Inductee: Bob Marley (vocals, guitar; born February 6, 1945, died May 11, 1981)
Bob Marley was reggae’s foremost practitioner and emissary, embodying its spirit and spreading its gospel to all corners of the globe. His extraordinary body of work embraces the stylistic spectrum of modern Jamaican music - from ska to rock steady to reggae - while carrying the music to another level as a social force with universal appeal. Marley cannot claim to have had even one hit single in America, but few others changed the musical and cultural landscape as profoundly as he. As Robert Palmer wrote in a tribute to Marley upon his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, “No one in rock and roll has l
There’s no question that reggae is legitimately part of the larger culture of rock and roll, partaking of its full heritage of social forces and stylistic influences. In Marley’s own words, “Reggae music, soul music, rock music - every song is a sign.” Marley’s own particular symbolism derived from his beliefs as a Rastafarian - a sect that revered Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia (a.k.a. Ras Tafari) as a living god who would lead oppressed blacks back to an African homeland - and his firsthand knowledge of the deprivations of the Jamaican ghettos. His lyrics mixed religious mysticism with calls for political uprising, and Marley delivered them in a passionate, declamatory voice.
Reggae’s loping, hypnotic rhythms carried an unmistakable signature that rose to the fore of the music scene in the Seventies, largely through the recorded work of Marley and the Wailers on the Island and Tuff Gong labels. Such albums as Natty Dread and Rastaman Vibration endure as reggae milestones that gave a voice to the poor and disfranchised citizens of Jamaica and, by extension, the world. In so doing, he also instilled them with pride and dignity in their heritage, however sorrowful the realities of their daily existence. Moreover, Marley’s reggae anthems provided rhythmic uplift that induced what Marley called “positive vibrations” in all who heard it. Regardless of how you heard it - political music suitable for dancing, or dance music with a potent political subtext – Marley’s music was a powerful potion for troubled times.
Marley was born on Jamaica to a young black mother and an older white father. A precocious musician, a teenaged Marley formed a vocal trio in 1963 with friends Neville “Bunny” O’Riley Livingston (later Bunny Wailer) and Peter McIntosh (later Peter Tosh). The group members had grown up in Trench Town, a ghetto neighborhood of Kingston, listening to rhythm and blues on American radio stations. They heard such R&B mainstays as Ray Charles, the Drifters, Fats Domino and Curtis Mayfield. They took the name the Wailing Wailers (shortened to the Wailers) because they were ghetto sufferers who’d been born “wailing.” As practicing Rastas, they grew their hair in dreadlocks and smoked ganja (marijuana), believing it to be a sacred herb that brought enlightenment.
The Wailers recorded prolifically for small Jamaican labels throughout the Sixties, during which time ska – Jamaican dance music that drew from African rhythms and New Orleans R&B – was the hot sound. The Wailers had their first hit in 1963 with “Simmer Down,” and they went on to record 30 sides in the “rude boy” ska style for Jamaican soundman Coxsone Dodd’s Studio One. By this time, Marley’s preoccupations were taking a spiritual turn, and Jamaican music itself was changing from the bouncy ska beat to the more sensual rhythms of rock steady. An association with Jamaican producer Lee Perry resulted in some of the Wailers’ memorable recordings, including “Soul Rebel” and “Duppy Conqueror,” and the albums Soul Rebel and Soul Revolution.
Though the Wailers were popular in Jamaica, it was not until the group signed with Chris Blackwell’s Island Records in the early Seventies that they found an international audience. Their first recordings for Island, Catch a Fire (1972) and Burnin’ (1973), were hard-hitting albums full of what critic Robert Christgau called Marley’s “melodic propaganda.” The latter contained “I Shot the Sheriff.” Reggae aficionado Eric Clapton’s version of the song went to #1 in 1974, which further carried the name of Marley and the Wailers beyond their Jamaican home base.
With the departure of founding members Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer after Burnin’, Marley took center stage as singer, songwriter and rhythm guitarist. Backed by a first-rate band and the I-Threes vocal trio – which included his wife, Rita – Marley rose to the occasion with 1975’s Natty Dread (his first album to chart in America) and the string of politically charged albums that followed. These included Rastaman Vibration, his highest-charting album (1976, #8); the fiery, oratorical Exodus (1977, #20); the mellow, herb-extolling Kaya (1978, #50), the live double-album Babylon by Bus (#1978, #102), and the politicized, defiant Survival (1979, #70) and Uprising (1980, #46). Uprising was the last studio album released during Marley’s lifetime.
So influential a cultural icon had Marley become on his home island by the mid-Seventies that Time magazine proclaimed, “He rivals the government as a political force.” On December 5, 1976, Marley was scheduled to give a free “Smile Jamaica” concert, aimed at reducing tensions between warring political factions. Two days before the scheduled concert, he and his entourage were attacked by gunman. Though Bob and Rita Marley were grazed by bullets, they electrified a crowd of 80,000 people when both took to the stage with the Wailers on the 5th - a gesture of survival that only heightened Marley’s legend. It further galvanized his political outlook, resulting in the most militant albums of his career: Exodus, Survival and Uprising.
