon Marley
• Cedella Marley
• David “Ziggy” Marley
• Stephen Marley
• Robert Marley
• Rohan Marley
• Karen Marley
• Stephanie Marley
• Julian Marley
• Ky-Mani Marley
• Damian Marley

Between the songs on the radio, the countless reggae cover bands, and the presence of Rastafari around the world, it’s clear that Bob Marley’s influence has—and always will—have an impact.

Bob Marley’s Enduring Connection with House of Marley

At House of Marley, we, too, carry on Bob’s legacy, melding a love of music with respect for the planet. All our portable speakers, turntables, and headphones are made from eco-conscious materials that reflect a love for the environment and for every listener.

And sustainable materials are only the beginning of our thoughtful approach.

House of Marley’s Commitment to Upholding Marley’s Legacy

We uphold the legacy of Bob Marley through several initiatives.

Our Project Marley Global Giving initiative has helped us care for the environment that supports us all. For example, since 2017, House of Marley has contributed to the planting of over 340,000 trees through One Tree Planted .

In 2023, meanwhile, we partnered with the Surfrider Foundation to protect our oceans and waterways. These are just some of the ways we’re making a difference.

Bob Marley may not have been around for the creation of House of Marley, but we’d like to think he’d be proud of our accomplishments. We certainly are.

Biography. Bob Marley . https://www.biography.com/musicians/bob-marley

Encyclopedia Britannica. Rastafari. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Rastafari

House of Marley's eco-conscious identity was created in collaboration with the Marley family to carry on Bob Marley's legacy of love for music and planet. Our philosophy is built around the themes of sustainability and commitment to charitable causes, particularly those related to the environment.

Learn more...

We Plant Trees

Our Project Marley Global Giving initiative was created in honor of the legendary Bob Marley and his respect for the earth and people. In addition to creating audio products that are better for the earth, we are also devoted to supporting global reforestation via One Tree Planted

30 Day Returns

If you are not entirely happy with your purchase, we're here to help! Returns of merchandise purchased from this website may be made within 30 days of receipt for a full refund of cost of the merchandise.

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• LEGACY Series

Dedicated to the life & legacy of Tuff Gong.

LIFE & LEGACY

The Bob Marley biography provides testament to the unparalleled influence of his artistry upon global culture. Since his passing on May 11, 1981, Bob Marley’s legend looms larger than ever, as evidenced by an ever-lengthening list of accomplishments attributable to his music, which identified oppressors and agitated for social change while simultaneously allowing listeners to forget their troubles and dance.

Bob Marley was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994; in December 1999, his 1977 album “Exodus” was named Album of the Century by Time Magazine and his song “One Love” was designated Song of the Millennium by the BBC. Since its release in 1984, Marley’s “Legend” compilation has annually sold over 250,000 copies according to Nielsen Sound Scan, and it is only the 17th album to exceed sales of 10 million copies since SoundScan began its tabulations in 1991.

Bob Marley’s music was never recognized with a Grammy nomination but in 2001 he was bestowed The Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, an honor given by the Recording Academy to “performers who during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording.” That same year, a feature length documentary about Bob Marley’s life, Rebel Music, directed by Jeremy Marre, was nominated for a Grammy for Best Long Form Music Video documentary. In 2001 Bob Marley was accorded the 2171st star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame by the Hollywood Historic Trust and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, in Hollywood, California. As a recipient of this distinction, Bob Marley joined musical legends including Carlos Santana, Stevie Wonder and The Temptations.

In 2006 an eight block stretch of Brooklyn’s bustling Church Avenue, which runs through the heart of that city’s Caribbean community, was renamed Bob Marley Boulevard, the result of a campaign initiated by New York City councilwoman Yvette D. Clarke. This year the popular TV show Late Night with Jimmy Fallon commemorated the 30th anniversary of Bob Marley’s passing with an entire week (May 9-13) devoted to his music, as performed by Bob’s eldest son Ziggy, Jennifer Hudson, Lauryn Hill, Lenny Kravitz and the show’s house band The Roots. These triumphs are all the more remarkable considering Bob Marley’s humble beginnings and numerous challenges he overcame attempting to gain a foothold in Jamaica’s chaotic music industry while skillfully navigating the politically partisan violence that abounded in Kingston throughout the 1970s.

One of the 20th century’s most charismatic and challenging performers, Bob Marley’s renown now transcends the role of reggae luminary: he is regarded as a cultural icon who implored his people to know their history “coming from the root of King David, through the line of Solomon,” as he sang on “Blackman Redemption”; Bob urged his listeners to check out the “Real Situation” and to rebel against the vampiric “Babylon System”. “Bob had a rebel type of approach, but his rebelliousness had a clearly defined purpose to it,” acknowledges Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records, who played a pivotal role in the Bob Marley biography by introducing Marley and the Wailers to an international audience. “It wasn’t just mindless rebelliousness, he was rebelling against the circumstances in which he and so many people found themselves.”

Bob Marley was born Robert Nesta Marley on February 6, 1945. Bob was born to Cedella Marley when she was 18. Bob’s early life was spent in rural community of Nine Miles, nestled in the mountainous terrain of the parish of St. Ann. Residents of Nine Miles have preserved many customs derived from their African ancestry especially the art of storytelling as a means of sharing the past and time-tested traditions that are oftentimes overlooked in official historical sources. The proverbs, fables and various chores associated with rural life that were inherent to Bob’s childhood would provide a deeper cultural context and an aura of mysticism to his adult songwriting.

Norval and Cedella married in 1945 but Captain Marley’s family strongly disapproved of their union; although the elder Marley provided financial support, the last time Bob Marley saw his father was when he was five years old; at that time, Norval took his son to Kingston to live with his nephew, a businessman, and to attend school. Eighteen months later Cedella learned that Bob wasn’t going to school and was living with an elderly couple. Alarmed, she went to Kingston, found Bob and brought him home to Nine Miles.

The next chapter in the Bob Marley biography commenced in the late 1950s when Bob, barely into his teens, left St. Ann and returned to Jamaica’s capital. He eventually settled in the western Kingston vicinity of Trench Town, so named because it was built over a sewage trench. A low-income community comprised of squatter-settlements and government yards developments that housed a minimum of four families, Bob Marley quickly learned to defend himself against Trench Town’s rude boys and bad men. Bob’s formidable street-fighting skills earned him the respectful nickname Tuff Gong.

Despite the poverty, despair and various unsavory activities that sustained some ghetto dwellers, Trench Town was also a culturally rich community where Bob Marley’s abundant musical talents were nurtured. A lifelong source of inspiration, Bob immortalized Trench Town in his songs “No Woman No Cry” (1974), “Trench Town Rock” (1975) and “Trench Town”, the latter released posthumously in 1983.

By the early 1960s the island’s music industry was beginning to take shape, and its development gave birth to an indigenous popular Jamaican music form called ska. A local interpretation of American soul and R&B, with an irresistible accent on the offbeat, ska exerted a widespread influence on poor Jamaican youth while offering a welcomed escape from their otherwise harsh realities. Within the burgeoning Jamaican music industry, the elusive lure of stardom was now a tangible goal for many ghetto youths.

Uncertain about the prospects of a music career for her son, Cedella encouraged Bob to pursue a trade. When Bob left school at 14 years old she found him a position as a welder’s apprentice, which he reluctantly accepted. After a short time on the job a tiny steel splinter became embedded in Bob’s eye. Following that incident, Bob promptly quit welding and solely focused on his musical pursuits.

At 16 years old Bob Marley met another aspiring singer Desmond Dekker, who would go on to top the UK charts in 1969 with his single “Israelites”. Dekker introduced Marley to another young singer, Jimmy Cliff, future star of the immortal Jamaican film “The Harder They Come”, who, at age 14, had already recorded a few hit songs. In 1962, Cliff introduced Marley to producer Leslie Kong; Marley cut his first singles for Kong: “Judge Not”, “Terror” and “One More Cup of Coffee”, a cover of the million selling country hit by Claude Gray. When these songs failed to connect with the public, Marley was paid a mere $20.00, an exploitative practice that was widespread during the infancy of Jamaica’s music business. Bob Marley reportedly told Kong he would make a lot of money from his recordings one day but he would never be able to enjoy it. Years later, when Kong released a best of The Wailers compilation against the group’s wishes, he suffered a fatal heart attack at age 37.

In 1963 Bob Marley and his childhood friend Neville Livingston a.k.a. Bunny Wailer began attending vocal classes held by Trench Town resident Joe Higgs, a successful singer who mentored many young singers in the principles of rhythm, harmony and melody. In his Trench Town yard, Higgs introduced Bob and Bunny to Peter (Macintosh) Tosh and The Bob Marley and the Wailers legend was born. The trio quickly became good friends so the formation of a vocal group, The Wailing Wailers, was a natural progression; Higgs played a pivotal role in guiding their musical direction. Additional Wailing Wailers members included Junior Braithwaite, Beverly Kelso, and Cherry Smith but they departed after just a few recording sessions.

Bob, Bunny and Peter were introduced to Clement Sir Coxsone Dodd, a sound system operator turned producer; Dodd was also the founder of the seminal Jamaican record label Studio One. With their soulful harmonies, influenced primarily by American vocal group Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions, and lyrics that echoed the struggles facing Jamaica’s poor, the Wailers attained a sizeable local following. The Wailers’ first single for Studio One “Simmer Down”, with Bob cautioning the ghetto youths to control their tempers or “the battle would be hotter”, reportedly sold over 80,000 copies. The Wailers went on to record several hits for Coxsone including “Rude Boy”, “I’m Still Waiting,” and an early version of “One Love”, the song the BBC would designate as the Song of the Century some thirty-five years later.

By the mid 60s, the jaunty ska beat had metamorphosed into the slower paced rocksteady sound, which soon gave way to Jamaica’s signature reggae rhythm around 1968. Dodd had not made a corresponding shift in his label’s releases nor did he embrace the proliferation of lyrics imbued with Rastafarian beliefs that were essential to reggae’s development. Declining sales of the Wailers’ Studio One singles compounded by a lack of proper financial compensation from Dodd prompted their departure from Studio One.

