Passion for peace forged in violence of the ghetto

HE has been dead for over thirty years but Bob Marley’s music still resonates today.

Hit: Bob Marley

The music of Bob Marley, with its distinctive West Indian feel and quirky rhythm section, influenced rock music globally. His songs about intensely personal feelings or burning political issues continue to resonate today. It was passionate music forged in the cauldron of the Jamaican ghettos where he grew up. Cancer robbed us of his talent while he was still young but his music still reaches out to music lovers today.

Born Robert Nesta Marley on February 6, 1945, on the family farm in Nine Miles, Jamaica, his mother Cedella Marley (nee Booker), had African heritage and his father was white marine captain Norval Marley. Norval gave his family financial support but he was often absent and died of a heart attack when Bob was only 10.

He was 11 when Cedella moved her family to Kingston where she lived with Toddy Livingston and his son Neville, nicknamed Bunny, who became Marley’s close friend. They lived in an impoverished part of Kingston known as Trench Town, built on a sewer trench.

It was a tough neighbourhood and Marley developed formidable street fighting skills to survive the local thugs known as “Rude boys”. In between fights he and his friends were developing their musical skills, influenced by calypso, ska, jazz, rhythm and blues.

Worried her son was spending too much time on music Cedella lined up a welding apprenticeship for Marley at the age of 14. He quit after getting a steel splinter embedded in his eye and concentrated on his passion for music.

In 1961 he met singer Jimmy Cliff who introduced him to producer Leslie Kong. Kong had Marley record several songs including his first single Judge Not, released in 1962. Although it was a local hit, the failure of his other recordings meant Kong got away with paying the singer a pittance.

Bunny and Bob began taking vocal lessons with Trench town muso Joe Higgs in 1963. He introduced the boys to Winston Hubert “Peter” McIntosh (later known as Peter Tosh), with whom they became firm friends and began writing songs. It seemed only natural they form a band, using several names before settling on the Wailing Wailers, later shortened to the Wailers.

Their first single, Simmer Down, was a message to the Rude Boys to curb their violence. A brassy ska song, it was raw and spoke to Jamaicans, who sent it to the top of their charts in 1964.

The ska influence remained but the style evolved into a slower form known as reggae. In 1966, Marley married Alpharita “Rita” Anderson, moved to Delaware in the US where his mother was living, and worked as a lab assistant and on an automotive assembley line.

He returned to Jamaica eight months later and joined the Rastafarians, a religious political movement that revered Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. It was at time he started to wear his hair in dreadlocks and to smoke ganja (marijuana) as a form of meditation and prayer.

While his popularity continued to grow in Jamaica in the late ’60s, few people outside Jamaica had heard his music. That began to change in the ’70s and in 1972 the band signed with CBS records. They were soon dropped by the label but signed with Island Records.

In 1973 they released the albums Catch A Fire and Burnin, the latter featuring the single I Shot The Sheriff. Eric Clapton’s cover version of the song in 1974 was a hit, but also made people seek out the original.

The band split in 1974 but Marley continued to record albums as Bob Marley And The Wailers. In 1975 he had his first genuine chart hit with No Woman No Cry. More hits would follow, but growing fame also brought its dangers.

In 1976 Marley, his wife and his manager were injured during an assassination attempt thought to have been politically motivated. Two days after the attempt Marley appeared at a concert organised by prime minister Michael Manley to bring together Jamaica’s violently opposed political factions.

He later headlined other concerts with the peaceful message outlined in his hit song One Love.

Diagnosed with a malignant melanoma on his toe in 1979 he continued performing and recording until his health declined toward the end of 1980. He died in 1981, aged just 36, leaving his wife and eight children.

Although his popularity had been steadily increasing before then his death sent record sales soaring. A posthumous album Confrontation, collected from previously unreleased material, was released in 1983 and a best of collection Legend, released in 1984 sold 12 million copies.