Island Records heard a rock rebel inside reggae's rhythm
When the Wailers met Chris Blackwell in London, they meant to talk royalties. Island's Jimmy Cliff had just left, and Blackwell saw in Bob Marley the face that could carry Jamaican music to rock listeners. A four-thousand-pound advance bought Catch a Fire—and studio care usually reserved for rock bands.
Robert Nesta Marley was born February 6, 1945, in Nine Mile, Saint Ann Parish, to Norval Sinclair Marley, a white Englishman around sixty, and Cedella Malcolm, then eighteen. Norval offered little support and died when Bob was ten. At twelve, mother and son moved to Kingston's Trenchtown, where Bob and childhood friend Bunny Livingston soaked up ska and American R&B. With Peter Tosh they formed a harmony group that cycled through names until they became the Wailers. Neighbor Joe Higgs coached vocals and began teaching Marley guitar. "Simmer Down" hit Jamaican number one in February 1964, selling an estimated seventy thousand copies.
Early sides for Leslie Kong and Coxsone Dodd gave way to work with Lee "Scratch" Perry, then to a slower reggae pulse heard after the Maytals' "Do the Reggay." Marley married Rita Anderson in 1966, briefly worked U.S. factory jobs under the alias Donald Marley, and embraced Rastafari, growing dreadlocks after returning to Jamaica. Signing with Island in 1972 brought Catch a Fire and Burnin' (both 1973). Blackwell softened bass-heavy Jamaican mixes toward a drifting, hypnotic feel and overdubbed in London. After the original Wailers split, Marley kept the name; Eric Clapton's cover of "I Shot the Sheriff" primed overseas ears for a live "No Woman, No Cry" breakthrough in 1975.
Rastaman Vibration (1976) reached the U.S. soul Top 50; Exodus, cut after he settled in London, folded in blues, soul, and British rock. Diagnosed with acral lentiginous melanoma in 1977, he died May 11, 1981, soon after baptism into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and received a Jamaican state funeral. Legend (1984) became the best-selling reggae album ever; career sales estimates exceed seventy-five million. Posthumous honors include the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award—the farm boy from Nine Mile turned into reggae's global emblem.
Source: Bob Marley