Cedella Booker, meanwhile, decided to relocate to the US state of Delaware in 1966. That same year Bob Marley married Rita Anderson and joined his mother in Delaware for a few months, where he worked as a DuPont lab assistant and on an assembly line at a Chrysler plant under the alias Donald Marley.

In his absence from Jamaica, His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I visited the island from April 21-24, 1966. His Majesty is revered as Lord and Savior, according to Rastafarian beliefs and his visit to Jamaica had a profound impact upon Rita and Bob. Bob soon adopted the Rastafarian way of life and began wearing his hair in dreadlocks.

Upon Bob’s return to Jamaica, The Wailers established the Wail’N Soul’M label & record shop in front of his aunt’s Trench Town home. The label’s name identified its primary acts: The Wailers and The Soulettes, a female vocal trio featuring Rita Marley. A few successful Wailers’ singles were released including “Bend Down Low” and “Mellow Mood” but due to lack of resources, the Wailers dissolved Wail’N Soul’M in 1968.

As the 1970s commenced, soaring unemployment, rationed food supplies, pervasive political violence and the IMF’s stranglehold on the Jamaican economy due to various structural adjustment policies heavily influenced the keen social consciousness that came to define Bob’s lyrics.

In 1970, the Wailers forged a crucial relationship with Jamaican producer Lee “Scratch” Perry, a pioneer in the development of dub, the reggae offshoot where the drum and bass foundation is moved to the forefront. Perry wisely paired The Wailers with the nucleus of his studio band The Upsetters, brothers Carlton and Aston “Family Man” Barrett, respectively playing drums and bass. Collectively, they forged a revolutionary sonic identity, as heard on tracks like “Duppy Conqueror”, “400 Years” and “Soul Rebel”, which established an enduring paradigm for roots reggae. The Wailers’ collaborations with Perry were featured on the album “Soul Rebels” (1970) the first Wailers album released in the UK. The Wailers’ reportedly severed their relationship with Perry when they realized he was the sole recipient of royalties from the sales of “Soul Rebels”.

In 1971 Bob Marley went to Sweden to collaborate on a film score with American singer Johnny Nash. Bob secured a contract with Nash’s label CBS Records and by early 1972 The Wailers were in London promoting their single “Reggae On Broadway”; CBS, however, had little faith in Marley and The Wailers’ success and abruptly abandoned the group there. Marley paid a chance visit to the London offices of Island Records and the result was a meeting with label founder Chris Blackwell. Marley sought the finances to record a single but Blackwell suggested the group record an album and advanced them £4,000, an unheard of sum to be given to a Jamaican act.

Island’s top reggae star Jimmy Cliff had recently left the label and Blackwell saw Marley as the ideal artist to fill that void and attract an audience primed for rock music. “I was dealing with rock music, which was really rebel music and I felt that would really be the way to break Jamaican music. But you needed someone who could be that image. When Bob walked in he really was that image,” Blackwell once reflected. Despite their “rude boy” reputation, the Wailers returned to Kingston and honored their agreement with Blackwell. They delivered their “Catch A Fire” album in April 1973 to extensive international media fanfare. Tours of Britain and the US were quickly arranged and the life of Bob Marley was forever changed. Bunny Wailer refused to participate in the US leg of the “Catch A Fire” tour so the Wailers’ mentor Joe Higgs served as his replacement. Their US gigs included an opening slot for a then-relatively-unknown Bruce Springsteen in New York City. The Wailers toured with Sly and the Family Stone, who were at their peak in the early 70s, but were removed after just four dates because their riveting performances, reportedly, upstaged the headliner.

Following the successful “Catch A Fire” tour, the Wailers promptly recorded their second album for Island Records, “Burnin”, which was released in October 1973. Featuring some of Bob’s most celebrated songs “Burnin” introduced their timeless anthem of insurgency “Get Up Stand Up” and “I Shot The Sheriff”, which Eric Clapton covered and took to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1974; Clapton’s cover significantly elevated Bob Marley’s international profile, the same year that Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer left the group.

Bob Marley’s third album for Island Records, “Natty Dread”, released in October 1974, was the first credited to Bob Marley and The Wailers; the harmonies of Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer were replaced with the soulfulness of the I-Threes—Rita Marley, Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt. The Wailers band now included Family Man and Carly Barrett, Al Anderson on lead guitar, Tyrone Downie on keyboards and Alvin “Seeco” Patterson playing percussion. Session musicians for the album also included Bernard “Touter” Harvey and Jean Roussel on piano/organ, while Lee Jaffe sometimes played harmonica with the band live. Characterized by spiritually and socially conscious lyrics, the “Natty Dread” album included a rousing, blues-influenced celebration of reggae, “Lively Up Yourself”, which Bob used to open many of his concerts; the joy he experienced among friends amidst the struggles of his Trench Town youth is poignantly conveyed on “No Woman No Cry”, while the essential title track played a significant role in introducing Rastafarian culture and philosophies to the world. A commercial as well as a critical success, “Natty Dread” peaked at no. 44 on Billboard’s Black Albums chart, no. 92 on the Pop Albums chart, and no. 43 in the UK album charts. In 2003, the album was ranked No. 181 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

The following year Bob embarked on a highly successful European tour in support of “Natty Dread”, which included two nights at London’s Lyceum Theater. The Lyceum performances were captured on Bob’s next release for Island, “Bob Marley and the Wailers Live!”, which featured a melancholy version of “No Woman No Cry” that reached the UK top 40.

Bob Marley catapulted to international stardom in 1976 with the release of “Rastaman Vibration”, peaking at no. 8 on the Billboard Top 200. With the inclusion of “Crazy Baldhead”, which decries “brainwash education” and the stirring title cut, “Rastaman Vibration” presented a clearer understanding of Rastafari teachings to the mainstream audience that was now attentively listening to Bob. Also included was “War”, its lyrics adapted from an impassioned speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 1963, delivered by Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I, whom Rastafarians consider a living God. Thirty-five years after its initial release “War” remains an unassailable anthem of equality, its empowering spirit embraced by dispossessed people everywhere.

As 1976 drew to a close Bob Marley was now regarded as a global reggae ambassador who had internationally popularized Rastafarian beliefs. At home, that distinction fostered an immense sense of pride among those who embraced Bob’s messages. But Bob’s expanding influence was also a point of contention for others in Jamaica, which was brutally divided by political alliances. With the intention of suppressing simmering tensions between Jamaica’s rivaling People’s National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labor Party (JLP), Bob decided to put on a (non partisan) free concert for the people, Smile Jamaica, to be held on December 5, 1976 in Kingston. Two days prior to the event, as Bob Marley and The Wailers rehearsed at his Kingston home, an unsuccessful assassination attempt was made on his life. Gunmen sprayed Bob’s residence with bullets, but miraculously, no one was killed; Bob escaped with minor gunshot wounds, and Rita underwent surgery to remove a bullet that grazed her head, but she was released from the hospital the next day. Bob’s manager Don Taylor was shot five times and critically wounded; he was airlifted to Miami’s Cedars of Lebanon Hospital for the removal of a bullet lodged against his spinal cord.

If the ambush in the night at Bob Marley’s home was an attempt to prevent him from performing at the Smile Jamaica concert or a warning intended to silence the revolutionary spirit within his music, then it had failed. Bob defiantly performed “War” at the Smile Jamaica concert, which reportedly drew 80,000 people, but shortly thereafter he went into seclusion and few people knew of his whereabouts.

The reality was, Bob had flown to London (after a couple of weeks stay in the Bahamas), where he would live for the next 14 months. There, he recorded the albums “Exodus” (1977) and most of “Kaya” (1978); with some work on the latter being finished in Miami. Exodus’ title track provided a call for change, “the movement of JAH people”, incorporating spiritual and political concerns into its groundbreaking amalgam of reggae, rock and soul-funk. It was during this time in London, that lead guitarist Junior Marvin joined the band; Marvin had worked with Stevie Wonder and was about to join his band, but opted instead to join The Wailers because he believed in the message. A second single, the sultry dance tune “Jamming” became a British top 10 hit. The “Exodus” album remained on the UK charts for a staggering 56 consecutive weeks, bringing a level of commercial success to Bob Marley and the Wailers that had previously eluded the band.

In a more laid back vein, the “Kaya” album hit no. 4 on the British charts, propelled by the popularity of the romantic singles “Satisfy My Soul” and “Is This Love?”. Kaya’s title track extols the herb Marley used throughout his lifetime; the somber “Running Away,” and the haunting “Time Will Tell” are deep reflections on the December 1976 assassination attempt. The release of “Kaya” coincided with Bob Marley’s triumphant return to Jamaica for a performance at the One Love Peace Concert, held on April 22, 1978 at Kingston’s National Stadium. The event was another effort aimed at curtailing the rampant violence stemming from the senseless PNP-JLP rivalries; the event featured 16 prominent reggae acts and was dubbed a “Third World Woodstock”. In the concert’s most memorable moment, Bob Marley summoned JLP leader Edward Seaga and Prime Minister Michael Manley onstage. As the Wailers pumped out the rhythm to “Jamming”, Bob urged the politicians to shake hands; clasping his left hand over theirs, he raised their arms aloft and chanted “JAH Rastafari”. In recognition of his courageous attempt to bridge Jamaica’s cavernous political divide, Bob traveled to the United Nations in New York where he received the organization’s Medal of Peace on June 15, 1978.

At the end of 1978 Bob made his first trip to Africa, visiting Kenya and Ethiopia, the latter being the spiritual home of Rastafari. During his Ethiopian sojourn, Bob stayed in Shashamane, a communal settlement situated on 500-acres of land donated by His Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I to Rastafarians that choose to repatriate to Ethiopia. Marley also traveled to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, where he visited several sites significant to His Majesty’s life and ancient Ethiopian history.

That same year Bob Marley and The Wailers’ tours of Europe and America were highlighted on their second critically acclaimed live album “Babylon By Bus”. In April 1979, Bob and The Wailers also toured Japan, Australia and New Zealand, where the indigenous Maori people greeted them with a traditional welcoming ceremony typically reserved for visiting dignitaries.

