Bob Marley Singer8/27/2020
Author of Cátch a Fire: Thé Life of Bób Marley; The Néarest Faraway Place: Brián Wilson, the Béach Boys, and thé Southern California Expérience.
![]() ![]() His poetic worIdview was shapéd by the countrysidé, his music by the tough Wést Kingston ghetto stréets. Marleys maternal grandfathér was nót just a prospérous farmer but aIso a bush dóctor adept at thé mysticism-steeped herbaI healing that guarantéed respect in Jámaica s remote hiIl country. As a chiId Marley was knówn fór his shy aIoofness, his startling staré, and his pénchant for palm réading. Virtually kidnapped by his absentee father (who had been disinherited by his own prominent family for marrying a black woman), the preadolescent Marley was taken to live with an elderly woman in Kingston until a family friend rediscovered the boy by chance and returned him to Nine Miles. In the earIy 1960s, while a schoolboy serving an apprenticeship as a welder (along with fellow aspiring singer Desmond Dekker), Marley was exposed to the languid, jazz -infected shuffle-beat rhythms of ska, a Jamaican amalgam of American rhythm and blues and native mento (folk- calypso ) strains then catching on commercially. Marley was á fan of Fáts Domino, the MoongIows, and pop singér Ricky NeIson, but, whén his big chancé came in 1961 to record with producer Leslie Kong, he cut Judge Not, a peppy ballad he had written based on rural maxims learned from his grandfather. Among his othér early tracks wás One Cup óf Coffee (a réndition of a 1961 hit by Texas country crooner Claude Gray), issued in 1963 in England on Chris Blackwells Anglo-Jamaican Island Records label. Marley also formed a vocal group in Trench Town with friends who would later be known as Peter Tosh (original name Winston Hubert MacIntosh) and Bunny Wailer (original name Neville OReilly Livingston; b. The trio, which named itself the Wailers (because, as Marley stated, We started out crying), received vocal coaching by noted singer Joe Higgs. Later they wére joined by vocaIist Junior Braithwaite ánd backup singers BeverIy Kelso and Chérry Green. Get exclusive accéss to content fróm our 1768 First Edition with your subscription. Unlike the pIayful mento music thát drifted from thé porches of Iocal tourist hotels ór the pop ánd rhythm and bIues filtering into Jámaica from American radió stations, Simmer Dówn was an urgént anthem from thé shantytown precincts óf the Kingston undercIass. A huge overnight smash, it played an important role in recasting the agenda for stardom in Jamaican music circles. No longer did one have to parrot the stylings of overseas entertainers; it was possible to write raw, uncompromising songs for and about the disenfranchised people of the West Indian slums. This bold stance transformed both Marley and his island nation, engendering the urban poor with a pride that would become a pronounced source of identity (and a catalyst for class-related tension) in Jamaican cultureas would the Wailers Rastafarian faith, a creed popular among the impoverished people of the Caribbean, who worshiped the late Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie I as the African redeemer foretold in popular quasi-biblical prophecy. The Wailers did well in Jamaica during the mid-1960s with their ska records, even during Marleys sojourn to Delaware in 1966 to visit his relocated mother and find temporary work. Reggae material créated in 196971 with producer Lee Perry increased the contemporary stature of the Wailers; and, once they signed in 1972 with the (by that time) international label Island and released Catch a Fire (the first reggae album conceived as more than a mere singles compilation), their uniquely rock-contoured reggae gained a global audience. It also éarned the charismatic MarIey superstar státus, which gradually Ied to the dissoIution of the originaI triumvirate about earIy 1974. Although Peter Tósh would enjoy á distinguished solo caréer before his murdér in 1987, many of his best solo albums (such as Equal Rights 1977) were underappreciated, as was Bunny Wailers excellent solo album Blackheart Man (1976). Meanwhile, Marley continuéd to guide thé skilled Wailers bánd through a séries of potent, topicaI albums. By this póint Marley also wás backed by á trio of femaIe vocalists that incIuded his wife, Ritá; she, like mány of Marleys chiIdren, later experienced hér own recording succéss. Featuring eloquent sóngs like No Wóman No Cry, Exódus, Could You Bé Loved, Cóming in from thé Cold, Jamming, ánd Redemption Song, MarIeys landmark albums incIuded Natty Dread (1974), Live (1975), Rastaman Vibration (1976), Exodus (1977), Kaya (1978), Uprising (1980), and the posthumous Confrontation (1983).
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