Bob Marley

At 36 years old, Bob Marley has this physical status:

Robert Nesta Marley (born in 1952) was a Jamaican singer and songwriter.

His musical career was defined by blending elements of reggae, ska, and rocksteady, as well as a nimble and distinctive vocal and songwriting style.

After forming Bob Marley and the Wailers, Marley's contributions to music increased the visibility of Jamaican music around the world, making him a global figure in popular culture for over a decade.

The group's debut studio album The Wailing Wailers, which included the single "One Love/People Get Ready," was widely distributed, peaking on world music charts, and establishing the group as a rising figure in reggae.

The Wailers continued to produce eleven more studio albums, though initially employing louder instruments and singing, the group began playing rhythmic-based song writing in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which coincided with the singer's conversion to Rastafarianism.

Marley migrated to London during this period, and the band typified their musical transition with the release of the album The Best of The Wailers (1971). The group earned international recognition after the introduction of the albums Catch a Fire and Burnin' (both 1973), and gained a reputation as touring artists.

Personal life

Bob Marley was a member of the Rastafari movement for many years, whose roots were a key factor in the establishment of reggae. He became a vocal Rastafari promoter, taking its music out of the socially impoverished areas of Jamaica and into the international music scene. Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, he said, was a Rastafarian incarnation of God or "Jah." On November 4, 1980, Archbishop Abuna Yesehaq baptized Marley into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, giving him the name Berhane Selassie, just before his death.

Marley, a Rastafarian, supported the legalization of cannabis or "ganja," which Rastafarians see as an aid to meditation. When Marley converted to the Rastafari faith from Catholicism in 1966, he began using cannabis. He was arrested in 1968 after being found with marijuana, but he continued to use marijuana in accordance with his religious convictions. "You'll know yourself" after smoking a herb, according to him. All the wickedness you do, the herb reveal itself to yourself and your conscience, and you make yourself understood, because the herb makes you meditate. It's only a natural t'ing and it's growing like a tree." Marley considered marijuana use as a vital component in religious growth and friendship with Jah, as well as a tool to philosophize and become wiser.

Marley was a Pan-Africanist who believed in the national unity of African people around the world. His convictions were rooted in his Rastafari religious convictions. In several of his songs, including "Zimbabwe," "Exodus," "Survival," "Blackman Redemption," and "Redemption Song," Marcus Garvey's influenced him greatly. Marcus Garvey's "Redemption Song" has influenced "Redemption Song" in Nova Scotia, 1937. For all African diaspora, Marley's win was a victory. He sings of the African diaspora's singing of the need for all people to fight against "Babylon"; similarly, in the song "Zimbabwe," he describes the liberation of Africa's whole continent and invokes calls for unity among Africans, both within and outside Africa.

On February 10, 1966, Bob Marley married Alpharita Constantia "Rita" Anderson in Kingston, Jamaica. Marley had four children: four with Rita, two adopted from Rita's previous marriages, and two others with different women. The official Bob Marley website acknowledges 11 children.

Those listed on the official site are:

As noted below, several people appear to be family members on other websites, including one from the following:

Skip Marley, American football player Nico Marley, and model Selah Marley are among Marley's notable grandchildren, as well as actress Selah Marley.

Other than music, association football played a major role in his life. Growing up, he followed the Brazilian team Santos and its star player Pelé, as well as inside football stadiums, fields, and even recording studios, and was a fan of the Argentine and Argentine midfielder Ossie Ardiles, who played for the club from 1978 to 2000. Marley surrounded himself with people from the game, and Allan "Skill" Cole, the Jamaican international footballer, was his tour guide in the 1970s. "If you want to know me, you'll have to play football against me and the Wailers," he told a journalist.

Source

Early life and career

Robert Nesta Marley was born on February 6, 1945, at the farm of his maternal grandfather in Nine Mile, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica. He and Norval Sinclair Marley and Cedella Malcolm were born on June 6, 1945. Norval Marley was born in Crowborough, East Sussex, England, and then Norval resident Cedella Malcolm, an Afro-Jamaican man, was employed as a plantation overseer at the time; at the time of his marriage to Cedella Malcolm, an Afro-Jamaican army captain, he was 18 years old. Robert Nesta Marley's full name is Robert Nesta Marley, although some sources give his birth name as Nesta Robert Marley, with a tale that a Jamaican passport official changed his first and middle names because Nesta sounded like a girl's name. Norval offered financial assistance for his wife and children, but they rarely saw them while he was away. Bob Marley attended Stepney Primary and Junior High School, which is located in Saint Ann's catchment zone. When Bob Marley was ten years old in 1955, he died of a heart attack at the age of 70. Marley's mother decided to marry Edward Booker, a United States civil servant, giving Marley two half-brothers: Richard and Anthony.