Bob released “Survival”, his ninth album for Island, in the fall of 1979. Featuring now-iconic songs such as “Wake Up and Live”, “So Much Trouble In The World”, “One Drop”, “Ambush In The Night” – his definitive statement on the 1976 assassination attempt – as well as the album’s title track, “Survival” is a brilliant, politically progressive work championing pan-African solidarity. “Survival” also included “Africa Unite” and “Zimbabwe”, the latter an anthem for the soon-to-be liberated colony of Rhodesia. In April 1980, Bob and the Wailers performed at Zimbabwe’s official Independence Ceremony at the invitation of the country’s newly-elected president, Robert Mugabe. This profound honor reconfirmed the importance of Bob Marley and The Wailers throughout the African Diaspora and reggae’s significance as a unifying and liberating force.

Unbeknownst to the band, the Zimbabwe Independence concert was solely for a select group of media and political dignitaries. As Bob Marley and The Wailers started their set, pandemonium ensued among the enormous crowd gathered outside the entrance to the Rufaro Sports Stadium—the gates broke apart as Zimbabweans surged forward to see the musicians who inspired their liberation struggle. Clouds of tear gas drifted into the stadium; the Wailers were overcome with fumes and left the stage. The I-Threes returned to their hotel but Bob Marley went back onstage and performed “Zimbabwe”. The following evening, Bob Marley and the Wailers returned to Rufaro Stadium and put on a free show for a crowd of nearly 80,000.

The final album to be released in Bob’s lifetime, “Uprising”, helped to fulfill another career objective. Bob had openly been courting an African American listenership throughout his career and he made a profound connection to that demographic with “Could You Be Loved”, which incorporated a danceable reggae-disco fusion. “Could You Be Loved” reached no. 6 and no. 56 respectively on Billboard’s Club Play Singles and Black Singles charts. “Uprising” also included contemplative odes to Bob’s Rastafarian beliefs, “Zion Train” and “Forever Loving Jah”, and the deeply moving “Redemption Song” a stark, acoustic declaration of enduring truths and profoundly personal musings; Angelique Kidjo, the Clash’s Joe Strummer, U2’s Bono, Sinead O’Connor and Rihanna are but five of the dozens of artists who have recorded versions of “Redemption Song”.

Bob Marley and The Wailers embarked on a major European tour in the spring & summer of 1980, breaking attendance records in several countries. In Milan, Italy, they performed before 110,000 people, the largest audience of their career. The US leg of the “Uprising” tour commenced in Boston on September 16 at the JB Hynes Auditorium. On September 19, Bob and the Wailers rolled into New York City for two consecutive sold out nights at Madison Square Garden as part of a bill featuring New York-based rapper Kurtis Blow, and The Commodores. The tour went onto the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, Pa. where Bob delivered the final set of his illustrious career on September 23, 1980.

The Pittsburgh show took place just two days after Marley learned the cancer that had taken root in his big toe in 1977, revealed following a football injury, had metastasized and spread throughout his body. Bob courageously fought the disease for eight months, even traveling to Germany to undergo treatment at the clinic of Dr. Josef Issels. At the beginning of May 1981, Bob left Germany to return to Jamaica but he did not complete that journey; he succumbed to his cancer in a Miami hospital on May 11, 1981.

The Bob Marley biography doesn’t end there. In April 1981 Bob Marley was awarded Jamaica’s third highest honor, the Order of Merit, for his outstanding contribution to his country’s culture. Ten days after Bob Marley’s death, he was given a state funeral as the Honorable Robert Nesta Marley O.M. by the Jamaican government, attended by Prime Minister Edward Seaga and the Opposition Party Leader Michael Manley. Hundreds of thousands of spectators lined the streets to observe the procession of cars that wound its way from Kingston to Bob’s final resting place, a mausoleum in his birthplace of Nine Miles. The Bob Marley and the Wailers legend lives on, however, and forty years after Bob Marley’s transition, his music remains as vital as ever in its celebration of life and embodiment of struggle.

The Bob Marley influence upon various populations remains unparalleled, irrespective of race, color or creed. Bob Marley’s revolutionary-yet-unifying music, challenging colonialism, racism, “fighting against ism and scism” as he sang in “One Drop”, has had profound effects even in countries where English isn’t widely spoken. In August 2008, two musicians from the war-scarred countries of Serbia and Croatia (formerly provinces within Yugoslavia) unveiled a statue of Bob Marley during a rock music festival in Serbia; the monument’s inscription read “Bob Marley, Fighter For Freedom, Armed With A Guitar”. “Marley was chosen because he promoted peace and tolerance in his music,” said Mirko Miljus, an organizer of the event.

In Koh Lipe, Thailand, Bob Marley’s February 6th birthday is celebrated for three days with a cultural festival. In New Zealand, his life and music are now essential components of Waitangi Day (February 6) observances honoring the unifying treaty signed between the country’s European settlers and its indigenous Maori population. When Bob visited New Zealand for a concert at Auckland’s Western Springs Stadium on April 16, 1979, the Maori greeted him with a traditional song and dance ceremony reserved for visiting dignitaries. Marley’s former manager, the late Don Taylor, referred to the Maori welcoming ritual as “one of my most treasured memories of the impact of Bob and reggae music on the world”.

On April 18, 1980 when the former British colony of Rhodesia was liberated and officially renamed Zimbabwe, and the Union Jack replaced with the red, gold, green and black Zimbabwean flag, it is said that the first words officially spoken in the new nation were “ladies and gentlemen, Bob Marley and the Wailers”. For the Zimbabwean freedom fighters that listened to Bob Marley, inspiration and strength were drawn from his empowering lyrics. Marley penned a tribute to their efforts, “Zimbabwe”, which was included on the most overtly political album of his career, 1979’s “Survival” and he was invited to headline their official liberation celebrations. Zimbabwean police used tear gas to control the crowds that stampeded through the gates of Harare’s Rufaro Stadium to get a glimpse of Marley onstage. As several members of Marley’s entourage fled for cover, he returned to the stage to perform “Zimbabwe”, his words resounding with a greater urgency amidst the ensuing chaos: “to divide and rule could only tear us apart, in every man chest, there beats a heart/so soon we’ll find out who is the real revolutionaries and I don’t want my people to be contrary.” “There was smoke everywhere, our eyes filled with tears so we ran off,” recalls Marcia Griffiths, who sang backup for Marley, alongside Rita Marley and Judy Mowatt, as the I-Threes. “When Bob saw us the next day he smiled and said now we know who are the real revolutionaries.”

A generation later a group of political refugees from Sierra Leone living in Guinean concentration camps and traumatized by years of bloody warfare in their country, found through the music of Bob Marley, inspiration to form their own band and write and record their own songs. The Refugee All Stars won international acclaim for their 2006 debut “Living Like A Refugee” and their 2010 album “Rise and Shine”, each utilizing a blend of reggae, Sierra Leone’s Islamic rooted bubu music and West African goombay.

Further evidence of Bob Marley’s ongoing influence arrived on October 13, 2010 when Victor Zamora, one of 33 Chilean miners rescued after being trapped in a San Jose mine for 69 days, asked to hear Marley’s “Buffalo Soldier” shortly after his release. Recorded in 1980 and posthumously released in 1983, “Buffalo Soldier” recounts the atrocities of the slave trade. Like so many of Bob Marley’s songs, it highlights the importance of relating past occurrences to present-day identities: “if you know your history then you would know where you’re coming from/then you wouldn’t have to ask me, who the hell do I think I am?”

And in the years since, a number of protests – including 2011’s Occupy Wall St. movement, the 2020 protests against police brutality across the U.S., and many others – have used Bob’s music and message as a voice for their revolutions. The uncompromising sentiments expressed on Bob’s “Get Up Stand Up” in particular are commonplace at these demonstrations, with masses of people around the world chanting: “So now we see the light, we’re gonna stand up for our rights!”

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7 Fascinating Facts About Bob Marley

In addition to selling millions of albums — his retrospective Legend has spent more than 570 weeks on the Billboard Top 200 chart since its 1984 debut—Marley received The United Nations Peace Medal of the Third World in 1978. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. The BBC proclaimed Marley’s “One Love” as Song of the Millennium. And in 2001, Marley was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys.

Marley’s music continues to inspire and influence music, fashion, politics and culture around the world. But as the seven facts below illustrate, he lived an exceptionally full life in a very short amount of time.

He was derogatorily nicknamed “White Boy”

Nesta Robert Marley was born on February 6, 1945, in St. Ann Parish, Jamaica. His father was a white British naval captain named Norval Sinclair Marley, who was nearly 60 at the time. His mother, Cedella, was a 19-year-old country village girl. Because of his mixed racial makeup, Bob was bullied and derogatorily nicknamed “White Boy” by his neighbors. However, he later said the experience helped him develop this philosophy: "I’m not on the white man’s side, or the Black man’s side. I’m on God’s side.”

He liked to spook people by predicting their futures

When he was a small child, Marley seemed to have a knack for spooking people by successfully predicting their futures by reading their palms. At seven, after a year spent living in the ghettos of Kingston, he returned to his rural village and declared that his new destiny was to become a singer. From then on, he refused all requests to read palms. By his early teens, Marley was living in Kingston’s Trench Town, a desperately poor slum.

He and his friends Bunny Livingston (given name, Neville O’Riley Livingston) and Peter Tosh (given name, Winston Hubert McIntosh) spent a lot of time listening to rhythm and blues on American radio stations. They named their band the Wailing Wailers (later shortened to the Wailers) because they were ghetto sufferers. As practicing Rastafarians, they grew their hair in dreadlocks and smoked ganja (marijuana) because they believed it to be a sacred herb that brought enlightenment.

He achieved international stardom

The Wailers recorded for small Jamaican labels throughout the 1960s, during which time ska became the hot sound. Marley’s lyrics took a more spiritual turn, and Jamaican music itself was changing from the bouncy ska beat to the more sensual rhythms of rock steady. When the group signed with Island Records in the early 1970s, they became popular with international audiences.

