Bob Marley: The legend remembered

King of Reggae Music, Robert Nester Marley, popularly known as Bob Marley.
Tomorrow, commemoration ceremonies are being held by all reggae lovers throughout the world through dance and song.
One cannot speak of reggae music without mention of Bob Marley. For this reason, I shall take you through Marley’s life on this planet.
Marley’s passion for music was born from two sources. The first was his mother, who sang gospel in the neighbourhood Apostolic Church. The other was his close friend Joe Higgs, who he would visit to discuss religion and listen to discs by the Impressions and the Ink Sports.
Lacking educational qualifications, Marley was shunted off by Cedella to find employment as an apprentice welder. He struck up friendships with Desmond Dekker and Jimmy Cliff and they and Higgs convinced Marley that he should develop his singing and learn to play the guitar. He then teamed up with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, calling themselves “The Wailers”.
The Wailers’ quintet, backed by the Skatalites recorded a string of hits with Coxsone under the banners of Wailin’ Wailers and Wailin’ Rude Boys. Their songs varied from the deviant rock-steady and ska of Rude Boy, Rule the Rudie and Rude Boy go To Jail to the more soulful American-influenced ballads, Lonesome feeling, I need You, Put It On and Wings of Love.
In 1966 the group underwent a traumatic change. Braithwaite quit to join his parents in America and Kelso and another occasional member, Cherry, also left. Marley, Tosh and Wailer continued to work with Coxosone, although they finally threw in the towel when the arguments over payment became too much to bear.
Cedella had moved to Delaware, USA, where Marley joined her, securing a job at the Chrysler car factory, and his experiences on the assembly line were immortalised on a song, Night Shift. To his horror his promised quiet life was shattered when he received his military conscription papers. To avoid being drafted and shipped off to Vietnam, he returned to Jamaica.
Tosh and Wailer had failed at their respective solo ventures and with Marley back the threesome went to record with Chinese/Jamaican producer Leslie Kong, with whom Marley had cut One Cup . . . in 1962, and a man fast establishing himself as the islands top rock-steady producer.
What was to have been a one-off affair was extended after the public’s reaction to the seminal Soul Shakedown Party which shook Jamaica by its roots. However, Kong suffered from asthma and cancer and his deteriorating health sadly brought this creative combination to an abrupt end.
Their next stop was the newly built Black Ark Studio belonging to Lee Perry, the impish genius they had befriended at Studio One, where he had been employed as an arranger. This period is generally regarded as the foundation of Marley’s career. With Perry’s idiosyncratic studio tuition the Wailers hit the public with songs that are part of the group’s legend.
Duppy Conquerer, their first international hit, Small Axe, Trenchtown Rock, Soul Rebel, Don’t Rock My Boat, Keep Your Love Light Burning, The Sun Is Shining, Lively Up Yourself and Curtis Mayfield’s Keep On Moving were their greatest achievements. Many of these songs will be familiar to second generation Wailers fans as Marley re-recorded several of them for his Island Records albums.
Marley’s admiration for Perry never faltered, however, and while contracted to Island he returned to his mentor to cut the singles Jah Live (1976) and Punky Reggae Party.
Marley’s drive led to the group creating its own label, a move almost unheard of in reggae at that time. Due to poor financial management, the label collapsed and Marley went to work for Johnny Nash of the I Can See Clearly Now fame.
With the payment he received, Marley returned to Tosh and Wailer with the blueprint for another label. It was Tuff Gong (Perry used to call himself The Gong), operating out of 127 King Street, Kingston. With recorded versions of Trenchtown Rock, Screw Face, Hypocrite and the melancholy Satisfy My Soul their destiny was assured. Perry had helped the trio to learn their respective instruments. It was a completely individual sound, a hybrid of rock-steady and reggae and they soon attracted the attention of Island Records supreme, Chris Blackwell (whom Peter Tosh referred to as Chris White well).
Stories of why Blackwell signed the group vary. A fascination with Rastafari coupled to a strong belief that reggae could, if marketed correctly, become an international music force, seem the most likely reasons. In any case, Blackwell knew they would have to move cautiously. White European and American audiences could not be expected to change their tastes in music overnight and latch on to reggae immediately.