In Nine Mile, Bob Marley and Neville Livingston (later known as Bunny Wailer) had been childhood friends. When they were at Stepney Primary and Junior High School, they had to start playing music together. When Marley was 12 years old, he and his mother moved to Trenchtown, Kingston. Claudette Pearl, who was younger sister to both Bob and Bunny, was a child of both Bob and Bunny Wailer's father. Now that Marley and Livingston were living in Trenchtown together, their musical journeys expanded to include the new ska music and the new R&B from United States radio stations whose broadcasts reached Jamaica. Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh formed a vocal band at Marley. The Teenagers, the Wailing Rudeboys, the Wailing Wailers, and then simply the Wailers were listed in various ways. Joe Higgs, a member of the popular vocal group Higgs and Wilson, lived nearby and encouraged Marley. Marley and the others did not play any instruments at the time and were more interested in being a vocal harmony group. Higgs assisted them in their vocal development and also taught Marley how to play guitar.

Musical career

"Do You Still Love Me?" Marley recorded four songs, "Judge Not," "One Cup of Coffee," in February 1962. Leslie Kong, a local music performer, performs "Terror" at Federal Studios. With "One Cup of Coffee" being announced under the pseudonym Bobby Martell, three of the songs were released on Beverley's.

The Teenagers of 1963 were named Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, and Cherry Smith. The Wailing Rudeboys were then renamed the Wailing Wailers, then the Wailing Wailers, which was where they were discovered by recording producer Coxsone Doddd, and finally to the Wailers. Their single "Simmer Down" for the Coxsone brand became a Jamaican No. 1 on the charts. In February 1964, the first one was on sale in an estimated 70,000 copies. The Wailers, who are now recording for Studio One, found themselves working with veteran Jamaican artists such as Ernest Ranglin ("It Hurts To Be Alone"), keyboardist Jackie Mittoo, and saxophonist Roland Alphonso. Braithwaite, Kelso, and Smith had left the Wailers by 1966, leaving the Wailers' core trio of Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, and Peter Tosh.

Marley married Rita Anderson in Wilmington, Delaware, near his mother's house in Wilmington, Delaware, for a short period of time, during which he served as a DuPont lab assistant and as a fork lift operator at a Chrysler plant in nearby Newark under the alias Donald Marley.

Marley, who was born as a Catholic, became interested in Rastafari faiths in the 1960s, when his mother's influence was removed from his mother's. Marley converted to Rastafari upon returning to Jamaica and started to grow dreadlocks.

The Upsetters were formed with Lee "Scratch" Perry and his band after a financial breakdown with Dodd, Marley and his band. Despite the fact that the partnership lasted less than a year, some Wailers' finest work was released. Following a spat over recording rights, Marley and Perry split, but they will continue to collaborate together.

In 1969, there was another revolution in Jamaican popular music in which the beat slowed even more. The new beat was a slowed, steady, ticking rhythm that was first heard on The Maytals' "Do the Reggay" track. Leslie Kong, a producer who was regarded as one of the reggae's top designers, was approached by Marley. Kong teamed the Wailers with his studio musicians Beverley's All-Stars, which included bassist Lloyd Parks and Jackie Jackson, keyboardist Gladstone Anderson and Winston Wright, and guitarist Robbie Martin. "The tracks in this session demonstrated the Wailers' earliest attempts in the modern reggae style," David Moskowitz writes. The ska trumpets and saxophones of earlier songs are among the earliest songs to be played by the electric guitar, with instrumental breaks now being played by the saxophones. The songs on the album The Best of The Wailers, including tracks "Soul Shakedown Party," "Caution," "Caution," "Go Tell It on the Mountain," "Cheer Up," "Back Out," and "Do It Twice," are among the tracks on the album.

Bob and Rita Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer re-cut some old tracks with JAD Records in Kingston and London in an attempt to commercialize the Wailers' sound between 1968 and 1972. These songs "should never be released on an album," Bunny said later, "they were just demos for record companies to listen to." In 1968, Bob and Rita visited songwriter Jimmy Norman at his Bronx apartment. Norman had written the extended lyrics for Kai Winding's "Time Is on My Side" (covered by the Rolling Stones) and had also written for Johnny Nash and Jimi Hendrix. A three-day jam session with Norman and others, including Norman's co-writer Al Pyfrom, resulted in a 24-minute tape of Marley performing several of his own and Norman-Pyfrom's compositions. This tape is unusual in that it was influenced by pop rather than reggae as part of a bid to get Marley off the US charts, according to Reggae archivesist Roger Steffens. Marley experimented on tape with new sounds, adopting a doom-wop technique on "Stay With Me" and "the slow love song style of 1960s artists" on "Splish for My Splash," according to an article in The New York Times. Marley, the only artist to establish himself outside of Jamaica, lived in Bloomsbury's Ridgmount Gardens during 1972.

Bob Marley signed with CBS Records in London in 1972 and embarked on a UK tour with soul singer Johnny Nash. When the Wailers' road manager Brent Clarke, who had licensed some of their Coxsone releases for his Island Records, requested them to Chris Blackwell. The Wailers had intended to address the royalties connected to these releases, but instead, the meeting resulted in the offering of a £4,000 advance to record an album. Blackwell, Island's top reggae actor, Jimmy Cliff, was a natural replacement, was on the lookout for a replacement. Blackwell knew the elements were needed to snare the rock audience in Marley: "I was dealing with rock music, which was clearly rebel music." I thought this would be the only way to crack Jamaican music. But you wanted someone who might be that person. "Bob" was the image when he walked in. The Wailers returned to Jamaica to record at Harry J's in Kingston, which resulted in the album Catch a Fire.

