BOB MARLEY

A Life from Beginning to End

Copyright © 2021 by Hourly History.

All rights reserved.

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 Table of Contents
Introduction
From Farm to Trench Town
Marley’s First Songs
Topping the Charts in Jamaica
Marriage and Children
Marley the Rastafari
The Birth of Reggae Music
Commercial Success
The Wailers Break Up
No Woman, No Cry
The Assassination Attempt
Conclusion
Bibliography
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 Introduction
Robert Nesta “Bob” Marley was the son of a British Jamaican by the name
of Norval Sinclair Marley and a native Jamaican mother, Cedella Malcolm.
Bob’s father is said to have been a captain in the British Royal Marines, but
he met Cedella on her father Omeriah Malcolm’s farm in Nine Mile. It
remains unclear exactly how Norval ended up on the Malcolm farm, but it
appears he came into contact with the family during his work as an overseer
in the region.
After a quick courtship, Norval married Cedella on June 9, 1944. The
couple stood out from the beginning. Interracial marriages were rare in the
1940s to be sure, but what really made them unusual was their age gap.
Cedella was only 18 years old at the time, whereas Norval was nearly 60.
Details as to the nature of their relationship are scarce. Some anecdotal tales
speak of how the two would run into each other while Norval was renting a
house nearby the Malcolm farm.
The relationship seems to have begun innocently enough with the older
man playfully joking with the girl, but it wasn’t long before the little jokes
they shared blossomed into a full-blown romance. Sadly though, whatever
passion had existed between the two seems to have been short-lived.
Shortly after their marriage, Norval announced that he had marching orders
to go to Kingston, Jamaica’s capital.
After his departure, Norval was at least good enough to show up for the
birth of his son Bob Marley on February 6, 1945. Just a week after Marley
was born, Norval abruptly left for Kingston once again. Marley’s father
would ultimately perish, dying of a heart attack, when Bob was just ten
years old. It wasn’t easy for Marley to grow up without a father, but early
on in life, he learned not to worry about what he didn’t have and make the
most of what he did.
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 Chapter One

From Farm to Trench Town

“We don’t have education, we have inspiration; if I was educated I would
be a damn fool.”

—Bob Marley

It’s said that Marley’s musical career began as a little boy when his cousin
gave him a homemade guitar made out of bamboo and goatskin. With such
homemade instruments on hand, Marley started to imitate old Jamaican
standards, banging away and singing songs with all of his might. It seems
he inherited his musical talents from his mother, who was known for her
fine singing voice, and his grandfather Omeriah, who played both the violin
and accordion.
As much fun as little Bob was having, life for Marley’s mother had
meanwhile become much harder. Although Omeriah helped the struggling
single mother as much as he could, she was having a hard time getting on
her own two feet. It was in search of a better life for herself that she opted
to head to Kingston for work while leaving her then 11-year-old son on
Omeriah’s farm.
Shortly thereafter, Omeriah placed Bob in the care of Amy, Cedella’s
sister. Marley became a real farmer at this homestead, learning to care for a
whole flock of goats. Other than his list of chores and duties, he was left
with very little instruction. Left to his own accord, in his spare time Marley
began to hang out with Amy’s son, Sledger. He and Sledger would have
riotous good times with each other. The mischief this pair wrought
apparently became too great, however, because Marley was soon sent
packing back to his grandfather’s farm.
For the next couple of months, he would then be directly under his
grandfather Omeriah’s care, as it wasn’t until 1957 that his mother came
calling and asking for her son. By now, she had created some form of
economic independence for herself, and as such, she wished to finally be
able to raise her child under her own roof. Yet although she was eking out a
living for herself, Cedella’s economic status was not the best. She was, in
fact, living in one of the most impoverished parts of Kingston, in the west-
side ghetto of the city. Here in Trench Town, people lived in close
proximity to the city’s dumps, where sewage and all manner of filth piled
up. It was this less than stellar location that Marley and his childhood
friends would make famous through their music. As bad as it may have
been though, Marley and his mother lived in the nicer part of the
neighborhood in the government housing units, called Government Yards.
Jamaica as a whole was in flux at this time, seeking to find its identity
while coming closer and closer to total independence from its former
colonial taskmaster, Great Britain. During this push for independence,
Jamaica developed its two main parties, the Jamaica Labour Party and the
People’s National Party. These two parties had long-standing disagreements
from the very beginning, and unfortunately enough, violence often erupted
because of this, a trend that would come to affect Marley himself later in
life.
Marley was by now enrolled in the public schools of Kingston, while
his mother worked hard as a domestic servant in the homes of affluent
Jamaicans on the rich side of town. It is said that although Marley proved to
be a good student, very shortly into his formal education, he became
disillusioned with his studies. His attendance became sporadic, and by the
age of 15, he stopped going to school at all. Instead of going to school,
Marley preferred to stay around the neighborhood with his friends.
Relaxing with his chums, he would play football on good days and make
mischief on bad ones. Along with the mischief-making, it was around this
time that he decided to make music.
As mentioned earlier, Marley had an aptitude for music from a young
age, but back then, it was just how he occasionally passed the time. Soon he
would come to look at music as a serious vocation. His interest was piqued
by a local kid by the name of Neville Livingston, or as he was better known
on the street, “Bunny.” Bob Marley and Bunny Livingston (later known as
Bunny Wailer) shared an interconnected history that seems to have begun
years earlier when Cedella met Bunny’s father, Thaddeus “Toddy”
Livingston. The two had an affair together despite the fact that Toddy
already had a wife.
 At any rate, Marley began to spend long hours with Toddy’s son Bunny.
During these sessions, the two would practice their own versions of
Jamaican standards and rock and roll covers. During these early days of
collaboration, a Jamaican form of music called ska had come to
prominence. Marley and Bunny absorbed everything they could about this
groundbreaking new music and combined it with the blues and the rock and
roll they heard emanating from the United States. Some of the American
groups that had the most impact on Marley during these early days were the
likes of Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, and The Drifters.
This was the backdrop of Bob Marley’s youth in Trench Town, and it
was from this template that he would soon begin to fashion anthems and
ballads of his own. In the past, he had merely looked to music as a hobby,
but now with his friend Bunny at his side, he would soon come to consider
it a very serious vocation.
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 Chapter Two

