Bob Marley's story


Bob Marley has sold over 200 million records worldwide (it is the largest seller of reggae records of history).

Biography


Robert Nesta Marley Aka Bob Marley was born February 6, 1945 (date on his passport but not officially confirmed as the government of Jamaica can not give birth) at Rhoden Hall near Nine Miles in St. Ann Parish (Jamaica ).
He died May 11, 1981 of a generalized cancer, a tumor in the left foot spotted after an accident during a football game with friends (his doctors repeatedly offered amputation because he refuses of his religion).

Bob Marley was born of a Jamaican black mother aged 17 years, Cedella Marley Booker, Malcolm born, and a white English-born father, Captain of the Navy and aged about fifty years, Norval Marley it has very little known. Norval Marley's parents refused to accept apparently not his affair with a black woman, and Norval, described by Cedella like a nice man, but of weak character, was rejected by his family.

Bob Marley suffers from the absence of his father, who brought to the capital to study when he was five or six years. No news, his mother found months later in a Kingston street, his son had been entrusted to an old lady, for whom he was running errands. Cedella Norval sees one last time and resumed its enfant.Bob Marley will be considered for many people as the "king of reggae."


Period ska

As a teenager, Marley left the poverty of the countryside to the ghetto of Trenchtown, Kingston. There he met Neville Livingston said Bunny Wailer and Winston Hubert McIntosh says Peter Tosh, with whom he sang hymns and the success of American soul music they hear on the radio in Miami. 

The singer Joe Higgs gives voice lessons. Bob Marley recorded his first song Judge Not for producer Leslie Kong's Beverley label in 1962 at the age of 17 and a resumption of a successful country and western music by Claude Gray: One Cup of Coffee in 1962. These securities have no success ska but Bob continues to invest in music.

In 1963 he formed with Junior Braithwaite, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer : The Wailers vocal group . They get a contract with Studio One in 1964 and their first tracks of ska, gospel, rhythm and blues and soul are produced by the large local producer Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd, whose studio wizard Lee "Scratch" Perry (Scratch also promotes). 

Bob leaves his job as a welder. After the album called The Wailin 'Wailers, the band separates from Coxsone, who do not pay them much in return for tens of securities they have registered for it (with several successes, such as Simmer Down and Put it On ).


Period Rocksteady


After his marriage to Rita Anderson early 1966, Bob Marley left to join his mother married a Jamaican named Booker in Wilmington, Delaware, USA. Bob works at the Hotel Dupont, but continues to write songs. It is temporarily replaced by Constantine "Dream" Walker. 

On his return after the summer 1966, he became more and more to the Rastafarian movement, which emerged in the 1930s in Jamaica and founded with Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston Wail'n Soul'm independent label. Self-produced their first title in the new style called rocksteady Bend Down Low.

In Kingston, it's Mortimer Planno, a Cuban-born Jamaican Rastafarian who has traveled to Ethiopia and Haile Selassie I met in early 1960 which transmits a part of Rastafarian culture.

Without the support of a professional distributor, its records sold poorly, and Bob Marley is too poor to live in town with his wife Rita and two children Ziggy and Cedella. He returns to his hometown in 1967 for a spiritual renewal, but continues to record and publish some 45 laps for his small dark mark Wail'n Soul'm, such as hypocrites and future classics Nice Time emerging as the Bob Marley & the Wailers.

Rita, Bob Marley and Peter Tosh met in January 1968, the American singer Johnny Nash, who has decided to launch the rocksteady style in the United States, and his manager Danny Sims, with whom they signed a contract for hard exclusive international editions and JAD .
Bob Marley provides quantity of original compositions, including Stir It Up, which will soon become a success for Nash. Johnny Nash has a lot of success with the rocksteady (tube American "Hold Me Tight" in 1968), but the album by Bob Marley; the Wailers he financed does not come out (it will be finally published in 1997 in JAD). Only a new version of Bend Down Low with horns added U.S. in New York was released in France and Canada (JAD-CBS) in 1968, but without any success. Bob Marley wrote his first song together rasta, Selassie Is the Chapel in 1968.
This important recording in the style nyabinghi (Rastafarian drums), is funded by Mortimer Planno, who interprets the B side, A Little Prayer. Some local producers come and go, but the vocal trio has no more success since leaving the bosom of Coxsone Dodd.