Primarily recorded on an eight-track, Catch a Fire was the first time a reggae band had access to a state-of-the-art studio and received the same treatment as their rock 'n' roll peers. Blackwell restructured Marley's mixes and arrangements in order to produce "more of a drifting, hypnotic-type feel than a reggae rhythm." Marley travelled to London to oversee Blackwell's redubbing of the album at Island Studios, which included tempering the mix from Jamaican music's bass-heavy sound and omitting two songs.

Catch a Fire, the Wailers' first album for Island, was released worldwide in April 1973, sold as a rock record with a unique Zippo lighter lift-top. Its first selling 14,000 units, it received a warm critical reception. It was followed later that year by the album Burnin, which featured the song "I Shot the Sheriff." Eric Clapton was given the album by his guitarist George Terry in the hopes that he would enjoy it. Clapton was impressed and decided on a cover version of "I Shot the Sheriff," his first US hit since "Layla" two years ago and debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on September 14, 1974. Many Jamaicans were not keen on the latest reggae sound on Catch a Fire, but Burnin's Trenchtown style attracted audiences both reggae and rock audiences.

Blackwell's Kingston home and company's headquarters, 56 Hope Road (then known as Island House), were given to Marley during this time. The house, which is owned by Tuff Gong Studios, was not only Marley's office but also his home.

For Sly and the Family Stone, the Wailers had been scheduled to open 17 shows in the United States. The band was kicked after four shows because they were more popular than the bands they were opening for. In 1974, the Wailers were disbanded, with each of the three key players taking up a solo career.

Despite the break-up, Marley's "Bob Marley & The Wailers" was on the radio. Carlton and Aston "Family Man" Barrett on drums and bass, Jr. and Al Anderson on lead guitar, Tyrone Downie and Earl "Wya" Lindo on keyboards, and Alvin "Seeco" Patterson on percussion. Judy Mowatt, Marcia Griffiths, and Marley's wife, Rita, provided backing vocals. Marley's first international success came in 1975 with his first appearance outside Jamaica, with a live version of "No Woman, No Cry" from "Live!" An album. Rastaman Vibration (1976), the father of the United States, was followed by his breakthrough album, which debuted at number 50 of the Billboard Soul Charts.

Unknown gunmen attacked Marley's house on December 3, 1976, two days before "Smile Jamaica," a free concert hosted by Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley in the hopes of reducing tensions between two conflicting political parties, Marley, his wife, and boss Don Taylor, were wounded in an attack by unknown gunmen inside Marley's house. Taylor and Marley's wife sustained serious injury but recovered fully from it. Bob Marley sustained minor injuries in the chest and arm. Many believed the concert was really a Manley support rally. Nevertheless, the concert continued, and an injured Marley performed as scheduled, two days after the attempt. "The people who are trying to make this world a disaster aren't taking a day off," Marley explained.

How can I?"

Members of Zap Pow's backup band appeared before a festival audience of 80,000, but members of The Wailers were still missing or in hiding.

Marley left Jamaica at the end of 1976 and spent two years in England, where he spent two years in self-imposed exile.

When in England, he produced the albums Exodus and Kaya. Exodus remained on the British album charts for 56 weeks in a row. "Exodus," "Waiting in Vain," "Jamming," and "One Love" were among four UK hit singles on the programme (which interpolates Curtis Mayfield's hit song, "People Get Ready"). He was arrested and found guilty of a small amount of cannabis during his stay in London. Marley returned to Jamaica in 1978 to appear at the One Love Peace Concert in an attempt to defuse conflicting parties. Michael Manley, the founder of the opposition Jamaica Labour Party) and his political rival Edward Seaga (leader of the opposition Jamaica Labour Party) arrived together on stage and shook hands at the end of the show, by Marley's request.

Four live albums and seven studio albums were released under the name Bob Marley and the Wailers. Babylon by Bus, a double live album with 13 tracks, was released in 1978 and received critical acclaim. The audience in a raucous captures Marley's live performances on this album, particularly the final track "Jamming" with the audience in a frenzy.

In 1979, Survival, a defiant and politically charged album, was released. "Zimbabwe," "Africa Unite," "Wake Up and Live," and "Survival" represented Marley's support for Africans struggling in Africa. His appearance in the Amandla Festival in Boston in July 1979 demonstrated his strong resistance to South African apartheid, which he had already demonstrated in his song "War" in 1976. In early 1980, he was invited to appear on the 17th anniversary of Zimbabwe's Independence Day.

Uprising (1980) was Bob Marley's last studio album and it was one of his most religious performances; it includes "Redemption Song" and "Forever Loving Jah." Confrontation, which was released posthumously in 1983, contained unreleased stuff from Marley's lifetime, including the hit "Buffalo Soldier" and new mixes of singles that were previously only available in Jamaica.

Source