Marley’s First Songs

“Possession make you rich? I don’t have that type of richness. My richness
is life, forever.”

—Bob Marley

Even as Marley was expressing greater interest in living the life of a

musician, his mother was becoming increasingly alarmed that her son was
unemployed and seemingly drifting aimlessly in life. It was out of concern
for his future and what career he might take that she convinced Marley to
take a position at a local welding shop. Marley wasn’t too thrilled about the
job, but seeing as his friend Desmond Dekker was already an employee, he
reluctantly accepted the position.
Just like Marley, Dekker was a budding musician who would come to
find success on the reggae music scene. Dekker encouraged Marley to keep
developing his musical talents, and the two would trade thoughts and ideas
in that regard while on the job.
Around the same time, Marley met another young musician by the name
of Peter McIntosh (known by the locals as Peter Tosh). Peter was into a lot
of the same music that Marley and Bunny were into, and—even more
appealing—he owned a guitar, which was a rare commodity in Marley’s
circle of friends. It was on this guitar, with Peter’s guidance, that Bob
Marley first learned the instrument.
Soon enough, the three of them, Bob, Bunny, and Tosh, were regularly
performing together. As their musical acumen grew, Marley became
increasingly disinterested in his day job as a welder, and when he had an
accident in the shop and a piece of metal shot up in his eye, he decided to
quit. The metal was eventually taken out, but Marley never went back on
the job. His mother was certainly disappointed with his decision since, to
most outside observers, it seemed rather unwise to give up a valuable
tradecraft like welding for the typically unprofitable business of music. Yet
Marley and company would soon prove just how lucrative their music could
be.
They formed a group that would soon come under the guidance of a
man who was already a legend—Joe Higgs. Higgs was part of the
hitmaking group Higgs and Wilson and was beloved by the community.
Luckily, he was also more than willing to give that love back by mentoring
up-and-coming local talent such as Marley and his friends, helping them
improve their skills. Higgs tutored the group and taught them how to
harmonize better.
By the early 1960s, Marley had become interested in creating songs as a
solo artist. He managed to gain some recording time in the studio with a
local guru named Leslie Kong, and these efforts resulted in the singles “One
Cup of Coffee,” “Judge Not,” “Do You Still Love Me?” and “Terror,” which
were all completed in early 1962. Marley was only 16 years old at the time
that he cut these singles, and even though they didn’t get much traction, just
the fact that he had put his work out there for public consumption was an
achievement in itself. Long before the days when just about anyone could
self-promote themselves on social media, Marley having the opportunity to
record his work in a studio was a big deal.
The song “Judge Not” was perhaps the most quintessentially Marley
song at the time, with its admonition for others not to judge him unless they
first “judged themselves.” The song was full of the rich philosophy that
would later come to guide so much of his life, and although the songs were
not much of a commercial success, Bob Marley’s career had officially
begun.
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 Chapter Three

Topping the Charts in Jamaica

“Truth is—everybody is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones
worth suffering for.”