He produced a string of politically charged albums

When Livingston and Tosh left for solo careers, Marley hired a new band and took center stage as singer, songwriter and rhythm guitarist. He produced a string of politically charged albums that reflected the keen social consciousness that came to define his lyrics. He wrote about the soaring unemployment, rationed food supplies and pervasive political violence he saw in Jamaica, which transformed him into an influential cultural icon.

In 1976, two days before he was set to play a free “Smile Jamaica” concert aimed at reducing tensions between warring political factions, an unknown gunman attacked him and his entourage. Though bullets grazed Bob and his wife Rita Marley, they electrified a crowd of 80,000 people when both took to the stage with the Wailers. The gesture of defiant survival heightened his legend and further galvanized his political outlook, resulting in the most militant albums of his career.

Marley had several children and adopted children as well

A little history of Marley and his wife Rita: He married her at 21 (she was a Sunday school teacher at the time) and stayed married to her until his death. He adopted her daughter and they had four children together during their marriage. Marley also had at least eight more children with eight different women. Rumors allude to several other unclaimed children but those named officially are Imani, Sharon, Cedella, David (aka Ziggy) , Stephen, Robbie, Rohan, Karen, Stephanie, Julian, Ky-Mani, Damian and Madeka.

He is the front of a global marijuana brand

As celebrity endorsements go, it certainly seems like a perfect fit: Under the label Marley Natural, the reggae icon fronts a global marijuana brand. Products include the “heirloom Jamaican cannabis strains”—purportedly the very same one Marley himself enjoyed—along with smoking accessories, creams, lotions and other items. Marley’s daughter Cedella calls the brand an “authentic way to honor his legacy by adding his voice to the conversation about cannabis and helping end the social harms caused by prohibition. My dad would be so happy to see people understanding the healing power of the herb.”

He's one of the top-earning dead celebrities

In late 2018, Forbes Magazine listed Marley as fifth on the list of the highest-earning dead celebrities. In addition to Marley Natural, his family has also licensed brands of coffee, audio equipment, apparel and lifestyle goods. Of course, Marley has also sold more than 75 million albums in the past two decades. Legend , a retrospective of his work, is the best-selling reggae album ever. More than 12 million copies have been sold internationally and several thousand new units sell every week.

Marley died of cancer on May 11, 1981, in Miami. His body was flown back to Jamaica to be buried and, in one day, 40,000 people filed past his coffin as his body lay in state in Jamaica’s National Arena.

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The Life and Times of Bob Marley

By Mikal Gilmore

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B ob Marley was already dying when he stood onstage in Pittsburgh that night, in September 1980. He had developed a malignant melanoma — an incurable cancer, by this time — that he had let progress unchecked, for reasons that he probably could not fathom at this hour. He was a man with no time, with a mission that no one in popular music had ever attempted before. In the past few years, he had managed to popularize reggae — a music that had once sounded strange and foreign to many ears — and to convey the truths of his troubled homeland, Jamaica, for a mass audience. Now he wanted to find ways to put across truths about people outside Jamaica and America, England and Europe. He wanted to speak for a world outside familiar borders — a world his audience didn’t yet know enough about.

He wouldn’t see that dream fulfilled. He would be dead in a few months, his body sealed in a mausoleum back in that troubled homeland of his.

But something fascinating has happened since Bob Marley died twenty-four years ago: He has continued. It isn’t simply that his records still sell in substantial numbers (though they do), it’s that his mission might still have a chance. It isn’t a simple mission. Marley wasn’t singing about how peace could come easily to the world but rather about how hell on earth comes too easily to too many. He knew the conditions he was singing about. His songs weren’t about theory or conjecture, or an easy distant compassion. His songs were his memories; he had lived with the wretched, he had seen the downpressors and those whom they pressed down, he had been shot at. It was his ability to describe all this in palpable and authentic ways that sustains his body of music unlike any other we’ve ever known.

Bob Marley made hell tuneful, like nobody before or since. That’s what has kept him alive.

R obert Nesta Marley was born in a small rural Jamaican village called Nine Miles. His father was a white man, Capt. Norval Marley, a superintendent of lands for the British government, which had colonized Jamaica in the 1660s. Marley’s mother, Cedella, was a young black woman, descended from the Cromantee tribe, who as slaves had staged the bloodiest uprisings in the island’s plantation era. Capt. Marley seduced Cedella, age seventeen, promising her marriage, as he re-enacted an age-old scenario of white privilege over black service. When Cedella became pregnant, the captain kept his promise — but left her the next day rather than face disinheritance.

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The couple’s only child arrived in the early part of 1945, as World War II neared its end. Nobody is certain of the exact date — it was listed on Bob’s passport as April 6th, but Cedella was sure it was two months earlier. It took her a long time to record the birth with the registrar; she was afraid, she later said, she’d get in trouble for having a child with a white man. While mixed-race couplings weren’t rare, they also weren’t welcome, and generally it was the child of these unions who bore the scorn. But Marley’s mixed inheritance gave him a valuable perspective. Though he became increasingly devoted in his life to the cause of speaking to the black diaspora — that population throughout the world that had been scattered or colonized as the result of the slave trade and imperialism — he never expressed hatred for white people but rather hatred for one people’s undeserved power to subjugate another people. Marley understood that the struggle for power might result in bloodshed, but he also maintained that if humankind failed to stand together, it would fail to stand at all.

I n the 1950s, Cedella moved to Kingston — the only place in Jamaica where any future of consequence could be realized. She and her son made their home in a government tenant yard, a crowded area where poor people lived, virtually all of them black. The yard they settled in, Trench Town, was made up of row upon row of cheap corrugated metal and tar-paper one-room shacks, generally with no plumbing. It was a place where your dreams might raise you or kill you, but you would have to live and act hard in either case. To Cedella’s dismay, her son began to come into his own there — to find a sense of community and purpose amid rough conditions and rough company, including the local street gangs. These gangs evolved soon enough into a faction called Rude Boys — teenagers and young adults who dressed sharp, acted insolent and knew how to fight. Kingston hated the Rude Boys, and police and politicians had vowed to eradicate them.

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It was in this setting of grim delimitation that Marley first found what would give his life purpose: Kingston’s burgeoning and eccentric rhythm & blues scene. In the late 1940s, Jamaican youth had started to catch the fever of America’s urban popular music — in particular, the earthy and polyrhythmic dance and blues sounds of New Orleans. By the 1960s, Kingston was producing its own form of R&B: a taut, tricky and intense music in which rhythms shifted their accents to the offbeat — almost an inversion of American rock & roll and funk. This new Jamaican music was, like American R&B, the long-term result of how black music survived and evolved as a means of maintaining community in unsympathetic lands. It was music that gave a displaced population a way to tell truths about their lives and a way of claiming victory over daily misery, or at least of finding a respite.

Jamaica’s popular music — from calypso to mento — had always served as a means to spread stories, about neighbors’ moral failures or the overlord society’s duplicity. The commentary could be clever and merciless, and the music that Marley first began to play had the tempo to carry such sharp purposes. It was called ska (after its scratch-board-like rhythms), and just as R&B and rock & roll had been viewed in America as disruptive and immoral, Jamaica’s politicians, ministers and newspapers looked upon ska as trash: a dangerous music from the ghetto that helped fuel the Rude Boys’ violence. But the Rude Boys would soon receive an unexpected jolt of validation.

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Biography of Bob Marley, Iconic Reggae Star

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Bob Marley (born Robert Nesta Marley; February 6, 1945–May 11, 1981) was the most influential Jamaican musician in history, the defining figure of reggae music and a spiritual icon and prophet to many. His music remains globally popular and his work has strong spiritual and political messages. Marley died of cancer in 1981 at age 36.

Fast Facts: Bob Marley

• Known For : The defining figure of reggae music, spiritual icon
• Also Known As : Robert Nesta Marley
• Born : February 6, 1945 in Nine Mile, St. Ann Parish, Jamaica
• Parents : Norval Sinclair Marley and Cedella Malcolm
• Died : May 11, 1981 in Miami, Florida
• Education : Stepney Primary and Junior High School
• Selection of Albums : "The Wailing Wailers," "Soul Rebels," "Catch a Fire," "Burnin'," "Natty Dread," "Rastaman Vibration," "Exodus," "Kaya," "Survival," "Uprising"
• Awards and Honors : Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, Time 's Album of the Century ("Exodus"), BBC's Song of the Millenium ("One Love")
• Spouse: Rita Marley
• Children : 12, including Damian "Jr. Gong," Julian, Ziggy, Stephen, Ky-Mani, Cedelia, Sharon
• Notable Quote : “Babylon is everywhere. You have wrong and you have right. Wrong is what we call Babylon, wrong things. That is what Babylon is to me. I could have born in England, I could have born in America, it make no difference where me born, because there is Babylon everywhere.”

Bob Marley was born in 1945 in Nine Mile, St. Ann Parish, Jamaica. His father Norval Sinclair Marley was a white Englishman who died when Bob was 10 years old. Bob's mother Cedella Malcolm moved with him to Kingston's Trenchtown neighborhood after his father's death.

As a young teen, Bob Marley befriended Bunny Wailer, and they learned to play music together. At 14, Marley dropped out of school to learn the welding trade and spent his spare time jamming with Bunny Wailer and ska musician Joe Higgs.

Early Recordings and the Formation of the Wailers

Bob Marley recorded his first two singles in 1962 while he was still a teenager, but neither garnered much interest at the time. In 1963, he began a ska band with Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh that was originally called "The Teenagers."

Later the band became "The Wailing Rudeboys," then "The Wailing Wailers," and finally just "The Wailers." Their early Studio One hits, which were recorded in the popular rocksteady style, included "Simmer Down" (1964) and "Soul Rebel" (1965), both written by Marley.

Marriage and Religious Conversion

Marley married Rita Anderson in 1966 and spent a few months living in Delaware in the United States with his mother. When Marley returned to Jamaica, he began practicing the Rastafarian faith and started growing his signature dreadlocks.

