Today, May 11, 2002, marks another year without Bob Marley!

The year 1945 was a great year. It was in 45 that, after nine years of a war that killed millions of people around the world, peace finally returned to reign on Earth. In every corner of the planet people hugged and were able to celebrate the end of the saddest episode in human history. Thousands of sons returned to their homes, families reunited and the construction of a new time began.

However, in 1945 there was another great event, which only some residents of the small village of Nine Mile, rural interior of the Parish of St. Ann (Santa Ana), in the north of Jamaica, celebrated. It was on February 6 of that year that the boy Robert Nesta Marley was born there, son of Cedella Booker, a black girl only eighteen years old, and Captain Norval Marley, of the British West Indies Regiment, a white Englishman 50 years old who, due to pressure from his family in England, despite helping financially, barely knew his son. But to better understand the story of this boy it is necessary to go a little further back in time.

Although slavery had been abolished in Jamaica in 1834, those days of suffering are still in the memory of the descendants of Africans and, mixed with English customs, are part of the island's culture. Already at the beginning of the last century the African heritage began to have political expression with Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican pastor who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association. The organization defended the creation of a black country, free from white domination, in Africa, that would receive back all the descendants of Africans exiled in America. It was even with this intention that Garvey founded a steamship company, the Black Star Line. But Marcus Garvey is remembered in Jamaica also for another reason.

The pastor, in his sermons, used to repeat a prophecy that soon spread among the black population. He said that soon in Africa a black King would arise, the 225th descendant of the lineage of Menelik, the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, who would free the black race from white domination. Years later this king appeared. In 1930 Ras Tafari Makonnen was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia and took the name Hailè Selassiè. At the same time, Garvey's followers in Jamaica began to believe that the prophecy had been fulfilled and began a new religion called Rastafari.

Years later, this religion would be spread around the world through the music of a boy called Bob Marley.
Around the 50s, the capital Kingston was the land of dreams for the inhabitants of Jamaica's rural zones. Although the city did not have much work to offer, crowds went there to inevitably swell the population of slums that already grew on its west side. The largest and most miserable of these slums was Trench Town (or Sewer City), so called for having been built over the ditches that drained the waste from the old part of Kingston. And it was there that Dona Cedella moved with her son at the end of the 50s. The boy grew up in this environment along with other street boys and, in particular, his friend Neville O’Riley Livingston, better known as Bunny, with whom he began to play cans and improvised guitars at home.

The sound the two boys made was influenced by the stations from the southern United States that they could pick up on their radios and that played songs by artists such as Ray Charles, Curtis Mayfield, Brook Benton and Fats Domino, as well as vocal groups like The Drifters that had great popularity in Jamaica. At that time, Bob got a job in a tin shop, but he already had music as the great objective of his life. The pursuit of that objective became exclusive dedication when a spark from the weld he worked with burned his eye. The accident was not serious but made him quit the job and invest solely in improving his music with Bunny. They were helped by Joe Higgs, a singer who, despite already having some fame on the island, still lived in Trench Town and gave singing lessons to beginners.

In one of these classes Bob and Bunny met another young musician called Peter Tosh. In 1962 Bob Marley was heard by a music businessman named Leslie Kong who, impressed, took him to a studio to record some songs. The first of them “Judge Not” was soon released by the Beverley’s label. The following year Bob decided that the best path to success was in a group, calling Bunny and Peter to form the "Wailing Wailers". The new group gained the sympathy of the rastafari percussionist Alvin Patterson, who introduced them to producer Clement Dodd. In mid-1963 Dodd heard the Wailing Wailers and decided to invest in the group.

The fashionable rhythm in Jamaica then was Ska which, with a marked and danceable beat, mixed African elements with rhythm & blues from New Orleans and had Clement “Sir Coxsone” Dodd as one of its most famous promoters. The Wailing Wailers released their first single, “Simmer Down”, by Coxsone in late 1963 and in January the song was already the most played in Jamaica, remaining in that position for two months. The group then was formed by Bob, Bunny, Peter, Junior Braithwaite and two backing vocals, Beverly Kelso and Cherry Smith.

At that time, the ticket arrived by mail that Dona Cedella, who had remarried and moved to Delaware in the United States, managed to buy after great effort to save money. She wanted to give Bob a new life in America, but before the trip he met Rita Anderson and on February 10, 1966 they got married. Marley spent only eight months with his mother before returning to Jamaica, where a period began that had special importance for the rest of his life. Bob arrived in Kingston in October 66, only six months after the visit of His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Hailè Selassiè, of Ethiopia, which brought new strength to the Rastafari movement on the island.

