(b Nine Mile, nr St Ann’s Bay, Jamaica, 6 Feb 1945; d Miami, 11 May 1981). Jamaican reggae singer, songwriter, guitarist and bandleader. The son of a Jamaican farm girl and an Anglo-Jamaican agriculture inspector, he was raised in the rural parish of St Ann before moving to Kingston, aged seven, to be closer to his father. At 15 he was singing under the tutelage of established vocalists Joe Higgs and Desmond Dekker, and made his first ska record, Judge Not, as Robert Marley in 1960. In 1963, with Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston, he formed the Wailers, a harmony trio patterned after the Impressions, whose songs the Wailers covered before recording their own hits, Simmer Down (1964) and Put it On (1965) for the producer Clement Dodd. During the 1960s the Wailers evolved with Jamaican pop music through the rude boy, rock steady and early reggae styles, working with the producers Leslie Kong and especially Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, whose rhythm section, Aston Barrett (bass guitar) and his brother Carlton Barrett (drums), was gradually absorbed into the Wailers. By 1972 the group had recorded their biggest Jamaican hit, Trenchtown Rock (1971), entered into an informal alliance with Prime Minister Michael Manley’s political party and embraced the tenets of the Rastafarians, Jamaica's alternative spiritual nationality. In 1972 the group began to work with Chris Blackwell, whose Island Records label released the first Wailers album, Catch a Fire, that year. After Burnin’ (1973), Tosh and Livingston left and the group became known as Bob Marley and the Wailers.
Emerging from Jamaica at the head of the burgeoning reggae movement of the 1970s, Marley rebuilt his group, adding a female vocal trio that included his wife, Rita, and electric guitars as Blackwell pushed Jamaican music towards a rock audience. Thus Marley built a worldwide following for reggae and his hypnotic performances and revolutionary anthems. His high voice conveyed an unshakable conviction in his lyrics of protest and spirituality, accented by his trademark arsenal of trills, yodels and scat vocalisms. Albums like Rastaman Vibration (1976), Survival (1979) and Uprising (1980) established Marley as an international champion of freedom and human rights. A hero of anti-colonial movements, his song Zimbabwe (1979) was so inspirational to the guerrilla army fighting for that country’s independence that Marley was invited to perform at the ceremony marking the end of British rule in 1980. Diagnosed with cancer in 1977, he refused a recommended amputation and continued to tour until his illness forced the cancellation of a world tour in September 1980. On his deathbed he was awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit.
Since his death, Marley has become a secular saint and avatar of Third World culture, and his image lives on T-shirts around the world. His performances, with their incantatory power backed by the propulsive swing of the reggae bassline, have become legendary. Enormously significant as a singer and songwriter, his influence is indelibly imprinted on Jamaican music, rock and especially rap and areas of British dance music.
V. Goldman: ‘So Much Thing to Say’, Sounds (11 June 1977)
P. Reel: ‘The Words and Works of Bob Marley and the Wailers’, New Musical Express (6 June 1981)
S. Davis: Bob Marley (London, 1983, 2/1994)
R. Palmer: ‘Bob Marley’s Reggae Legacy’, Rolling Stone (24 Feb 1994)
R. Steffens and B.W. Talamon: Bob Marley: Spirit Dancer (New York, 1994)
A. Boot and C. Salewicz: Bob Marley: Songs of Freedom (London, 1995)
Material relating to his life and work in the National Library of Jamaica, Kingston
STEPHEN DAVIS