"The Rastafari Movement," is an Abrahamic faith that believes that Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie was the second coming of the Messiah. Rastafari believe that Western Culture, and Anglo-Saxon culture, in particular, is legendary Babylon, evil, and oppressive. As a devout Rasta, Marley partook in the ritual usage of ganja (marijuana).

Worldwide Success

The Wailers gained popularity in Jamaica during the 1960s with their ska-inflected music and in 1972 they signed with the international label Island. Their 1973 album "Catch a Fire" garnered them worldwide interest. Their 1974 album "Burnin'" contained "I Shot The Sheriff" and "Get Up, Stand Up," both of which gathered cult followings in both the U.S. and Europe.

The same year, however, the Wailers broke up to pursue solo careers. At this point, Marley had made a full transition from ska and rocksteady to a new style, which would forever be called reggae . The word reggae originates from "rege-rege," a slang word for tattered clothing ("rags") and likely refers to its hodgepodge of influences, including both traditional and contemporary  Jamaican music , like ska and  mento , as well as American  R&B . 

Bob Marley & the Wailers

Bob Marley continued to tour and record as "Bob Marley & the Wailers," though he was the only original Wailer in the group. In 1975, "No Woman, No Cry" became Bob Marley's first major breakthrough hit song, and his subsequent album "Rastaman Vibration" became a Billboard Top 10 Album. In a few short years, Bob Marley produced such classic songs as "Exodus," "One Love," "Coming in from the Cold," "Jamming," and "Redemption Song."

Political and Religious Activism

Bob Marley spent much of the late 1970s trying to promote peace and cultural understanding within Jamaica. Marley survived an attempted assassination (along with his wife and manager, who also survived) shortly before a peace concert in 1976, through which Marley was trying to bring a truce between Jamaica's political factions.

Marley also acted as a global cultural ambassador for the Jamaican people and the Rastafarian religion. He remains revered as a prophet by many, and certainly a religious and cultural icon by many more.

In 1977, Marley found a wound on his foot, which he believed to be a soccer injury. It was later discovered to be malignant melanoma. Doctors recommended amputation of his toe, but he refused treatment for religious reasons. The cancer eventually spread. When he finally decided to get medical help in 1980, Marley's cancer had become terminal.

Marley wanted to die in Jamaica, but he could not withstand the flight home and died in Miami on May 11, 1981. He received a state funeral. His final recording, at Pittsburgh's Stanley Theatre, was recorded and released for posterity as "Bob Marley and the Wailers Live Forever."

Bob Marley is revered the world over, both as the defining figure of Jamaican music and as a spiritual leader. His wife Rita carries on his work, and his sons Damian "Jr. Gong," Julian, Ziggy , Stephen, Ky-Mani, as well as his daughters Cedelia and Sharon, carry on his musical legacy (the other siblings do not play music professionally).

Among the awards and honors that have been given to Bob Marley are a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. His songs and albums have also won numerous honors, such as Time magazine's Album of the Century (for "Exodus") and BBC's Song of the Millenium for "One Love."

• Steffens, Roger. So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley. W.W. Norton and Company, 2017.
• White, Timothy.  Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley . Macmillan, 2006.
• White, Timothy. “ Bob Marley .” Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2 Feb. 2019.
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Bob Marley – Biography, Songs, Albums, Discography & Facts

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Discography

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Bob Marley Biography

Robert Nesta Marley was a singer, musician, and songwriter from Jamaica. His musical career was distinguished by merging elements of reggae, ska, and rocksteady, as well as his distinctive voice and compositional approach. He is considered one of the pioneers of reggae. Marley’s contributions to music elevated the profile of Jamaican music over the world, and he remains a global cultural presence to this day. Marley became known as a Rastafari icon during the course of his career, and he blended spirituality into his music. He is also regarded as a global emblem of Jamaican music, culture, and identity, and his vocal support for democratic social reforms proved controversial. Marley escaped an attempted assassination in his house in 1976, which was suspected to be politically motivated. He was also a supporter of marijuana legalization and a proponent of Pan-Africanism.

Marley began his professional musical career in 1963, after forming the Teenagers with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, which later became the Wailers following multiple name changes. The Wailing Wailers’ debut studio album, The Wailing Wailers, was released in 1965 and featured the track “One Love,” a rearrangement of “People Get Ready,” which became a worldwide hit and established the group as a rising reggae star. The Wailers went on to make eleven more studio albums after joining with Island Records, and their name was changed to Bob Marley and the Wailers.

While the group began using rhythmic-based song composition in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which coincided with Marley’s conversion to Rastafari, they first used louder instrumentation and vocals. Around this time, Marley moved to London, and the Wailers released the album The Best of The Wailers, which symbolized their musical transition (1971).

After signing with Island Records and touring in support of the albums Catch a Fire and Burnin’, the band began to acquire international prominence (both 1973). Marley continued to perform under the Wailers’ name until the band disbanded a year later. Natty Dread (1974), his debut album, was well-received.In 1975, following the worldwide success of Eric Clapton ‘s rendition of Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff,” Marley got his first international smash with a live version of “No Woman, No Cry” from the Live! album. This was followed by Rastaman Vibration (1976), his breakthrough album in the United States, which charted in the Top 50 on the Billboard Soul Charts. Marley escaped an assassination attempt at his home in Jamaica a few months after the album’s release, prompting him to flee permanently to London. He recorded the album Exodus (1977) while in London, which featured elements of blues, soul, and British rock and was a commercial and critical success. Marley was diagnosed with acral lentiginous melanoma in 1977 and died in 1981 as a result of the disease. Fans from all over the world mourned his death, and he was given a state funeral in Jamaica.

Legend, a greatest hits album published in 1984, went on to become the best-selling reggae album of all time. Marley is also one of the most successful musicians of all time, having sold more than 75 million records worldwide. He was posthumously decorated by Jamaica with a designated Order of Merit shortly after his death. He was elected to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. On Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, he came in at No. 11. His other achievements include a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and induction into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame.

Bob Marley Discography

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Considered Bob Marley’s Best Album? Some believe that Bob Marley’s best album is “Exodus”, while others believe that “Legend” is his best work. There is no clear consensus on what album is considered to be Bob Marley’s best, but both “Exodus” and “Legend” are highly acclaimed and well-loved by fans.

What Was Bob Marley Most Successful Song? One of Bob Marley’s most successful and well-known songs is “No Woman, No Cry”. The song was released on the 1974 album “Natty Dread” and became an instant hit. It is considered one of Marley’s signature songs and has been covered by many artists over the years.

Who Owns The Rights To Bob Marley’s Music? The rights to Bob Marley’s music are owned by his estate, which is managed by his widow, Rita Marley. She has ensured that his legacy continues to live on through reissues of his albums and other projects, such as the recent documentary film, MARLEY. The estate also licenses his music for use in films, television, and commercials.

What Was Bob Marley Last Album? Bob Marley’s last album was “Songs of Freedom”. This compilation album was released posthumously in 1992 and featured some of his most popular tracks, including “No Woman, No Cry”, ” Redemption Song”, and “Buffalo Soldier”. It is considered one of the greatest reggae albums of all time.

Which Is Bob Marley Last Song? The last song that Bob Marley ever released was “Redemption Song”. This song is often considered to be one of his most iconic and influential songs, as it deals with themes of freedom and hope. Released just a year before his untimely death, “Redemption Song” serves as a powerful reminder of the legacy that Bob Marley left behind.

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The life and legacy of Bob Marley

Bob Marley - Biography

Bob Marley Biography

Robert Nesta Marley (February 6, 1945 - May 11, 1981), better known as Bob Marley , was a singer , guitarist , songwriter from the ghettos of Jamaica . He is the best known reggae musician of all times, famous for popularising the genre outside of Jamaica. Much of his work deals with the struggles of the impoverished and/or powerless. He has been called the Charles Wesley of the Rastafarian faith for the way he spread Rastafari through his music.

He was the husband of Rita Anderson Marley (who was one of the I Threes , who acted as the Wailers' back up singers after they became a global act). She had 4 of his 9 children, including David Ziggy Marley and Stephen Marley who continue their father's musical legacy in their band The Melody Makers. Another of his sons Damien Marley (aka 'Jr Gong') has also started a career in Music.

Bob Marley was born on February 6, 1945 in Jamaica to Norval Marley, a middle-aged white plantation overseer from England, and Cedella Booker, a black teenager from the north country. Cedella and Norval were to be married on June 9th, 1944. Approximately a week before the wedding, however, Norval informed Cedella that his chronic hernia had begun to trouble him and as a result he would be changing jobs and moving to Kingston. Norval never really knew his son because of the white upper class' disdain for interracial relationships. As a youth, Bob Marley was often the object of bitter ridicule by both white and black Jamaicans for his mixed heritage.

Musical career

Marley started his musical experimentation in ska and gravitated towards reggae as the music evolved, playing, teaching and singing for a long period in the 1970s and 1980s . Marley is perhaps best-known for work with his reggae group 'The Wailers', which included two other celebrated reggae musicians, Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh . Livingstone and Tosh later left the group and went on to become successful solo artists.

Much of Marley's early work was produced by Coxsone Dodd at Studio One . That relationship later deteriorated due to financial pressure, and in the early 1970s he produced what is believed by many to be his finest work with Lee Perry . This pair also split apart, this time over the assignment of recording rights. They did work together again in London, though, and remained friends until Marley's death.

Marley's work was largely responsible for the mainstream cultural acceptance of reggae music outside of Jamaica. He signed to Chris Blackwell 's Island Records label in 1971, at the time a highly influential and innovative label. Island Records boasted a retinue of successful and diverse artists including Genesis , John Martyn and Nick Drake . Though many people believe that Blackwell interfered with what Marley wanted to do with his own music, truth is that the knowledge this producer brought to the scene was critical in Marley's wish to bring reggae to the world.