—Bob Marley

Just as Marley was making some inroads in the music business, growing
drama in his family was threatening to make it all come undone. His mother
Cedella had been in an ongoing relationship with Bunny’s father—a
relationship which eventually yielded a baby girl. In the complicated web
that was woven, Marley and his friend Bunny now shared a little sister
named Pearl, while Marley’s mother was still little more than the mistress
of Bunny’s father.
Shortly after the birth of Pearl, Mr. Livingston broke it off with Cedella
for good. She then left in a hurry and made a trip all the way to Delaware,
on the East Coast of the United States. Cedella had some relatives in the
area and intended to stay with them for a while. It remains unclear if she
expected Marley to join her, but it seems he was determined to stay in
Jamaica whether his mother was there or not.
Marley had just turned 18 at the time and was already on his own.
Without a permanent residence, he went from one friend’s house to another.
A true starving artist, he often sang for his supper, playing music just to eke
out a meager, barely self-sustaining existence.
It was in these dark and uncertain times that Marley decided to give up
on being a solo artist for the time being and re-join his bandmates. He
received news meanwhile in late 1962 that his mother had already met and
married another man. She wed an American named Edward Booker, thereby
gaining residency for herself. It seems that she intended to have her son join
her at this point, but Marley—not willing to leave his bandmates behind—
must have declined the invitation. He was busy crafting what would
become his first hit—an anthem-styled song called “Simmer Down.”
This song dealt with the growing tension among the young people in the
poorer regions of Jamaica. The song advises the listener to “simmer down”
and keep a lid on aggression. Jamaica had just gained its official
independence from Britain in July of 1962, and over the next few years,
many of the political factions in Jamaica would be vying for power. It was
in this vein that a young Bob Marley sought to encourage his peers to dial
down the temperature. Marley using his voice as a calming salve during
times of intensity would be a recurring theme throughout his career.
By the time Marley and his friends crafted “Simmer Down,” they had
both literally and metaphorically developed a name for themselves in
Jamaica, calling themselves the Wailing Wailers. This was a musical
moniker that Bob would carry in some form or other for the rest of his
career.
The finished product for “Simmer Down” was introduced to the radio in
late 1963, and by 1964, it had managed to reach number one on the
Jamaican charts. Bob Marley and his friends were now undisputed local
heroes—a feat achieved very early on in their career. Yet it would take
much longer for them to receive recognition outside of Jamaica itself.
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 Chapter Four

Marriage and Children

“The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his
integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.”

—Bob Marley

After their success with “Simmer Down,” Marley and the Wailing Wailers
became regulars at the studio. During this industrious period, the band
recorded “It Hurts To Be Alone,” “Lonesome Feeling,” and the 1965 hit,
“I’m Still Waiting.” It was also during this time that Marley began to really
develop his talent for playing the guitar. Prior to this, the group had focused
on the harmonization of their voices, but now they sought to hone their
instrumentation as well.
Marley and company were in the midst of all of this refinement when
the group began to move away from ska to more of a rocksteady rhythm.
Rocksteady is a little slower than the frenetically fast ska music and is
typically viewed as a forerunner to reggae. It certainly was a time for
refinement for the group, and by the end of the year, they had shed the extra
studio musicians they had picked up in favor of a rawer sound, consisting of
just the core founders, Bob, Bunny, and Tosh.
It was at this juncture that they dropped “Wailing” from their moniker
and started to simply call themselves the Wailers. It was also around this
time that Marley met a woman that would prove to be one of the most
pivotal relationships of his life. Her name was Rita Anderson. Rita, like
Bob, was an aspiring singer and was seeking to gain recording time at
Studio One—Marley’s main base of operations.
Even at this early stage in his life, Marley had already been in
relationships with several women, one of which had allegedly produced a
child—a daughter by the name of Imani Carole. Not much is known about
Imani or her mother, or for that matter many of the other children that
Marley would father throughout his career. As one of Marley’s later
biographers, Richie Unterberger, once put it, “Most accounts place the
number at about a dozen offspring, birthed by almost as many women.”
This lack of information about all the extramarital children Marley
would go on to have has made it virtually impossible for biographers to
adequately document this aspect of his life. At any rate, it is believed that in
1965 when he first met Rita Anderson, Marley was already a father to
Imani.
Rita also had a child at the time, a little girl named Sharon, that Marley
would eventually adopt as his own. Rita was staying with her aunt and
uncle when she first met Marley, and soon thereafter, she invited him to
move in with her. Rita’s relatives did not appreciate the extra boarder,
however, and ended up moving the pair out of the house and into a
makeshift shack put up in the family’s backyard. It was a primitive dwelling
to be sure, but it was at least a place of their own.
Marley tried to better himself financially meanwhile, and after receiving
some royalties from his work in the studio, he asked Rita to marry him. The
two were then duly wed on February 10, 1966. Interestingly enough, in
what was seemingly an echo of what his own father had done to him, just
days after he married Rita, Marley took off. He wasn’t so much as
abandoning his new bride, but he was taking a decidedly abrupt leave of
absence. Shortly after he said “I do,” Marley ventured out to visit his
mother’s stomping grounds in America, in the state of Delaware.
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 Chapter Five

Marley the Rastafari

“Be still, and know that His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Haile Selassie of
Ethiopia is the Almighty.”