Bob Marley : legend Album

Reggae


Without resources, Bob Marley went back to the United States to join his mother in 1969. He worked several months of night in a Chrysler car factory. His wife and children join them. Upon his return, he founded Tuff Gong disks, named after its nickname of the ghetto (derived from the nickname of Leonard Howell, the "Gong founder of the Rastafarian movement), and recorded a cover of James Brown (Say It Loud) I ' m Black and I'm Proud renamed Black Progress in the new reggae style with brilliant young musicians, the brothers Carlton (drums) and Aston "Family Man" Barrett (bass) who left him. But independent labels Tuff Gong still have no success.

Marley goes to see his old friend Lee "Scratch" Perry in late 1969 went to England to sing accompanied by the Barrett brothers under the name of the Upsetters. Perry was awarded a British success with the instrumental The Return of Django and agrees to produce the vocal trio Bob Marley & the Wailers. 

They will work together until 1978. Perry gives a new color to the group, which recorded several masterpieces with him, which Duppy Conqueror, Sun Is Shining, Soul Rebel, Kaya and (I've Gotta) Keep on Moving by Curtis Mayfield. It will bring together some of the 45 laps on the album Soul Rebels released in England in 1973 with a trojan.

Without success, Bob Marley & the Wailers engrave a dozen songs with the music team of Leslie Kong, a Jamaican producer (Kong had already produced the first two 45s solo Bob Marley in 1962) that is successful in England through a professional sound that can penetrate the British market (Trojan records in London).
It will publish those titles in 1971 under the name The Best of the Wailers. "Bunny Wailer, superstitious, thinks that their" best "is yet to come and throws him a curse. Leslie Kong died shortly after a heart attack" (check), and the trio receives no money. 

Bob Marley Rasta raproche the organization of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, founded by the Prophet Gad, aka Vernon Carrington. They continue to alternate self-productions Tuff Gong sessions and financed by Lee "Scratch" Perry's Upsetter mark. Despite the quality of their prolific work, they have no local success to their own production Trench Town Rock (Tuff Gong 1971).


At the request of Johnny Nash seeking compositions for the band's Swedish film Vil Garna Tro Her (Love is not a game) in which he plays the lead role, Bob Marley moved to Stockholm in 1971. He wrote several songs, and collaborated on the film strip. Nash then signed with CBS records in London where he recorded the biggest hit of his career, I Can See Clearly Now. Marley joined him, and also sign with CBS thanks to Nash and his manager, with whom he is still under contract. As the album Nash, 45 laps Reggae on Broadway released in 1972, but Bob Marley did not succeed. Sound and English musicians made by Nash does not suit him. 

Some concerts in London with the Barrett brothers are organized in part to Nash, but without success. Nash leaves for the glory and abandons her foal. Marley then contact Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records and Trojan label. Blackwell is Jamaican, has already distributed the disc in England Leslie Kong's Beverley, and knows the name Marley.

He bought the production contract to Danny Sims, and entrusts money to Bob Marley, which starts recording in Kingston. At this turning point in his career, Bob Marley has already contributed to at least 350 songs recorded in a studio (with about thirty as a backup singer), much of which will be revealed to the international audience as very late, long after his death , including the series of ten CDs The Complete Bob Marley & the Wailers 1967 to 1972 (JAD) conducted between 1998 and 2003 by the French and American Blum Bruno Roger Steffens. Marley then reregister some of these compositions, Satisfy My Soul, Sun Is Shining or Lively Up Yourself.



Success


Bob Marley's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
At the suggestion of Blackwell, the first two albums for Island are remixed in London, where guitar solos are added, and keyboard parts that provide a more accessible to the general public. They come out at Island under the name of the Wailers in 1973, but after touring English Bunny Wailer left the group, replaced by Joe Higgs for the next round (album Talking Blues), Peter Tosh, which is then gone, leaving Bob on his solo career.