Religious and political convictions

Marley was well known for his devotion to the Rastafarian religion . It was his wife Rita who first inspired him in his faith , and he then received teachings from Mortimer Planner . He served as a de facto missionary for the faith (his actions and lyrics suggest that this was intentional) and brought it to global attention. Through his music he preached brotherhood and peace for all of mankind. Towards the end of his life he was also baptised into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church with the name Berhane Selassie.

As a Rasta, Bob Marley was a great defender of cannabis which he used as a sacrament. On the cover of Catch a Fire he is seen smoking a big spliff , and the spiritual use of cannabis is mentioned in many of his songs.

In 1976, just two days before a scheduled free concert that Marley and the then Jamaican PM Michael Manley had organized, Marley, his wife Rita and manager Don Taylor, were shot inside the star's 56 Hope Road home. Marley received minor injuries in the arm and chest. Don Taylor took most of the bullets in his legs and torso as he accidentally walked in the line of fire. He was registered in serious condition after he was rushed to the hospital but fully recovered later. Rita also recovered of the head wound she received that night. It is generally believed that this shooting was politically motivated. Jamaican politics being somewhat violent at the time, especially when close to elections time as it was then. The concert was seen as being in support of the progressive prime minister of Jamaica, Michael Manley . It is widely held that he was shot by supporters of the conservative political party of Jamaica, the Jamaica Labour Party . However, there is little evidence to support this. Though the police never caught the gunmen, Marley devotees later 'caught up' with them on the streets of Kingston.

Marley was known to have connections with the Twelve Tribes of Israel sect of Rastafari, and he expressed this with a biblical quote about Joseph, son of Jacob on the album cover of Rastaman Vibration . The tribe of Joseph is Aquarius

Battle with cancer

In July 1977, Marley was found to have a wound on his right big toe, which he thought was from a soccer injury. The wound would not completely heal, and his toenail later fell off during a soccer 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. He was advised to get his toe amputated , but he refused because of the Rastafarian belief that doctors are 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 and 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 a secret from the wider public.

The cancer spread to his brain , his lungs and his stomach . While on tour in the summer of 1980, he collapsed while jogging in NYC's Central Park after a series of shows at Madison Square Garden . The illness made him unable to continue with the large tour planned. Marley sought help, mostly from the controversial cancer specialist Josef Issels , but it was discovered that his illness was terminal. A month before his death, he was awarded Jamaica's Order of Merit. He 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 passed away 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 (he had secretly been baptized into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as Bernahe Selassie) and Rastafarianism. He is buried in a crypt at Nine Miles, near his birthplace. His early death brought him nearly mythic status in music history similar to that of Elvis Presley and John Lennon . His image and music continue to produce a huge stream of revenue for his estate. He was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001.

Recent events

In January 2005, it was reported  ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4168883.stm ) that Rita Marley is 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 is as lot of resistance to this proposal in Jamaica, including from the establishment , who contradicted Rita by saying that Bob was entirely a product of Jamaican culture . 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. Bob Marley birthday celebrations marked by dispute over possible reburial

• 1  ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4225239.stm )

Rewards 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 highest honor, the 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

Discography

• Judge Not (1961) ( Single )
• Simmer Down (1964) (Single)
• 'Concrete Jungle'
• 'Midnight Ravers'
• 'Stir It Up'
• 'Small Axe'
• 'Trench Town Rock'
• 'Get Up, Stand Up'
• 'I Shot the Sheriff'
• 'Lively up yourself'
• 'No Woman No Cry'
• 'Natty Dread'
• 'Talking blues'
• 'Revolution'
• 'No Woman No Cry' (the famous live version)
• 'Crazy Baldhead'
• 'Jammin'' (1977)
• 'Natural mystic'
• 'One Love / People Get Ready'
• 'Three Little Birds'
• 'Waiting in Vain'
• 'Is This Love'
• 'Satisfy My Soul'
• 'So Much Trouble In The World'
• 'Top Rankin''
• 'Babylon System'
• 'Africa Unite'
• 'Ride Natty Ride'
• 'Ambush In The Night'
• 'Wake Up And Live'
• 'Could You Be Loved'
• 'Redemption Song'
• 'Reggae On Broadway' (earlier single (by CBS ))
• 'Buffalo Soldier'

Sound samples

• Download sample of ' Redemption Song '

External links

• Bob Marley at 60, what's planned?  ( http://www.tributetobobmarley.com/ )
• Bob Marley Lyrics  ( http://www.jamaicalyrics.com.ar/index.php?mod=search&type=0&find=bob+marley )
• Bob Marley Lyrics  ( http://lyrics.rare-lyrics.com/B/Bob-Marley.html )
• Bob Marley  ( http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0002490/ ) at the Internet Movie Database
• On October 4, 1963, Haile Selassie addressed the United Nations with his famous peace speech  ( http://www.bobmarley.com/life/rastafari/war_speech.html ) from which Bob Marley made the song 'War'.
• www.bobmarley.com
• Lovers and Children of the Natural Mystic: The Story of Bob Marley, Women and their Children  ( http://debate.uvm.edu/dreadlibrary/dixon.html )
• Family tree of Bob Marley  ( http://hem.passagen.se/ielbo/wail/wailerft.htm )
• Bob Marley Forever - Posters, Shirts, Books, Lyrics and more  ( http://www.bobmarleyforever.com )
• Christian site critical of Marley's Rasta beliefs  ( http://www.av1611.org/crock/pod_rast.html )

Bibliography

Timothy White. Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley. Owl Books (NY), 1998.

Filmography

Rebel Music: The Bob Marley Story

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Bob Marley facts: Songs, wife, children, religion and tragic early death of the reggae icon

21 March 2022, 11:21 | Updated: 10 March 2023, 13:15

By Tom Eames

Bob Marley is undoubtedly the most iconic reggae artist of all time, and remains a hugely popular figure nearly 40 years after his death.

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From his upbringing, to his incredible career to his untimely death, here are all the big facts about Bob Marley that you need to know:

• QUIZ: How well do you know Bob Marley's lyrics?
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What were Bob Marley's biggest songs?

Bob marley "no woman no cry" 1979

Among his many hits, Bob Marley's most famous songs include:

- Three Little Birds

- No Woman, No Cry

- Redemption Song

- I Shot the Sheriff

- Is This Love?

- Could You Be Loved?

- Buffalo Soldier

Who were Bob Marley's parents?

Bob Marley was born on February 6, 1945, on the farm of his maternal grandfather in Nine Mile, Jamaica, to Norval Sinclair Marley (1885–1955) and Cedella Booker (1926–2008).

Norval was a white Jamaican originally from Sussex, England. Bob Marley's full name is Robert Nesta Marley.

In 1955, when Bob was 10, his father died of a heart attack at the age of 70. His mother went on to marry Edward Booker, an American civil servant, giving Bob two American brothers.

How did he get his start in music?

Bob Marley and Neville Livingston (later Bunny Wailer) had been childhood friends in Nine Mile.

They had started to play music together while at Stepney Primary and Junior High School. Soon after, he was in a vocal group with Wailer, Peter Tosh, Beverley Kelso and Junior Braithwaite.

Singer Joe Higgs took Marley under his wing, teaching him how to play the guitar.

How did Bob Marley die?

In July 1977, Marley was diagnosed with a malignant melanoma under the nail of a toe. Marley turned down his doctors' advice to have his toe amputated due to his religious beliefs, and the nail and nail bed were removed and a skin graft taken from his thigh as a cover.

In 1980, the cancer had spread throughout his body. While he was flying from Germany to Jamaica, his condition worsened.

After landing in Miami, he died on May 11, 1981, at the age of 36.

Was Bob Marley shot?

On December 3, 1976, two days before a free concert organised by the Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley to ease tension between two fighting political groups, Marley, his wife, and manager Don Taylor were wounded by unknown gunmen inside Marley's home.

Taylor and Marley's wife had serious injuries, but made full recoveries. Bob Marley received minor wounds in the chest and arm. The attempt on his life was thought to have been political, as many felt the concert was supporting Manley.

Who was Bob Marley's wife?

Bob Marley married Alpharita Constantia 'Rita' Anderson in Kingston, Jamaica, on February 10, 1966.

How many children did Bob Marley have?

Bob Marley had many children: four with wife Rita, two adopted from Rita's previous relationships, and several others with different women.

His official website acknowledges 11 children.

His most famous children include singer Ziggy Marley (pictured, who recorded the theme tune to kids' TV show 'Arthur'), musician Stephen Marley, footballer Rohan Marley, singer Julian Marley and reggae artist Damian Marley.

What was Bob Marley's religion?

Bob Marley was a member of the Rastafari movement, whose culture was a key element in the growth of reggae.

He became an proponent of Rastafari, taking its music out of the socially deprived areas of Jamaica, and onto an international audience. Archbishop Abuna Yesehaq baptised Marley into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, giving him the name Berhane Selassie, on November 4, 1980, soon before his death.

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Bob marley (1945-1981).

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Robert Nesta Marley was born on February 6, 1945, on his grandfather Omeriah Malcolm’s farm in the rural interior of the island of Jamaica at Nine Mile, Rhoden Hall, St. Ann Parish. His mother was an eighteen-year-old black Jamaican named Cedella Malcolm. His father was Captain Norval Sinclair Marley, a white British Army member in his early sixties. Bob spent most of the early part of his life in poverty and all of it without a father present.

For the first twelve years of his life, besides a short stay in Kingston, he lived in the island’s rural interior. He usually resided at his grandfather’s farm but also herded goats for his aunt for about a year. In 1957, Marley moved to Kingston to reunite with his mother, who lived in the city’s west-side ghetto known as Trench Town. Here, Bob and his mother were exposed to open sewers, disease, malnourished children, and violence. Although the conditions were harsh, this was the place where Bob would cultivate his musical talents and draw inspiration for many of his political and philosophical messages.

Bob Marley dropped out of school at the age of fourteen. He began singing cover versions of songs and eventually fashioned instruments from makeshift materials. Marley derived his distinctive “reggae” style of music by combining elements of Jamaican music called Ska and U.S. Rhythm and Blues.