—Bob Marley

As big of a star as Marley had become in Jamaica, he was still virtually

unknown in the United States. With his band left behind on the island, he
had no means of making money except to resort to menial labor. To support
himself while visiting his family in Delaware, he worked as a forklift driver,
parking lot attendant, and at one point even a laboratory assistant.
Strange as it may seem, upon his arrival in America, this Jamaican
superstar did indeed take on some of the most menial of jobs. This is a clear
demonstration of how unknown Bob Marley was outside of Jamaica. If
Marley would have mentioned to his colleagues during a lunch break that
he had a hit song back in his home country, no one would have believed
him.
It was also around this time that Marley began to change his views on
religion and took up an active interest in Rastafarianism. In later years,
reggae and the cultural/religious beliefs of Rastafarianism would become so
intertwined that many would have trouble separating them, but they are in
fact two different things.
Rastafarianism dates back to the early 1930s when a Jamaican
philosopher by the name of Leonard Howell took great inspiration from the
crowning of Ethiopia’s new emperor, Haile Selassie. The East African
nation of Ethiopia has virtually no connection to Jamaicans who are
descendants of West Africa, but the fact that Ethiopia was the only
remaining independent African nation left on the continent was a source of
pride for many in the African diaspora.
 Ethiopia itself certainly has a rich history, with an ancient civilization
directly mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible. Haile Selassie was the
last Ethiopian ruler from a line said to date back to Menelik I, the son of
Israel’s King Solomon and Ethiopia’s Queen of Sheba. Menelik, the king of
kings, ruled over a feudal kingdom with various lesser kings or governors,
who directly presided over different sections of the Ethiopian Empire. The
Ethiopian term for these governors was ras . Prior to being crowned
emperor in 1930, Haile Selassie himself was a ras, ruling over a province in
Eastern Ethiopia called Harar.
Back in the days when Haile Selassie governed Harar, he went by his
birth name of Tafari, which made his official title Ras Tafari, or in other
words, Governor Tafari. In 1930, when Leonard Howell heard of a certain
Ras Tafari being crowned emperor in Ethiopia, he was so enthused about it
that he managed to spark an entire religious movement around the event.
As bizarre as all this may sound, this is precisely how Rastafarianism
came about. Haile Selassie himself was probably more baffled by these
developments than anyone else. Selassie was after all—like most
Ethiopians—a devoted Orthodox Christian, and the idea that someone
would make him into a God was completely anathema to his sensibilities.
For most, the beliefs of the Rastafarians are hard to comprehend, but then
again, belief is a very powerful thing, and young Bob Marley was drawn to
the Rastafarian faith all the same.
Interestingly enough, it was actually while Marley was away in America
that Haile Selassie made his famous trip to Jamaica in 1966. For
Rastafarians eager for a sign, Selassie’s presence was greeted with great
fanfare. Marley’s wife Rita was at the event and would later claim that
when she was in the crowd gathered to hear Selassie speak, she beheld a
miraculous sight.
According to her, at one point when the emperor raised his hands to the
crowd, she could clearly see the imprint of nails on his wrists. Rita believed
that this was an indication that Selassie, just like Christ, had hung on the
cross. Such beliefs fell right in line with the idea that the last emperor of
Ethiopia was the second coming of Jesus Christ.
At any rate, it’s clear that by the time of Selassie’s trip, Rastafarianism
had become all the rage in Jamaica. Even Marley’s bandmates in the
Wailers had become firm adherents to the faith. Without missing a beat,
upon his return to Jamaica, Marley readily accepted these cultural changes
of his peers. Along with adoption of Rastafarianism, Marley and his friends
also started freely using marijuana, or as it is referred in Rasta circles,
“ganja,” as it was considered to be a gateway to enlightenment.
During this period, Marley met a man that would serve as his mentor
and manager for the rest of his life, a Rastafarian elder by the name of
Mortimer Planno. It was also around this time that Marley’s family
increased as his wife gave birth to their first child, a girl they named after
Marley’s mother, Cedella. Bob wanted the best for his growing family, but
it was still a hardscrabble existence for the most part, and at times, they
were even forced to make do through subsistence farming in between
Marley’s performing and recording gigs.
The Wailers meanwhile recorded several new singles, which included
the Rastafari piece, “Selassie Is The Chapel,” as well as “Nice Time” and
the later hit, “Stir It Up.” Marley and his musical cohorts, the Wailers, were
ready to take the world by storm, whether the world was aware of it or not.
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 Chapter Six

The Birth of Reggae Music

“When one door is closed, don’t you know, another is open.”

