Bob Marley BiographyEssay title: Bob Marley BiographyBob Marley is without a doubt the greatest musician a third world country ever produced. Through Rastafarian ideas, he influenced many others with songs that touched the lives of millions with his constant message of unity. His wisdom through experience helped him achieve a grand distinction over other artists.
Marley was a great ambassador to the world preaching unity and justice for all. He wanted everyone to get along without violence. Not many people can measure the importance of Bob Marley to his people of Jamaica. He gave them an identity and a way to express. Bob Marley was a great man who was not only idolized by his country but by others who wanted to achieve freedom as well. His goal was to create peace with his talent of music. Throughout his music Marley ultimately changed the way we look at life as we know it.
In 1944, British Captain Norval Marley married Cedalla Booker, an extremely young Jamaican girl. On February 6, 1945 at 2:30am she gave birth to a Robert Nesta Marley in the small village of Nine Miles, Jamaican. Soon after Bob’s birth, his father was recalled and returned to England. Still he financially supported his son and occasionally returned to visit him. Around his 10th birthday his father died of a heart attack.
Through the years Bob suffered racial prejudice because of his mixed races of black and white. Although he questioned his own racial identity often, he never settled for one side.
“I dont have prejudice against myself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me dont dip on nobodys side. Me dont dip on the black mans side nor the white mans side. Me dip on Gods side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white.” ~Bob Marley
In the late fifties the scarcity of jobs forced Bob and his mother from their home to seek employment in the big city of Trenchtown. Trenchtown got its name because it was built over a huge trench which was used to drain the sewage. In Trenchtown Bob was bullied and taunted for his racial mix, which forced him into taking self defense classes. He then gained a reputation for his physical strength, which earned him the nickname “Tuff Gong”. Bob spent a lot of his time in Trenchtown with his friend Neville Livingstone or as people called him, Bunny.
Bob was also exposed to the music he had loved in the big city, like Fats Domino and Ray Charles. Bob and Bunny attended a music class together which was held by Joe Higgs a famous Jamaican singer. There they met Peter Macintosh and soon became great friends. In their spare time Bob, Bunny and Peter would sit around writing and singing songs. During this time Jamaican music was evolving and was becoming very popular all through the Caribbean. Music too many young Jamaicans was an escape from the harshness of everyday life. One of those young Jamaicans was Jimmy Cliff who had already recorded a couple good hits at the age of 14. Jimmy introduced Bob to Leslie Kong, who was local record producer. That day he found himself recording his first song “Judge Not” and later “One more Cup of Coffee”. But neither of these singles did very well and Bob left Kong soon after she failed to pay him.
In 1963 Bob, Bunny, Peter McIntosh, Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, and Cherry Smith form a group called “The Teenagers”. Later they changed the name to “The Wailing Rudeboys” and then again to “The Wailing Wailers”. By now they were discovered by Coxsone Dodd and changed the name again to “The Wailers”. It was with Dodd where the Wailers recorded their first song “Simmer Down” which did very well in Jamaica. The Wailers consisting now of Bob, Peter Tosh and Bunny were starting to become really popular within Trenchtown. They recorded several more songs with Dobbs label which included “It Hurts to be Alone” and “Rule the Roadie”. Their audiences grew rapidly and Bob eventually became the leader, since he was already the main songwriter and lead singer.
On February 10, 1966 Bob married his girlfriend Rita Anderson and moved near his mother’s residence in Wilmington, Delaware. While living in the US Bob worked as a DuPont lab assistant and on the assembly line at a Chrysler plant, under the alias Donald Marley. When he had collected enough money to further finance his music he returned home to Jamaica to continue his music career. Upon returning to Jamaica, Marley became a member of the Rastafari movement and started his dreadlocks. The Wailers music had evolved from Ska to Rock Steady. This conflicted with Dobbs who wanted a Ska band. So The Wailers left Dobbs and decided to form their own label which they called Wail’N Soul. This corresponded with the birth of Bob’s first daughter who they named Cedalla. The Wailers released
a new album entitled A World Apart that changed all that.
A World Apart was a single-track recording of Bob’s music consisting of “In My Place”. The tune is a composition of Bob’s melody as he sings it: “Let’s see what you think, the future of our world is going to be better than mine.” (On the title track is that of John Lennon and Marilyn Monroe). Various other tunes include:
I Know You Gonna Love You
I Am A Million Miles
I Want To Be Like You
Mister Bob
New Year
New Hope
Reverb
Rhapsody
Sneaky
When I was 6 years old, my mother told me that she once saw the singer as a child. When I was 11 I was told that my mother didn’t like children and she always took me by the hand. My mother didn’t believe in children and she was not like you. That was a very selfish woman. But I remember that my mother and then my mother told me that some of these songs, like that song from that band you guys shared with me, were about my experiences in life. The other song was this song called “A World Apart”. And Bob, the one who inspired my childhood to tell him this song, told me that “I thought I knew you, so I sang it”, in which he sings: “Just imagine, this song’s gonna help you know who and where I am”.
At the end of 1964, Bob was married to Rita Anderson and moved near Jamaica to continue his music career. The Wailers started creating music for the same reason that the Wailers had before: to try and sell records. At the same time they were moving to the US and were expecting a girl. The first girls Bob would ever have was Nancy, who lived in England, and the second girls were Daisy, Mary, and Sarah. For some reason they kept the girls under the cover of their uniforms and at home. During the 1970’s, the first girl Bob would ever have was Anna and for some reason her first appearance as part of the group was a visit to England with the Wailers’ manager Nancy. “We spent a good year and a half there,” Anna admits when she tells us “everything got better. We had a lot of opportunities and I was very happy there too.” This was very soon after the group dropped out of the group and Bob returned to Jamaica where he would continue his music career till he died in 1977. Anna had been married to this other girl for many years. It was the beginning of a long and long lost relationship between Bob and the women.
The end of the Wailers band in 1978 coincided with Bob moving to the US and making his first live concert and a concert tour with the Wailers, including a sold-out show at the University of Vermont. He would perform many of the songs from the band’s record store