He was particularly moved throughout his career by the gulf between haves and have-nots, a culture of oppression that was particularly glaring in his poverty- and crime-ridden Jamaican homeland. “We should all come together and creative music and love, but [there] is too much poverty,” Marley told writer Timothy White in 1976. “The most intelligent people [are] the poorest people…[but] people don’t get no time to feel and spend [their] intelligence…The intelligent and innocent are poor, are crumbled and get brutalized. Daily.”
Given the violent culture that he survived and transcended, Marley’s death seems almost cruelly flukish. In 1977, surgeons removed part of a toe that had been injured in a soccer game, upon which a cancerous growth was found. This led to the discovery of spreading cancer in 1980, after Marley collapsed while jogging in Central Park, that claimed his life less than a year later. Though he died prematurely at age 36, the heartbeat reggae rhythms of the enormous body of music that Bob Marley left behind have endured. Moreover, Jamaica itself has been transformed by his charismatic personality and musical output. Marley was buried on the island with full state honors on May 21, 1981. In a crowning irony, given the reviled status that Rastafarians and their music had once suffered at the hands of the Jamaican government, Marley’s pacifist reggae anthem, “One Love,” was adapted as a theme song by the Jamaican Tourist Board. Meanwhile, Marley’s music continues to find an audience. With sales of more than 10 million in the U.S. alone, Legend - a best-of spanning the Island Records years (1972-1981) - remains the best-selling album by a Jamaican artist and the best-selling reggae album in history.
TIMELINE
February 6, 1945: Bob Marley is born in St. Ann’s Parish in Jamaica.
1962: Bob Marley records his first single, “Judge Not,” at Federal Studios in Kingston, Jamaica.
February 10, 1966: Bob Marley and Alpharita (“Rita”) Constantia Anderson get married.
October 24, 1966: After eight months spent living in America with his mother, Bob Marley returns to Jamaica.
August 23, 1970: The Wailers begin recording a series of classic recordings with producer Lee “Scratch” Perry in what would be a classic lineup: Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh and brothers Aston and Carlton Barrett.
December 30, 1971: Bob Marley visits Island Records’ head Chris Blackwell at his London office. The resulting association will make a superstar of Marley and establish Island as THE reggae label.
December 13, 1972: ‘Catch a Fire,’ by the Wailers, is released in the U.K. Heralded as “the first genuine reggae album in history,” it comes out in the U.S. the following year.
September 14, 1974: Eric Clapton’s version of the Wailers’ “I Shot the Sheriff,” written by head Wailer Bob Marley, hits #1 and helps generate interest in reggae.
May 10, 1975: Though Bob Marley has been recording prolifically in his native Jamaica since 1962, Natty Dread is the first album by Marley and the Wailers to make the U.S. charts, reaching #92.
July 18, 1975: Bob Marley and the Wailers perform at the Lyceum in London. The concert is released in Britain as the album ‘Live!.’ After selling briskly as an import, it is released in the U.S. in October 1976.
May 13, 1976: ‘Rastaman Vibration,’ by Bob Marley and the Wailers – and featuring an American, Don Kinsey, on lead guitar – is released. It becomes Marley’s highest-charting album, reaching #8 in the U.S. and #15 in the U.K.
December 3, 1976: Bob Marley and his entourage are attacked by gunman. A wounded but undeterred Marley electrifies a crowd two nights later at a free “Smile Jamaica” concert.
January 17, 1977: Bob Marley and the Wailers cut new material in London, marking the first time they’ve recorded outside of Jamaica in six years. Of more than 20 songs recorded, ten turn up on ‘Exodus’ (1977) and ten on ‘Kaya’ (1978).
April 12, 1978: Bob Marley orchestrates a Peace Concert in Jamaica that features key reggae acts, including the Wailers, in an attempt to cool down the violent conflicts that are tearing Jamaica apart.
October 8, 1979: ‘Survival,’ a militant new album by Bob Marley and the Wailers, is released as a 47-date tour kicks off at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre.
June 8, 1980: A month after the release of the African-themed ‘Uprising,’ Bob Marley and the Wailers kick off the Tuff Gong Uprising tour, during which they’ll perform for a million people in 12 countries.
September 20, 1980: Bob Marley suffers a stroke while jogging in Central Park. X-rays reveal a brain tumor.
September 21, 1980: Bob Marley performs the final show of his career, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The tour’s remaining dates are canceled as Marley seeks treatment for his spreading cancers.
October 4, 1980: Stevie Wonder’s tribute to Bob Marley, the reggaefied “Master Blaster (Jammin’),” enters the singles charts. It will top the R&B chart for seven weeks and peak at #5 on the pop chart.
May 11, 1981: Bob Marley dies of brain, lung and stomach cancer at 11:45 a.m. in Miami, Florida.
May 21, 1981: Bob Marley is given a state funeral in Jamaica and buried at Nine Miles in St. Ann’s Parish, beside the house in which he was born.
January 19, 1994: Bob Marley is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the ninth annual induction dinner. Bono of U2 is his presenter, and Rita Marley accepts the award on behalf of her late husband.
April 7, 1999: ‘Legend,’ Bob Marley and the Wailers’ greatest-hits collection, receives its 10th platinum certification, signifying sales of more than 10 million copies.
Essential Songs
I Shot the Sheriff
Get Up, Stand Up
Lively Up Yourself
No Woman, No Cry
Redemption Song
One Love
Roots, Rock, Reggae
Buffalo Soldiers
Trenchtown Rock
Soul Rebel
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