—Bob Marley

By the late 1960s, the Wailers’ steady rise began to slow down as issues
among the band members began to impede the creative process. First, in
1968, Peter Tosh was thrown in jail, incarcerated for his participation in a
political demonstration. Shortly thereafter, Bunny and Bob were both
incarcerated after being found with marijuana on their person. As soon as
the trio was released, however, they took the adversity they experienced and
used it to fuel their creativity.
One source of happiness and joy for Marley during this period was the
birth of his son David, whom he would come to nickname Ziggy, an
endearing moniker that would stick with the boy for the rest of his life.
When Marley wasn’t making music or spending time with his family, he
was hanging out with his sometimes manager, sometimes mentor, the
unabashed Rasta Mortimer Planno. Planno brought Marley down to Jones
Town, where he introduced him to a particularly dedicated group of Rastas.
It was through these Rasta circles that Bob met an American musician by
the name of Johnny Nash.
Nash was already famous for his hit “Let’s Move and Groove Together,”
and at this time, Nash and an associate of his by the name of Danny Sims
were trying to sign Jamaican talent to their own record label. Sure enough,
once Nash met Bob Marley, he figured he had struck some real musical
gold.
Nash was ready to sign the group and start producing records for them,
but Bunny was still incarcerated at the time. Since Bunny was very much
involved in the process in those days, production would have to wait. He
was eventually released from jail in the fall of 1968, and almost
immediately thereafter, the old trio began making music again.
Under the JAD Records label, the group produced singles such as “Put
It On,” “Mellow Mood,” and “There She Goes.” Tempo-wise these songs
fell into the rocksteady moderate beat, but shortly thereafter, rocksteady
itself began to change. Musicians were suddenly playing everything in a
slowed-down groove that they called reggae. It was a sound that was made
famous in 1968 by the likes of Toots and the Maytals with their smash hit
“Do the Reggay.”
Bob Marley and company, who were already heading in that direction,
were quick to catch on and soon adopted the sounds of reggae for their own
music. Feeling greatly inspired, the group went back to Studio One, and
with the help of their old producer Leslie Kong, they recorded new reggae
styled grooves, such as “Stop That Train,” “Go Tell It On The Mountain,”
“Soul Shakedown Party,” “Can’t You See,” “Cheer Up,” and “Do It Twice.”
The songs were released by Kong as singles, but unfortunately for
Marley, they all failed to catch on. In order to salvage what must have
seemed like a complete loss, Kong then attempted to recoup by putting
some of the songs on a greatest hits piece entitled The Best of the Wailers .
This was very upsetting to Marley and his bandmates. For one thing, the
songs had all received a decidedly negative reception, so it almost seemed
like cruel sarcasm on the part of Kong to put these commercial flops
together and call them “The Best of the Wailers.” To Marley and company,
this seemed tantamount to mockery. As such, the group demanded that
Kong cease and desist, yet an unmoved Leslie Kong went ahead and issued
the greatest hits album regardless.
For Kong, this was the last major project he would work on since
shortly thereafter, he abruptly perished from heart failure. He was only 37
years old. Some claimed that Marley, who as a child had supposedly
dabbled in the “dark arts,” had perhaps placed a hex on Kong in his anger.
Of course, there is no evidence any such thing ever happened. At any rate,
as was typically the case in Bob Marley’s life, as soon as one door came to
a close, another was just getting ready to open.
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 Chapter Seven

Commercial Success
“Don’t trust people whose feelings change with time. Trust people whose
feelings remain the same, even when the time changes.”

—Bob Marley

After it was all said and done, Bob Marley found himself a little bit
disillusioned in 1969, so much so that he decided to take a break from the
music business and once again pay a visit to his mother in the United States.
While there, he took up some manual labor jobs, which sadly enough paid
more than the meager royalties he had thus far received for his music.
It was the paychecks he earned from working at a Chrysler automobile
plant while staying with his mother that Marley would take back to Jamaica
to help support his family over the next few months. It must have been sad
to have to struggle like this and yet be so close to making it big, but Marley
pushed on regardless.
Shortly thereafter, Marley took his bandmates to Studio One to work on
a new round of songs. For this series of recordings, the group was given a
rawer feel, and the songs featured more driving bass and percussion. On the
heels of these successful recordings, around 1970, the group created their
own record label called Tuff Gong. It was actually based on a nickname
Marley had developed as a youth in Trench Town. Rastafarian founder
Leonard Howell had been known as “The Gong,” and somehow or other,
Marley was jokingly referred to by his colleagues as “Tuff Gong.”
At any rate, no matter what they called the new record label project, it
failed to take off. For a time, the group seemed to be going around in
circles. They would drop singles, gain some traction, but then inevitably
find themselves back at square one. Luckily, their next breakthrough would
come in 1972 when Marley and the Wailers went back into the studio and
produced an album called Catch a Fire . The phrase “catch a fire” was
actually a Jamaican slang phrase that meant that someone was “asking for
trouble” or “catching hell.” This album boasted the fully formed reggae
anthems “Stop That Train,” “Concrete Jungle,” “Kinky Reggae,” “No More
Trouble,” and “Stir It Up.”
The album featured the core group of Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, and
Peter Tosh, as well as session musicians such as Aston and Carlie Barrett.
Once the songs were put down on tape, Marley sent them off to London to
have them further mixed and mastered. This led to some pretty heavy guitar
overdubs by British guitarist Wayne Perkins and keyboardist John
Bundrick.
The additional flourishes dubbed over the original recordings after the
fact were intended to give the music a more rock-driven feel that would
appeal to wider audiences outside of Jamaica. The formula seemed to work
because finally, with the release of Catch a Fire , the outside world seemed
to catch on to reggae and the work of Bob Marley.
Along with the release of this bold new album, Marley celebrated the
birth of an additional child, a son named Stephen. Realizing that his
expanding family needed some more space, Marley decided to move his
wife and kids away from Kingston proper and to a new place, an enclave in
Bull Bay, some ten miles east of the Jamaican capital.
This was a major move for Marley since it was the first time that he was
able to lift his family out of the poverty of Kingston’s slums and begin to
live a more prosperous life. Unfortunately for his wife, it also marked the
moment that Bob Marley began a long litany of affairs with other women.
As mentioned earlier, he would end up fathering several children with other
women throughout his life.
Marley’s dalliances with other women had become little more than an
open secret at this point, and although Rita would stay with him until his
death, she most certainly knew that her husband was not faithful.
Something that he was always faithful to, though, was his Rastafarian ideals
and his commitment to improving the political situation in Jamaica.
During this time, Marley became involved with one of the main
political parties on the island—the PNP, or People’s National Party. He
supported the PNP’s candidate Michael Manley in the 1972 election for
prime minister and was overjoyed when he successfully won the position.
As much as Marley was thrilled at his election, the rival party—the
Jamaican Labour Party (JLP)—was not, and the fact that Bob Marley was
such a vocal supporter for the PNP would not be forgotten. This support
would, in fact, one day come back to haunt Marley in a very dramatic way.
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 Chapter Eight