Marley's involvement with the Rastafari belief was also growing and, from 67, his music began to reflect that. The hymns of the Rude Boys gave way to a growing dedication to spiritual and social songs that became the foundation stone of his real legacy. Bob then invited Peter and Bunny to again form a group, this time called “The Wailers”. Rita also began her career as a singer with a big hit called “Pied Piper”, a cover of an English pop song. Jamaican music, however, had changed. The frantic beat of Ska was giving way to a slower and sensual rhythm called Rock Steady. The new Rastafari belief of The Wailers put them in conflict with Coxsone Dodd and, determined to control their own destiny, made them create a new label, the Wail’N’Soul. But, despite some successes, the business of The Wailers did not improve much and the label went bankrupt at the end of 1967.

The group survived, however, initially as songwriters for a company associated with the American singer Johnny Nash who, in the following decade, would have a great success with “Stir It Up”, by Bob. The Wailers then met a man who would revolutionize their work: Lee Perry, whose productive genius had transformed studio recording techniques into art. The Perry / Wailers association resulted in some of the band's best recordings. Songs like “Soul Rebel”, “Duppy Conqueror”, “400 Years” and “Small Axe” if they were not classics they defined the future direction of reggae. In 1970, Aston ’Family Man’ Barrett and his brother Carlton (bass and drums, respectively) joined The Wailers. They were the core of Perry's studio band and had participated in several of the group's recordings. The brothers were known as the best rhythm section in Jamaica, a status they would continue to hold through the next decade.

The Wailers were then recognized as a great success in the Caribbean, but internationally they remained unknown. In the summer of 1971 Bob accepted Johnny Nash's invitation to accompany him to Sweden, on which occasion he signed a contract with CBS, which was also the American's label. In the spring of 72 all The Wailers were already in England, openly promoting the single “Reggae on Broadway”, but without achieving good results. As a last attempt Bob entered the Island Records studios, which had been the first to pay attention to the growth of Jamaican music, and asked to speak with its founder, Chris Blackwell.

Blackwell knew the fame of The Wailers and the group was making an irresistible proposal. They were advancing 4 thousand pounds to record an album and so that, for the first time, a reggae band would have access to the most advanced recording techniques and would be treated as rock bands were treated at the time. Before this proposal the labels thought that a reggae group only sold in singles or compilations with various bands. The first album by The Wailers, “Catch A Fire” broke all the rules: it was beautifully packaged and strongly promoted. It was the beginning of a long road to fame and international recognition. Although “Catch A Fire” was not an instant hit, the album had a great impact on the media.

Marley's striking rhythm, allied to his militant lyrics, came in total contrast to what was being done then. In addition, Island promoted a tour of the group in England and the United States, which was a complete novelty for a reggae band. The Wailers arrived in London in April 73, embarking on a series of shows that would show their quality as a live band. However, after three months, the group returned to Jamaica and Bunny, disenchanted with life on the road, refused to play on the American tour. In his place entered Joe Higgs, the old singing teacher of The Wailers. The American tour included, in addition to some venues, participation in some shows by Bruce Springsteen and Sly & The Family Stone, the main American black music band of the moment.

But after four shows it became clear that placing The Wailers opening concerts could be bad for the main attractions. The band then went to San Francisco, where KSAN radio broadcast a live performance that was only released in 1991, when Island released the commemorative album “Talkin’ Blues”. In 73 the group also released its second album on Island, “Burnin’”, an LP that included new versions of some of its older songs, such as: “Duppy Conqueror”, “Small Axe” and “Put It On”, together with tracks like “Get Up, Stand Up” and “I Shot The Sheriff” (which the following year would become a huge worldwide success in the voice of Eric Clapton, reaching first place on the list of best-selling singles in the United States).

In 74 Marley spent a large part of his time in the studio working on the sessions that resulted in “Natty Dread”, an album that included songs such as “Talkin’ Blues”, “No Woman No Cry”, “So Jah Seh”, “Revolution”, “Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)” and “Rebel Music (3 o’clock Roadblock)”. At the beginning of the next year, however, Bunny and Peter would definitively leave the group to embark on solo careers while the band began to be known as Bob Marley & The Wailers. “Natty Dread” was released in February 75 and soon the band was again on the road. The harmonic composition lost with the departure of Bunny and Peter had been replaced by the I-Threes, a female trio composed of Bob's wife, Rita, as well as Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt.

