Bob Marley`s Bio

[Okoloko]

Robert Nesta Marley was born February 6, 1945 in rural St. Ann's Parish, Jamaica; the son of a middle-aged white, British military officer father and a local teenaged black mother. Bob had little exposure to his father but got loving care from his mother Cedella and his Grandfather who was known as an obeah man... a kind of shaman or medicine man who had considerable influence on the young Bob. At age 14, he left home to pursue a music career in Kingston, becoming a pupil of local singer and devout Rastafarian Joe Higgs.

He began recording in 1962, debuting on a ska-tempoed song called "Judge Not". Looking back, it seems very fitting that the song's lyrics were firmly routed in a moral and social dimension. He formed a vocal trio with some childhood friends, Neville "Bunny" Livingston (later Bunny Wailer) and Peter McIntosh (later Peter Tosh). They took the name the Wailers because they were ghetto sufferers who'd been born "wailing." As practicing Rastas, they grew their hair in dreadlocks and smoked ganja, believing it to be a sacred herb that brought enlightenment.


1973's Catch a Fire, the Wailers' Island debut, was the first of their albums released outside of Jamaica, and immediately earned worldwide acclaim; the follow-up, Burnin', launched the track "I Shot the Sheriff, " a Top Ten hit for Eric Clapton in 1974. With the Wailers poised for stardom, however, both Bunny Livingstone and Peter Tosh quit the group to pursue solo careers; Bob then brought in the I-Threes, which in addition to Rita Marley consisted of singers Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt. The new line-up proceeded to tour the world prior to releasing their 1975 breakthrough album Natty Dread, scoring their first UK Top 40 hit with the classic "No Woman, No Cry." Sellout shows at the London Lyceum, where Marley played to racially-mixed crowds, yielded the superb Live! later that year, and with the success of 1976's Rastaman Vibration, which hit the Top Ten in the U.S., it became increasingly clear that his music had carved its own niche within the pop mainstream.

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Bob Marley's musical impact and spiritual message spreads around the globe and continues to expand. In his homeland of Jamaica he is a National Hero and the government that is often very tough on the youth and the rastas and even feared the power of Marley, have honored his life and works with two Jamaican postage stamps. Not only was Marley a key figure in maintaining peace in his homeland at several crucial times during his life, he also has been as important as the country's largest banks and corporations in supporting Jamaica's position in the world economic community. Robert Nesta Marley's life and works continue to spread the joy of the riddum and life, the message of inity and overstanding and a continually blossoming prosperity.