The Wailers Break Up

“The people who were trying to make this world worse are not taking the
day off. Why should I?”

—Bob Marley

In the spring of 1973, Bob Marley and the Wailers started touring for their
new album Catch a Fire . The first leg of the tour began in Great Britain,
where they performed at a total of 19 different venues. They also showed up
as special guests on BBC variety shows such as Top Gear and The Old Grey
Whistle Test .
Bunny meanwhile had become ill during their visit to the U.K. although
some sources contend that the illness was a ruse and that he simply didn’t
feel like going out on tour. Whatever the case may be, upon their return to
Jamaica, Bunny announced that he didn’t intend to go with them when they
picked up their tour again in the United States.
This was a critical juncture for the band and to have such a crucial
member of the core of the group decide to suddenly sit things out was
nerve-racking to say the least. Nevertheless, the group was determined to go
on—with or without Bunny at their side. They didn’t have to look far for a
replacement, as they managed to recruit their old mentor Joe Higgs. Upon
their arrival in America, their first gigs would be to sell-out crowds in
Boston and New York, which included a stint that had them sharing the
stage with none other than “The Boss” himself—Bruce Springsteen.
It must have been a feeling of vindication for Bob Marley to return to
the East Coast where he had labored as a forklift driver just a few years
earlier. Before this star could truly go supernova, however, there were still a
few things he needed to learn.
According to the later recollection of Bunny’s fill-in, Joe Higgs, the
group was good, but still in a transitional phase. They were finding their
footing and seeking the best way to connect with a larger audience.
Standing up on stage and looking out at the crowd, Higgs noted that the
sound that they brought “was something they weren’t ready to accept
immediately.”
As far as they had come, Marley and company decided that their sound
needed just a little more refinement. So it was, as soon as they got back
from Jamaica, they put together a much more expansive follow-up, which
they called Burnin’ . This album, whose cover featured a silhouette of the
six core Wailers’ heads burned into the side of a wooden box, was much
more political in nature, focusing on social issues and Rastafarian
philosophy.
The album featured such powerful renditions as “Rasta Man Chant,” “I
Shot the Sheriff,” “Get Up, Stand Up,” and “One Foundation.” Shortly after
this album was released, the group went on another tour of the United
States, this time performing alongside the Funkadelic American band Sly
and the Family Stone. Bunny once again chose to sit the tour out and was
replaced by Joe Higgs.
At first, it seemed like a great opportunity for the band to get more
exposure, since Sly and the Family Stone was a well-known and popular
group at the time. Sadly, the tour proved to be short-lived, with the Wailers
being dismissed after only four performances. Marley and his compatriots
apparently rubbed Sly the wrong way and were accused of trying to upstage
them.
Not only were Marley and the Wailers accused of outplaying the
headliners, but it was also suggested that the audience just didn’t vibe with
their music. It was a frustrating rejection to be sure, and one that left Marley
and the band stranded right in the middle of Las Vegas. It was in the desert
of Nevada that the Wailers were given the boot, leaving Marley to figure
out what to do next.
Seeking to salvage what was left of their time in the United States,
Marley managed to get some gigs in California, including a packed venue
in San Francisco at a night club called the Matrix. Spurned and rejected, at
this memorable concert, Bob Marley was said to have been rather intense to
behold. As one reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle described it at the
time, “Marley, songwriter, bandleader and leader singer, bobs up and down,
wavering in front of the microphone—very high and stoned—completely
oblivious to the mike. He breaks all the rules of microphone technique—
looking away and down at the same time even—yet his pitch is pure and
unfaltering.”
The group also appeared live on the local radio station KSAN-FM
around this time, performing impromptu renditions of songs such as “Rasta
Man Chant” live on the air. Many have credited the appearance at the
Matrix and this intriguing radio broadcast as having more to do with the
creation of Marley’s American fan base than anything else.
After Marley and company finished their American tour, they then made
a brief pit stop back in Jamaica before preparing to head across the Atlantic
to perform in Great Britain. Higgs himself would pull out this time and
declined to travel with the group, leaving Marley and Peter Tosh to go on
without him.
Without Higgs, the band got off to a rough start and failed to garner
much interest from the British. Under the stress of a series of bad gigs,
things got so bad that frustrations boiled over enough one night that Bob
Marley and Peter Tosh got into a fist fight. This proved to be the end of the
Wailers, leaving Marley to pick up the pieces as best he could.
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 Chapter Nine