In 1962, at age sixteen, Marley produced his first recordings. One year later, he began recording with the original members of The Wailers, a collaboration that would last until the group disbanded in 1975. Although the original members were gone, Marley kept the name of The Wailers and continued to record music and tour until his sickness and eventual death in 1981. Marley died on May 11, 1981, at the age of thirty-six, from cancer in his stomach, lungs, and brain.

In a short life, Marley left a tremendous legacy. His music transcends social boundaries, and it could be argued that he is more popular today than he was during his life. Since 1991, ten years after his death, over 21 million Bob Marley records have been sold. His greatest hits compilation, Legend , released after his death, has sold more than 12 million copies alone.

Marley’s music was often laden with political messages, including commentary on political and economic oppression. Marley was also known for his belief in Rastafarianism, a religion combining aspects of Catholicism with elements of various African religions. In evidence of Marley’s great popularity and lasting impact, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and was awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit.

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Source of the author's information:.

Bob Marley Music, Inc.: https://www.bobmarley.com/ ; David V. Moskowitz, Bob Marley: A Biography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007); Timothy White, Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983); Vivien Goldman, The Book of Exodus (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006).

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Introduction

Robert Nesta Marley was born on February 6, 1945, in Nine Miles, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica. His mother, Cedella Malcolm, was black, and his father, Norval Marley, was white. Norval’s family disapproved of his marriage to Cedella, and as a child Marley rarely saw his father.

Marley spent his early years in Nine Miles, a small town in the countryside. As a teenager he lived in the neighborhood of Trench Town in Kingston , the capital of Jamaica. The poverty and cultural influences of Trench Town were especially important to Marley’s music.

In the early 1960s, Marley and several of his friends formed a band, which they eventually called the Wailers. The group had its first big hit, “Simmer Down,” in 1963. It gave a voice to the urban poor of Jamaica. Marley soon became a star performer. His songs were a combination of rhythm and blues, rock, and reggae. They helped make reggae popular around the world.

In addition to his musical career, Marley was active in politics. He tried to bring together groups in Jamaica that were fighting for control of the country. To do that he organized the One Love concert in 1978. Marley won an award from the government for his efforts. Soon after that, on May 11, 1981, he died of cancer in Miami, Florida.

In the years after his death, Bob Marley and his music became even better-known worldwide. Legend , an album of his songs released in 1984, became the best-selling reggae album of all time. Bob Marley’s music is still enjoyed by many today.

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The Life and Legacy of Bob Marley

It has been 40 years since the artist behind “one love” passed on. his legacy, however, remains vibrant..

Bob Marley introduced the world at large to reggae music. He was one of the few artists from a third world country to ever reach international super-stardom. His songs of love, faith, and unity touched the lives of millions. Bob Marley had a positive message to relay; a message unrelated to the greed and commercialism that infests most music.

Photo: torontopubliclibrary.com

Throughout his short-lived career he overcame many obstacles to become one of the most influential artists in music history. Robert Nesta Marley was born on February 6, 1945 in St. Ann, Jamaica. Bob grew up in the rural mountainous terrain of Nine Miles, Jamaica. When Bob was five his father, Norvol Marley left his mother, Cidella Malcom and took him to Kingston with a promise of him attending school. Eighteen months later, to Cidella’s horror, Bob was not in school but living with an elderly couple. Bob and his single mother moved back to Nine Miles and his upbringing amongst the parish of St. Anne influenced his talent in storytelling.

At the young age of 14 Bob reluctantly took a position as a welders apprentice in trench town, a ghetto of Kingston literally built upon a sewage trench.

Integrating into his new violent street life took skill. His self defense methods were tested and earned himself the proud nickname, Tuff Gong.

Bob Marley lived the fast paced life in Kingston. He was heavily influenced by the music of  Fats Domino and Ray Charles which were very popular in Jamaica at the time. With an emerging Jamaican music scene and a string of collaborations, Bob started his music career at the impressionable age of sixteen. Like many Jamaican kids, he saw music as an escape from the harsh reality of the ghetto he lived in. He recorded his first single “Judge Not” in 1961.

Photo: voice.com

As the years went by Bob married Rita Marley in 1966 and moved to Delaware, U.S. to pursue the “blue collar American dream.”

Focused on raising his family and working an assembly line under the alias Donald Marley. His music put aside, Bob was experiencing discrimination on a daily basis. While in the United Sates, Bob’s life shifting devotion to Rastafarianism caused him to reflect and his priorities shifted yet again. He grew out his dreadlocks, moved back to Jamaica, and started up “The Wailing Wailers.”

At that time, reggae was not known and not always as popular like it has been in recent decades. Global society in the 1960’s and 70’s was widely racist towards blacks and the concept of equality far from equal for Bob. He used his music to rebel while he fought against oppression and injustice. As his platform of love and unity strengthened so did his influence. Many people fighting the oppression of the time would turn to his music as an escape, a way to visualize a different way.

 This has made many of his songs “timeless” and retains many people’s belief in his message today.

Photo: theundefeated.com

You can still see Marley’s wide spread influence almost everywhere you go, an icon that for some, represents reggae as a whole. The reggae genera and the music most reggae musicians are putting out there today is in one way or another tied to his ledged. Marley’s influence is also echoed beyond the reggae genera and throughout the whole music industry, his style imitated and covered by folk, jazz, rock and country artists.

One of the most important messages Bob Marley sends through his music is the commonalities of the human race, we are one, and that the judgment of others for petty differences causes most of the suffering in the world. Some of Marley’s many songs about prejudice and discrimination are “One Love,” “War,” “Buffalo Soldier,” “Slave Driver,” and “Redemption Song.”

Photo: notey.com

He adamantly stood for the medical, spiritual, and intellectual benefits of marijuana and is now a worldwide symbol for “the herb.”

“Now, when you smoke, it make you cool, you know? It make you stimulate your mind, and make you sit down and meditate. Instead of get foolish, you sit down and you can meditate and be someone. Rum teach to you be a drunkard, and herb teach you to be someone.”

Bob Marley was a freedom fighter and music was his genius weapon.

He fought against oppression with intent to gain freedom for himself and his community. His stardom, took that message into the infinite form of timeless music and spread across the globe. He is now a symbol of freedom, especially in the third world and underdeveloped countries of Africa. Marley was a strong believer in peace, unity, and equality, as he called it “one love”.

Although Bob wanted to keep politics at a distance, his message and stardom brought it to the forefront of his life. While preparing for “Smile Jamaica,” a concert with intent to unite the polarities of Jamaican politics, a brutal assassination attempt was made on his, Rita’s, and his managers Don Taylor’s lives. While they were all shot at least once by the gun men, Bob and Rita went on to defiantly perform at Smile Jamaica and Don Taylor was airlifted to Miami’s Cedars of Lebanon Hospital for the removal of a bullet lodged against his spinal cord.

Photo: jamaicans.com

Bob exiled himself from Jamaica and took his family to London.

His influence grew ever more profound and when he finally returned to Jamaica he went with purpose. The “One Love” concert was set to unify the two political parties and at the end Bob famously invited the leaders of both to the stage.

“I just want to shake hands and show the people that we’re gonna make it right, we’re gonna unite, we’re gonna make it right, we’ve got to unite. The moon is right over my head, and I give my love instead. The moon was right above my head, and I give my love instead”

Bob’s message resounded all over the world and festered in the hearts of Zimbabwe freedom fighters while it was the British colony of Rhodesia. During a concert there that, unknown to The Wailers, was for special invite only, police used tear gas to control the crowds that broke down and stampeded through the gates to see Marley on stage. Most members of the band ran for cover, but he returned to the stage to perform “Zimbabwe”, his words piercing through the chaos: “to divide and rule could only tear us apart, in every man chest, there beats a heart. So soon we’ll find out who is the real revolutionaries and I don’t want my people to be tricked by mercenaries.”

Photo: jaquo.com

Bob Marley’s life was taken by a cancer that was a result of a football (soccer) injury in his big toe.

Once he fully accepted his cancer it took him within 6 months. One month before his passing he was given one of Jamaica’s highest honors, the Order of Merit, for his widespread contribution to his country’s way of life. The world mourned his death and his funeral was attended by hundreds of thousands of his supporters. His final resting place was the same as his first, Nine Miles, Jamaica.

Bob’s musical legacy was left to his family and many of them followed in his infamous footsteps and are now successful artists themselves. Almost all are involved with the family business and continue to spread his message of love, peace, and Rastafarian principals to this present day.

The Life of a Legend: Bob Marley

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The reggae singer’s biopic, “Bob Marley: One Love,” is set to release in theaters on Valentine Day. Meanwhile, we wanted to break down his fascinating story.

This week marks what would have been Bob Marley’s 79th birthday! The reggae singer’s much-anticipated biopic , “Bob Marley: One Love,” starring Kingsley Ben-Adir and Lashana Lynch is set to release in theaters on February 14th. The advocate for peace died at only 36, but his legacy has gone on to influence artists and fans alike for decades. Here is the life of Bob Marley.

Robert Nesta Marley was born on February 6, 1945, in Nine Miles, St. Ann Parish, Jamaica to Norval Sinclair Marley, a white naval officer, and Cedella Malcolm.

Childhood and Palm Reading

Marley was kidnapped and abandoned by his father when he was a child, and taken to Kingston to live with an elderly woman. A friend of his family found Marley and took him back to Nine Miles. As a child, Marley was known for being able to read palms.

Starting Music

He spent his teenage years living in an impoverished tenement in Trench Town which lies in West Kingston. He gained the nickname “Tuff Gong” due to his skills as a street fighter.

In the early 60s, he started learning welding in an apprenticeship but also started fostering his passion for music. He was heavily influenced by jazz, calypso, and R&B. He was a fan of Fats Domino and Ray Charles. In 1961 he recorded with producer Leslie Kong for the song “Judge Not.”

The Wailers

Trench Town is where he created the group the Wailers, which included members Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh . Junior Braithwaite also joined the Wailers as well as Cherry Green and Beverly Kelso, though they only stood in the group for a limited time.