Blackwell financed the sophisticated Catch A Fire Album, (1973), a strong collection of diverse songs, packaged in an imitation Zippo lighter sleeve, and it sold well enough for Blackwell to be as good as his word and take Bob Marley and the Wailers under the Island wing.
The group went to Britain later that year as the darlings of the rock chic. Blackwell’s campaign had paid off; their album was nestling alongside those of the Eagles and the Rolling Stones, both in the charts and in high street chain-store browser racks. They played four nights at London’s Speakeasy and made an appearance on national television. On their departure they went to the US to join Sly and the Family Stone on tour.
On the face of it, the Wailers had cracked the nut. By the end of that year they had completed a second Island album, “Burnin”, and confirmed a second UK tour. The album paled in comparison to the previous one, yet it did contain the classic I Shot the Sheriff that rock guitarist Eric Clapton made into a hit single for himself. Suddenly the world was aware of the Rastaman.
But acrimony had set in within the group. Bunny Wailer (the only member of the group who is still alive today) refused to tour again and Tosh began to express unease about the deal with Island. Neither was to perform as a Wailer again, although the termination of their artistic relationship couldn’t extinguish a lasting mutual respect and friendship.
To fill the vacancy in the harmony section, Marley’s wife Rita, Judy Mowatt and Marcia Griffiths all professional singers were enlisted as “The 1-Threes”. With American guitarist Al Anderson and Bernard “Touter” Harvey, Marley went on to record the album that finally set the seal on his career.
Natty Dread (1975) was a landmark for Marley and the Wailers, combining the spiritualism of Rastafari with the humour and warmth of its creator’s romantic moments. It contained compelling new versions of “Lively Up Yourself” and “Bend down Low” and new compositions “Them Belly Full” and “No Woman No Cry”. Those songs were taken to London that summer and at a memorable night at London’s Lyceum, still spoken of with reference, the future of reggae was cast. A Live album of that show spawned the single “No Woman No Cry”, awarding Marley his first major UK pop chart hit.
After the release of Rastaman Vibrations (1976) and the annual tours. Marley’s position as an international musician and statesman made him a target or warring gunmen in Jamaica.
In December of that year, at the height of pre-election political gang violence, seven armed men burst into his home at 56 Hope Road, Kingston, if his manager, Don Taylor, hadn’t flung himself in front of the singer, Marley would have sustained more serious injury than four bullet wounds in an arm.
Rita was also injured in the incident. The attack occurred on the eve of a concert he was due to appear at organised by the then ruling PNP party led by Michael Manley. Despite his injuries, Marley performed the concert although, immediately after, he left Jamaica for the safety of an 18-month exile in Miami.
The magnificent “Exodus” album (1977) was recorded partly there and partly in London: the sheer political fury of that record played a vital role in dragging him back to Jamaica.
When he did return it was one of the most moving spectacles ever witnessed on the island. In front of an estimated 20 000 people at Kingston’s National Stadium he brought together in a handshake Michael Manley and the ex-opposition leader, now premier, Edward Seaga. The concert was the beginning of a temporary truce between he rival factions and a commemoration of a visit to Jamaica exactly 12 years before by Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie, a man at the helm of Rastafarian philosophy of repatriation to Africa.
In all, Marley recorded 10 albums for Island.
It was almost inevitable that a man so identified with the struggles against class and racial oppression should be invited to perform at the celebrations of the birth of a new nation, Zimbabwe. On April 18, 1980. Bob Marley performed at Rufaro Stadium in Harare and celebrated Zimbabwe’s independence.
Towards the close of an exhausting world tour (1980) Marley collapsed after a concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden and was taken to Sloane Kettering Hospital where cancer was diagnosed.
The extent of his illness could be gauged by his decision to admit himself to the Josef Issels Clinic, on Lake Tegarn, Bavaria. Upon completion of the treatment he flew to Miami, to visit Cedella, en route to Jamaica. His discomfort must have been chronic and on May 8 he admitted himself to the Cedars Lebanon Hospital where he died three days later on May 11.
He was provided with a state funeral in Jamaica.
Bob Marley had been the biggest single foreign currency earner in Jamaica leaving an estimated US$46 million behind.
l Fred Zindi is a professor at the University of Zimbabwe who has written books on music and is also a musician he can be contacted via email on [email protected]