No Woman, No Cry
“Just because you are happy it does not mean that the day is perfect but
that you have looked beyond its imperfections.”

—Bob Marley

In early 1974, Marley found himself back in Kingston and back to the
drawing board as far as his musical career was concerned. With his former
bandmates bailing on him, he focused on creating new songs on his own.
Even though the original Wailers were gone, Marley picked up some other
studio musicians and continued to use the Wailers name.
Still, the old trio of Bob, Bunny, and Tosh would at least have one more
last hurrah before they went their separate ways. The occasion came when
they were tapped to be the opening act for the famed American rhythm and
blues crooner Marvin Gaye. Marley and the Wailers didn’t have to go to
America for this concert, as Gaye came to Jamaica for a benefit concert.
The concert proved to be enormously successful, but no matter how good it
may have been, it still wasn’t enough to convince Bunny and Tosh to
remain, and the three musicians that had been through so much together
decided to go their separate ways for good.
As such, Marley went back to the studio and cobbled together whatever
studio musicians he could and forged ahead with his new album, Natty
Dread . One of the most notable changes was the use of an electronic drum
beat, rather than a live studio drummer. Although an electro beat would
become common by the late 1970s with the rise of disco music, this was
still rather uncommon during the first half of the decade.
Besides the innovation of an electronic beat, Natty Dread had a similar
feel to earlier Bob Marley songs, with rich and soulful tunes such as “So
Jah She” and “No Woman, No Cry.” But the song that would really prove a
breakthrough for Marley in 1974 was “I Shot The Sherriff.” It wasn’t
Marley’s rendition that would become famous at first, but rather Eric
Clapton’s. Guitar guru Clapton gained permission from Marley to record his
own version, and his jammed-out rendition managed to top the charts.
In the end though, it was “No Woman, No Cry” that would prove to be
the real breakthrough for Marley as he released his Live! album in 1975.
The recordings themselves were compiled from concerts that Marley had
performed in Britain that summer. Indeed, many concert goers had noted
that Marley’s magic was more evident during live concerts rather than
studio sessions.
As one music critic put it at the time, “The band are solid and unified,
gliding more than steamrollering, and they keep coming; never more so
than on ‘Lively Up Yourself,’ which was so powerful that it made the
recorded version seem positively Mickey Mouse by comparison.”
But of course, it was the ultimate hit of “No Woman, No Cry” that
elicited the greatest praise from the audience. Initially, the Live! album was
only released in Europe, but the few imports that made it to the United
States sold well, convincing the label to issue a full release in America as
well. This success was then followed up by the release of Rastaman
Vibration in the summer of 1976.
Now that the wider world had finally been introduced to Bob Marley,
they couldn’t get enough, and his latest album soon scored high on the
charts. Songs like “War,” “Positive Vibration,” and “Night Shift” were
some of the most memorable.
“Night Shift” was as interesting as it was honest in its reflections of
when—not too long ago—Bob Marley worked the night shift at an
automotive plant in Delaware, driving a forklift. Most notably though, it
was “Rastaman Vibration” that had Marley recommitting himself to his
Rastafarian beliefs—a feat much harder for Rastafarians to do in the
aftermath of their idol Haile Selassie’s death in 1975.
As much as Jamaicans had grown to love Haile Selassie, a simmering
unrest had been growing among Selassie’s own people in Ethiopia. A
terrible famine had struck the country in 1973, and student agitators and
communist sympathizers used this calamity and past grievances to spark an
insurrection against the emperor’s rule. Selassie was arrested by Ethiopian
communist militants called the Derg in 1974 and was killed on August 27,
1975.
 The news of Selassie’s death was obviously disruptive for Rastafarians
since they viewed the man as a manifestation of God. This led some to
rethink their previous beliefs, but others still held firm—Bob Marley among
them. Marley refused to believe that Selassie was dead, and his song “Jah
Live” bore testament to his belief that Selassie was still alive. Rastafarians
often referred to Selassie as “Jah.” In the song, Marley insisted that Jah was
still alive and he was going to “scatter his enemies.”
Unfortunately for Ethiopia, Haile Selassie’s main enemy, Mengistu
Haile Mariam, wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. In the next few years,
he would transform Ethiopia into a dictatorial nightmare that would not end
until he was finally deposed in 1991.
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 Chapter Ten

The Assassination Attempt

“God sent me on Earth. He send me to do something, and nobody can stop
me. If God want to stop me, then I stop. Man never can.”