The trio was coached/tutored by famed reggae singer Joe Higgs.

“Simmer Down”

In 1963, The Wailers recorded “Simmer Down” at Coxsone Dodd’s Studio One and it became an overnight hit in Kingston. The song urged people to relax and stop the violence.

Moving to the U.S. and the Rastafarian Movement

In 1966, Marley moved to Delaware to follow his mother who opened a Jamaican music shop called Roots. He worked several temporary jobs including working at Du Pont as a lab assistant .

When Marley moved back to Jamaica he became interested in the Rastafarian movement . The Rastafarian movement began in Jamaica in the 1930s and combines ideologies and practices from pan-African politics, Protestant Christianity, and mysticism.

Working with Johnny Nash

During the 60s, Marley worked with Johnny Nash singer of the 1972 hit, “I Can See Clearly Now.” In 1971, he recorded a soundtrack for the Swedish film “Want So Much to Believe” with Nash. In 1972, they recorded the song “Stir It Up,” which was well received.

Marley married Alfarita “Rita” Anderson on February 10, 1966. Rita was also a musician, performing in a girl group called I-Threes, who toured with The Wailers. The couple had several extra-marital affairs throughout their marriage.

“Catch a Fire”

In 1972, The Wailers came back together and were signed to Island Records. They released the album “Catch a Fire” in 1973. The Wailers opened for Bruce Springsteen and Sly & the Stone , touring throughout the United States and Britain.

The Wailers Split Up

Around 1974, The Wailers officially split up to pursue solo careers, but Marley kept “The Wailers” in his title when performing. Marley released his first solo album “Natty Dread.” That same year Eric Clapton’s version of Marley’s “I Shot the Sherriff” launched Marley into international fame along with his hit song “No Woman No Cry.”

Assassination Attempt

The 1976 album “Rastaman Vibration” was a hit in the United States. However, 1976 is also the year that Marley survived a politically driven attempted assassination at his home in Jamaica. Two days before a free concert called “Smile Jamaica,” Marley, Rita, and their manager Don Taylor were all shot, but made full recoveries. The concert still went on, however the attempt led Marley to flee the country and permanently move to London.

In 1977 the album “Exodus” was released, one of his most chart-successful albums, staying on the British charts for over a year. The following year he returned to Jamaica for a concert to call for peace as the country was close to a civil war. The “One Love Peace Concert” ended with Edward Seaga of the JLP and Prime Minister Michael Manley of the PNP shaking hands.

Visiting Africa

In 1978, Marley made his first trip to Kenya and Ethiopia , a significant trip due to his Rastafarian beliefs. He released the album “Survival” the following year, calling for the end of oppression and apartheid in Africa. In 1980, he was invited to perform in Zimbabwe for the country’s independence ceremony. The United Nations awarded him with the Medal of Peace that same year.

Bob Marley & The Wailers released the final album “Uprising” in 1980 and went on tour throughout Europe and the United States, but it ended early due to Marley’s cancer diagnosis , which he originally received in 1977, worsening.

Death and Legacy

A month after being awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit, he passed away in Miami on May 11, 1981. He left behind his wife and 11 children. The album “Legend” was released in 1984 , a compilation of his greatest hit, and became one of the best-selling reggae albums ever.

Screen Rant

One love: how many children & wives bob marley had in real life.

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Where To Watch Bob Marley One Love

Bob marley: one love ending explained, the one quote from each avengers team member that totally goes against their personality.

• Although some of Bob Marley and his wife Rita's children are portrayed in Bob Marley: One Love, the film does not explicitly address the number of children he had nor does it indicate if he had any other wives.
• Bob Marley's only wife was Rita Marley, but he cheated on her with numerous women.
• Bob Marley had 11 children in total, six of whom he fathered via extramarital affairs.

The new biopic Bob Marley: One Love doesn't provide the fullest picture of the famous singer's family life, including how many wives and children he had in real life. Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, Bob Marley: One Love explains the true story of the eponymous artist's rise to fame as a reggae pioneer and peace advocate, starring Kingsley Ben-Adir as Marley . Also a part of the Bob Marley: One Love cast are Lashana Lynch as Bob's wife, Rita Marley , and James Norton as Chris Blackwell, owner and founder of Island Records and Marley's music producer.

While the musical biopic covers much of the reggae singer's music career and political efforts, Bob Marley: One Love leaves out certain true story details , like his offspring. Although some of Bob and Rita's children appear in the film, Bob Marley: One Love does not clarify how many kids he had . The movie also does not explicitly cover Marley's other relationships or affairs, although indirect references are made to his infidelity. Because of these omissions, many viewers will walk away from One Love without knowing how many wives and children Bob Marley had.

The true story of Bob Marley's life is the focus of a new movie, and here is where to watch Bob Marley: One Love with showtimes or on streaming.

Rita Was Bob Marley's Only Wife (But He Cheated On Her Repeatedly)

Their marriage involved a lot of infidelity.

Rita Marley was Bob Marley's only wife, although he did not remain faithful to her during their marriage. They first met as teenagers when Bob became a vocal and recording coach for Rita's musical trio, the Soulettes, and got married in Kingston, Jamaica in 1966. As depicted in Bob Marley: One Love, in 1974, when Bob went solo, Rita became part of his backing vocal group, the I-Threes, along with Judy Mowatt, and Marcia Griffiths. The couple stayed together for the duration of Bob's short life and were still married when he died in 1981.

Though it is unknown how many different affairs he had throughout the course of their relationship, Bob cheated on Rita with at least six different women, each of whom he had a child with.

However, Bob Marley: One Love does not explore the full extent of Bob's serial infidelity. Though it is unknown how many different affairs he had throughout the course of their marriage, Bob cheated on Rita with at least six different women, each of whom he had a child with. The only one of his mistresses to make a brief appearance in Bob Marley: One Love is Cindy Breakspeare (Umi Myers). Rita also cheated on Bob with at least one man, Owen “Ital Tacky” Stewart, with whom she also had a child while she was still with Bob.

Bob Marley: One Love follows the legendary musician's life at the height of his career. We break down the biopic's ending, how accurate it is & more.

Bob Marley Had 11 Children From 7 Different Women

Six of bob marley's children were from extramarital affairs.

In total, Bob Marley had 11 children. Bob fathered three children with Rita Marley, Cedella (August 23, 1967), named after his mother, David aka "Ziggy" (October 17, 1968), and Stephen (April 20, 1972). Both Ziggy and Cedella are producers on Bob Marley: One Love. After they got married in 1966, Bob adopted Rita's daughter Sharon from a previous relationship, and changed her surname to Marley. Bob also adopted Rita's daughter with Stewart named Stephanie, who was born on August 17, 1974.

After Bob died, Rita had one more child, a daughter named Serita, with Owen Stewart in 1985.

Bob fathered six more children with six other women, with the first two born three days apart.

Bob's numerous extramarital affairs also produced several children as well. Between 1972 and 1978, Bob fathered six more children with six other women, with the first two born three days apart. Robert aka "Robbie" was born on May 16, 1972, to mother Pat Williams, followed by Rohan on May 19, 1972, to mother Janet Hunt. Next was Karen, born in 1973, whom Bob had with Janet Bowen, followed by Julian (June 4, 1975) with Lucy Pounder, Ky-Mani (February 26, 1976) with Anita Belnavis, and finally, Damian (July 21, 1978) with Breakspeare.

Bob Marley also has some famous grandchildren: Singer Skip Marley (Cedella's son), football player Nico Marley (Rohan's son). Model Selah Marley and singer YG Marley are also both Rohan's children with musician Lauryn Hill.

According to Meredith Dixon in her book, Lovers and Children of the Natural Mystic: The Story of Bob Marley, Women and their Children, Bob is alleged to have fathered at least two more children. The first is Imani Carole, born May 22, 1963, to Cheryl Murray, and the second is Makeda Jahnesta Marley, born May 30, 1981, to Yvette Crichton. However, neither of them are listed as Bob's children on his website.

What Bob Marley: One Love Changed From The Real Story

The biopic doesn't paint the full picture of marley's family or his fatal illness.

While Bob Marley: One Love was a pretty faithful biopic , it focused on a short period of the singer's life, so the story needed to be altered. As with almost any biopic, things were left out, and details and events were changed to better help the filmmakers tell a more streamlined story on the big screen. The multiple affairs and the children Marley had away from Rita were just one aspect that changed in the movie.

It wasn't just his kids that the film left out; it also chose to ignore most of his family . Bob Marley's father died when he was 70, and Marley was only 10. The movie never mentions a father, which makes sense because the singer never really got to know him. However, it also omits his stepfather and three half-siblings, who lived in Delaware and remained mostly away from Marley since they were not near Jamaica. Their omission makes sense since they had little to do with this story.

There was also the need to condense some things, such as his Smily Jamaica concert, where he played 12 songs at the real concert, but the film made it seem like the setlist was very small. In fact, the two songs the movie showed were not played back-to-back, and there were 10 songs played in between the two.

Marley tried to stop the cancer by removing the nail and nail bed.

However, the biggest changes occur in his later life. For example, Marley wrote the Kaya album while he was in London, while the movie only showed him working on the Exodus album there. The film also changed how he responded to his toe injury and how he could have survived cancer if he had allowed the doctor to amputate it. In real life, Marley tried to stop the cancer by removing the nail and nail bed, while the film made it seem like he ignored it completely, which was not true.

It also ignored the final years of his life and made it seem like he died quickly after the One Love Peace Concert in 1978. However, he died a few years later and was still touring and performing in 1980. The film also didn't say how he died, which was from malignant melanoma. All of these changes remove important components of his life, but Bob Marley: One Love is a story about a man setting out to make a difference, and too much real-life info would detract from that message.

Source: Lovers and Children of the Natural Mystic: The Story of Bob Marley, Women and their Children by Meredith Dixon

Bob Marley: One Love

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Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, Bob Marley: One Love is a biographical music-drama that explores the life of Bob Marley, as portrayed by Kingsley Ben-Adir. The film highlights the ups and downs of Marley's life and career until his untimely death in 1981.