The female vocal trio "The Three I" with Rita Marley, Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt supports the choruses. The name of the Wailers is now one of his companions, including the Barrett brothers (bass and drums), pianists Earl "Wire" Lindo & Tyrone Downie, guitarist Earl "Chinna" Smith, harmonica player Lee Jaffee and percussionist Alvin "Seeco" Patterson. His first album is the masterpiece "Natty Dread", in which he incorporates blues influence with American guitarist Al Anderson. Another American guitarist, Junior Marvin, is then committed. Follow the "Live!

"Recorded July 18, 1975 in London, which contains his first international hit" No Woman No Cry, where he consoles a woman affected by the violence of the ghettos and then essentially Rastaman Vibration (1976) to be the disc of Bob Marley's best-selling during his lifetime, and his first U.S. success.

In 1973, Bob Marley meets Eric Clapton in Jamaica and it resumed the following year, I Shot the Sheriff, who will ensure success and contribute to the wave of reggae in the West.

On December 3, 1976 in Kingston, just before the big outdoor concert Smile Jamaica Bob Marley escapes triggered a shootout at his home by six armed men. It is shot in the arm, once in the chest and five in the thigh while another button Rita at the head but not killing her (she is doing miraculously). Don Taylor, their American manager, comes out very badly wounded by six bullets. Among the attackers, members of the Wailers recognize Jim Brown, a killer near the right wing pro-American, the JLP.

Two days after the attack, Bob Marley participates as planned at Smile Jamaica concert in Kingston. Reporters who asked him why he wanted to play at this concert he said: "People involved in making the world worse never take holidays. That's why I can not afford it. " 

Family Man Barrett, hidden in the hills, was replaced that day by Cat Coore of Third World. Bob shows his bandages to the crowd. He no longer feels safe in Jamaica and went into exile in January 1977. He stops in Nassau, then fled to London. 

He records the hit albums Exodus and Kaya and the single "Punky Reggae Party with Lee Scratch Perry, who sealed a pact with the rebel English punk movement in full swing. Titles Jamming, Waiting in Vain including tubes are global. His relationship with the Jamaican Cindy Breakspeare, Miss World 1976, the project contributes to the headlines.


In May 1977, an injured big toe while playing football made reopens during a friendly match at the Hilton Paris. The doctor suggests testing. Diagnosis is made in London: Bob Marley suffers a malignant melanoma (skin disease that only 4% of all cancers but is the most dangerous), probably due to too long exposure to sunlight.

He prescribes urgent amputation of the toe, but a mixture of superstition of his entourage (the Rastafari religion prohibits amputation) and pressure in full European tour where he finally meets his public help to delay the operation.

In April 1978, Bob Marley & the Wailers made a triumphant return to Jamaica. At the One Love Peace Concert, Bob manages to bring on stage the two political rivals who vie for power, Edward Seaga (JLP) and Prime Minister Michael Manley (PNP). It is the height of his career. Non-stop touring, Bob Marley & The Wailers recorded the album in public Babylon by Bus to the Pavillon de Paris Porte de Pantin in 1978. 

Bob is then built his studio, Tuff Gong, where he recorded the album Survival. Successes multiply. They will play to New Zealand where they are greeted warmly by Māori. In 1979, in full glory, it is the great attraction of the festival Reggae Sunsplash where also involved Burning Spear and Peter Tosh.

In 1980, after fainting during a jog in Central Park in New York, Bob Marley goes X-ray examination which shows five tumors, three brain, lung and stomach. He said nothing to him and continues his concerts including one at Le Bourget en Seine St Denis, France July 3, 1980 who gathered more than 50,000 people in the streets, he played a final concert recorded in Pittsburgh, September 23 . 

Bob Marley then went to a clinic in Bavaria, where it follows a unique treatment with a German physician, Dr. Josef Issels extending its life at the price of hard suffering. The cancer spreads.

At the end of his life, Bob Marley converted to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, whose highest authority was the late Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie (Jah Live), regarded by Rastafarians as the reincarnation of Jesus announced in the Apocalypse ("king of kings, lord of lords"). He wanted to end his days in Jamaica but dies in Miami May 11, 1981, too weak to travel by plane to Kingston.