Among the concerts, the most important were the two performances at the Lyceum Ballroom in London which to this day are remembered among the best of the decade. The shows were recorded and soon the record, along with the single “No Woman, No Cry”, was on the charts. In November, when Marley returned to Jamaica to play a benefit show with Stevie Wonder he was already obviously the biggest superstar on the island. “Rastaman Vibrations”, the following album, released in 76, reached the top of the American charts and is considered by many the clearest expression of Bob's music and beliefs. The LP included songs like “Crazy Baldhead”, “Johnny Was”, “Who The Cap Fit” and, perhaps the most significant of all, “War”, whose lyrics were taken from a speech by Emperor Hailè Selassiè, at the United Nations.

With international success grew Bob Marley's political importance in Jamaica, where the Rastafari faith expressed by his music reached strong resonance among the youth of the ghettos. As a form of thanks to the people of the island, Bob decided to give an open concert at the National Heroes Park of Kingston, on December 5, 1976. The idea was to emphasize the need for peace in the streets of the city, where gang fights were causing confusion and deaths. Soon after the show was announced, the government called elections for December 20. This gave new strength to the ghetto war and, in the afternoon of the concert, gunmen invaded Bob's house and shot at him. In the confusion the gunmen only wounded Marley, who was taken to safety in the mountains around the city.

However he decided to do the show anyway and went on stage for a quick performance in defiance of his attackers. It was Bob's last performance in Jamaica for eight months. Right after the show he left the country to live in London, where he recorded his next album, “Exodus”. Released in the summer of that year, “Exodus” consolidated the band's international status, staying on the charts in England for 56 straight weeks and having its three singles - “Waiting In Vain”, “Exodus” and “Jamming’” - with strong sales.

In 78 the band capitalized on new success with “Kaya”, which reached fourth place in England in the week following its release. The album showed a new angle of Marley, with a collection of love songs and, of course, tributes to the power of “Ganja”. Two singles were extracted from the album: “Satisfy My Soul” and “Is This Love”. Still in 78 three more events of extraordinary importance for Marley would happen. In April he returned to Jamaica for the “One Love Peace Concert”, when he made Prime Minister Michael Manley and opposition leader Edward Seaga shake hands on stage.

He was then invited to go to the headquarters of the United Nations, in New York, to receive the Peace Medal. And, at the end of the year, Bob visited Africa for the first time, going initially to Kenya and then to Ethiopia, the Rastafari spiritual home. The band had just finished a tour through Europe and America that yielded the second live album: “Babylon By Bus”. “Survival”, Bob Marley's ninth album for Island, was released in the summer of 1979. It included “Zimbabwe”, an anthem for Rhodesia, which would soon be liberated, together with “So Much Trouble In The World”, “Ambush In The Night” and “Africa Unite”. As the cover indicates, which contains the flags of the independent nations, “Survival” was an album in homage to Pan-African solidarity.

In April 1980, the group was officially invited by the government of newly liberated Zimbabwe to play at the independence ceremony of the new nation. This was the greatest honor offered to the band and clearly demonstrated its importance in the Third World. The band's next record, “Uprising”, was released in May of 80 and had immediate success with “Could You Be Loved”. The album also brought “Coming In From The Cold”, “Work” and the extraordinary closing track,
“Redemption Song”. The Wailers then embarked on their largest European tour, breaking audience records across the continent. The schedule included a show for 100 thousand people in Milan, the largest in the band's history. Bob Marley & The Wailers were the biggest band on the road that year and “Uprising” was on every chart in Europe. It was a period of maximum optimism and plans were being made for a tour in America in the company of Stevie Wonder at the end of the year.

At the end of the European tour Marley and the band went to the United States. Bob played two shows at Madison Square Garden, but soon after he fell seriously ill. Three years earlier, in London, he had injured his toe playing football. The injury became cancerous and, despite having been treated in Miami, it continued to progress. In 1980, the cancer, in its most virulent form, began to spread through Bob's body. He controlled the disease for eight months, undergoing treatment at Dr. Joseph Issels's clinic, in Bavaria. Issels's treatment was controversial for using only natural and non-toxic remedies and, for some time, it seemed to stabilize Bob's condition. However, suddenly the struggle began to get more difficult. At the beginning of May he left Germany to return to Jamaica, but he did not complete the trip.

Bob Marley died in a Miami hospital on Monday, May 11, 1981. The previous month, Marley had been awarded the Order of Merit of Jamaica, the third highest honor of the nation, in recognition of his invaluable contribution to the culture of the country. On Thursday, May 21, 1981, the Honorable Robert Nesta Marley O. M. received an official funeral from the people of Jamaica. After the funeral - attended by both the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition - Marley's body was taken to his homeland, Nine Mile, in the north of the island, where it now rests in a mausoleum. Bob Marley died at 36 years old, but his legend remains alive to this day.