If there is one name that comes to mind when speaking of reggae music, it has simply got to be Bob Marley. This man has influenced so many people even after death as one of the genre’s best performers and songwriters. Few other people can even compare to the awesome legacy that Marley has left behind. Bob Marley is also very popular these days as a symbol for smoking weed. He openly smoked it and even had many songs with lyrics that tied in with smoking marijuana. Bob is also credited with bringing the reggae music of Jamaica as well as the Rastafari movement to a more world wide audience. It is for these things that we remember Bob Marley and all of the wonderful music that he has given us.
Marley’s Music Career
Bob Marley and the Wailers were arguably the best reggae band to ever play and they were also innovators of the music. Formally identifying themselves as a ska and rocksteady group, the band went through many name changes before the finally settled on something they liked. These names included The Teenagers, The Wailing Rudeboys, The Wailing Wailers, and eventually The Wailers. The band was not known as the more popular Bob Marley and the Wailers until after the band’s first big break up in 1974. The band’s first incarnation consisted of Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, Junior Braithwaite, Beverly Kelso, and Cherry Smith when they were first discovered by Coxsone Dodd the record producer. Three of these members left the band by 1966 at which time only Marley, Wailer, and Tosh remained in the band.
The Wailers were in for a very bad deal with CBS records in 1972. Working in accompaniment with American soul singer Johnny Nash on a following tour, the band became broke and came to a bit of a stand still. However, the band soon met up with another producer who helped produce the first reggae album recorded on state of the art equipment entitled, Catch A Fire. Their next album Burnin’ was received well in the Americas but Jamaican listeners were not fond of the newer, less bass heavy sound that the album was known for. After their break up in 1974, Bob Marley continued performing under the name Bob Marley and the Wailers until his untimely death in May of 1981.
Bob Marley’s Life
Bob was born as Nesta Robert Marley on February 6, 1945 in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica. Marley’s father was a white man and his mother was a black woman so he did face criticism sometimes throughout his life as a result of this. Though Bob Marley had a mixed background, he seemed to identify himself a black African throughout his life. A passport official in Jamaica would swap Bob’s middle and first names. Marley is a proud member of the Rastafari movement which he followed for his whole life. In his later life, Marley developed a cancerous legion on his toe which he decided not to amputate due to his religious beliefs. He would later die on May 11, 1981 at the age of 36. Bob Marley lived a good life and inspired the lives of many children and listeners the world around.
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