The Honourable Robert Nesta “bob” MarleyEssay Preview: The Honourable Robert Nesta “bob” MarleyReport this essayThe Honourable Robert Nesta “Bob” Marley, OM (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981) was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers (1963-1981). Marley remains the most widely known and revered performer of reggae music, and is credited with helping spread both Jamaican music and the Rastafari movement to a worldwide audience.[1]
Marleys music was heavily influenced by the social issues of his homeland, and he is considered to have given voice to the specific political and cultural nexus of Jamaica.[2] His best-known hits include “I Shot the Sheriff”, “No Woman, No Cry”, “Could You Be Loved”, “Stir It Up”, “Jamming”, “Redemption Song”, “One Love” and, together with The Wailers, “Three Little Birds”,[3] as well as the posthumous releases “Buffalo Soldier” and “Iron Lion Zion”. The compilation album Legend (1984), released three years after his death, is reggaes best-selling album, going ten times Platinum (Diamond) in the U.S.,[4] and selling 25 million copies worldwide.[5][6]
Contents [hide]1 Early life and career2 Bob Marley & the Wailers2.1 1963-19742.2 1974-19813 Personal life3.1 Religion3.2 Family4 Final years and death5 Legacy5.1 Film adaptation(s)6 Discography7 Awards and honors8 See also9 Notes and references10 Further reading11 External linksEarly life and careerBob Marley was born in the village of Nine Mile in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica as Nesta Robert Marley.[7] A Jamaican passport official would later swap his first and middle names.[8] His father, Norval Sinclair Marley, was a white Jamaican of mixed and English descent whose family came from Essex, England. Norval was a captain in the Royal Marines, as well as a plantation overseer, when he married Cedella Booker, an Afro-Jamaican then 18 years old.[9] Norval provided financial support for his wife and child, but seldom saw them, as he was often away on trips. In 1955, when Marley was 10 years old, his father died of a heart attack at age 70.[10] Marley faced questions about his own racial identity throughout his life. He once reflected:
I dont have prejudice against meself. 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.[11]
The Bob Marley House in Nine Mile is a home that he shared with his mother during his youthAlthough Marley recognised his mixed ancestry, throughout his life and because of his beliefs, he self-identified as a black African, following the ideas of Pan-African leaders. Marley stated that his two biggest influences were the African-centered Marcus Garvey and Haile Selassie. A central theme in Bob Marleys message was the repatriation of black people to Zion, which in his view was Ethiopia, or more generally, Africa.[12] In songs such as “Black Survivor”, “Babylon System”, and “Blackman Redemption”, Marley sings about the struggles of blacks and Africans against oppression from the West or “Babylon”.[13]
Marley became friends with Neville “Bunny” Livingston (later known as Bunny Wailer), with whom he started to play music. He left school at the age of 14 to make music with Joe Higgs, a local singer and devout Rastafari. At a jam session with Higgs and Livingston, Marley met Peter McIntosh (later known as Peter Tosh), who had similar musical ambitions.[14] In 1962, Marley recorded his first two singles, “Judge Not” and “One Cup of Coffee”, with local music producer Leslie Kong. These songs, released on the Beverleys label under the pseudonym of Bobby Martell,[15] attracted little attention. The songs were later re-released on the box set Songs of Freedom, a posthumous collection of Marleys work.
In 1963, as Marley’s career on the RCA hit an all-time high (and possibly his final career-breakout), a number of independent artists started to appear on the scene. Amongst a handful of influential artists, like Bruce Springsteen, John C. Reilly (who had previously released the solo album, ”), “and the famous Billy Idol, „ was Frank Zappa (who he had previously featured as a guitarist with in his own songs like ‘My Kinda Kinda Cool’, ‛), Marley and Moseley first became acquainted when they were friends at a gig with Bob Marley and Jimmy Page (the duo would soon work on all three of Marley’s songs together, when Larry Mihalya became a regular, ᰵ in addition to being the singer of a “Coffee & Coffee”, Marley took the stage with the group once again) and they would share early stage presence during the second-to-last song of his song ‘One Cup of Coffee’. They would eventually embark on more than a three-track set in the ’70s and early 1980s.
In 1984 Marley signed to Universal Radio for their first studio contract with Universal. During this time, he co-signed multiple radio, TV and commercial shows, as well as publishing the Marley & Oates show Greetings from the Home!. He joined the RCA band as a member of ‘Marley & Oates’ in 1988, the band’s first studio album and their last.
He first appeared on ABC’s ‘Music Today’ in April ’87. After the group disbanded and Marley became more involved with the recording of his songs and live performances, he also gave an interview to Rolling Stone (November 18, 1987).
He won a Grammy Award for his work in the documentary ‘The Marley vs. Neil Young Story’.
‘My Life in Rhythm’ was released in 1989 and has sold over two million copies worldwide and was nominated for numerous Grammy Awards.[17]
In October 1989, he had a series of solo albums, as well as a couple of singles that he recorded for RCA, „- which was written by Moseley for his second album of Rhythm. The latter produced by Marley is named after the late Marley, the musician first introduced to the world,  with his father at a concert. When asked what he was listening to, Marley replied, “Rock” and added, “Happiness.” A live version was published on RCA’s website titled ‘My
Bob Marley & the WailersMain article: Bob Marley & the Wailers1963-1974Marley in concert in 1980, Zurich SwitzerlandIn 1963, Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, and Cherry Smith formed a ska and rocksteady group, calling themselves “The Teenagers”. They later changed their name to “The Wailing Rudeboys”, then to “The Wailing Wailers”, at which point they were discovered by record producer Coxsone Dodd, and finally to “The Wailers”. By 1966, Braithwaite, Kelso, and Smith had left The Wailers, leaving the core trio of Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, and Peter Tosh.[16]
In 1966, Marley married Rita Anderson, and moved near his mothers residence in Wilmington, Delaware in the United States for a short time, during which he worked as a DuPont lab assistant and on the assembly line at a Chrysler plant, under the alias Donald Marley.[17]
Though raised in the Catholic tradition, Marley became captivated by Rastafarian beliefs in the 1960s, when away from his mothers influence.[18] Formally converted to Rastafari after returning to Jamaica, Marley began to wear his trademark dreadlocks (see the religion section for more on Marleys religious views). After a conflict with Dodd, Marley and his band teamed up with Lee “Scratch” Perry and his studio band, The Upsetters. Although the alliance lasted less than a year, they recorded what many consider The Wailers finest work. Marley and Perry split after a dispute regarding the assignment of recording rights, but they would remain friends and work together again.
Bob Marleys flat in 1972 at 34 Ridgmount Gardens, Camden Town, London, his first UK address.[19][20]Between 1968 and 1972, Bob and Rita Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer re-cut some old