—Bob Marley

The Rastaman tour began in earnest in April of 1976 and would send
Marley on an extensive run across America and Europe. His first concert of
the tour was held in Pennsylvania at the Tower Theatre. One of the most
interesting things about this concert was the fact that Marley’s mother
Cedella, who had been living on America’s East Coast for several years by
then, finally took the opportunity to see her son perform live in concert.
After this milestone was made, Marley went off to play at several more
gigs on the East Coast before crossing the border to Canada, where he
performed in Toronto and Montreal. He then double-backed to the United
States to play shows in Buffalo, New York, and Cleveland, Ohio. From
Ohio, he then charged right through the Midwest, only to turn south and
head all the way down to Texas.
After Texas, Marley went west and made an appearance at seven
different venues in California. One of these venues—the Roxy Theatre in
Hollywood—had none other than that the other famous Bob—Bob Dylan—
in the audience. Marley was said to have greatly admired the folk singer,
and this rising star of reggae was sure to play it up for the veteran. Marley
finally ended his breakneck speed tour of the U.S. by showing up in Miami,
Florida. From here, the group disembarked for Europe, where they
performed at various locales in Wales, France, Holland, Germany, and
Sweden.
After this heady tour came to a close, Marley came back to Jamaica for
a much-needed rest. He couldn’t rest for long, however, since Prime
Minister Michael Manley was right in the middle of his re-election
campaign. Political fever was in the air, and it wasn’t long before Marley
was swept into the middle of it. The two political parties vying for power,
the PNP and the JLP, had become so hostile toward each other that their
respective supporters seemed on the verge of pitching the entire country
into a civil war.
Marley, growing increasingly alarmed, sought to soothe the situation
with whatever influence he could muster from his superstar status. He
proposed a concert called Smile Jamaica. It remains unclear exactly what
Marley wanted his audience to smile about, but it was a gathering that was
meant to foster a general feeling of peace and love.
Prior to hosting such a festivity, Marley had to get permission from
Jamaica’s prime minister, Michael Manley himself. Marley requested the
date for the concert to be on December 5, 1976, and conveniently, the
general election would be held less than two weeks later. This coupled with
the fact that Marley had supported the People’s National Party in the past
made it seem like the concert was more of a political “get out the vote rally”
for Prime Minister Manley than anything else.
This interpretation of events would lead to Marley becoming a target of
angry JLP fanatics. Just a couple of days prior to the scheduled concert,
Marley and his bandmates were practicing at Marley’s house when armed
assailants suddenly barged in and began shooting. The altercation occurred
in the kitchen, and Marley managed to duck behind a refrigerator, shielding
him from many of the bullets.
His manager Don Taylor, however, wasn’t as lucky, having been caught
by the gunmen right in the middle of the melee and was said to have been
“riddled with bullets.” After opening fire, the gunmen fled the scene.
Marley received injuries to his arm and torso, but Don Taylor’s condition
was obviously much more severe. Miraculously enough, after being
airlifted to a hospital, Taylor received an emergency operation that would
save his life.
With this attack, it was clear that extremists from JLP were trying to
make sure that Marley did not hold his Smile Jamaica concert. Yet if they
thought they could deter Marley with their aggression, they had another
thing coming. Marley held the concert just as he had planned, striding
across the stage in front of a roaring crowd at Jamaica’s National Heroes
Park on December 5. His playing was as passionate and frenetic as usual,
but the most powerful moment of the night was when he addressed the
audience directly.
As hundreds of people gathered round, Marley displayed his arm where
his intended hitman had shot him just days before and declared, “Bang-
bang—I’m okay.” The crowd roared with delight, yet curiously stayed
around him like a living wall, lest any further gunmen might try to get at
their idol. With their rapt attention, Marley then explained to the audience,
“When I decided to do this concert two and a half months ago, there were
no politicians involved. I just wanted to play for the love of the people.”
Even though some had tried to present Marley as a political hack, Marley
wanted to make it clear that he was not performing for political reasons.
Shortly after the concert, Marley hopped on a plane and headed to
Nassau in the Bahamas to record some songs at his friend and producer
Chris Blackwell’s Compass Point Studios. This was considered a safehouse
for Marley where he was able to tend his wounds and plan his next move.
Jamaica’s general election took place as planned meanwhile, and Prime
Minister Manley was successfully re-elected.
Marley lingered in Nassau for a bit before he and his bandmates moved
on to Great Britain. After Marley arrived in London, he and his crew
acquired a rental in the Chelsea district and set up shop. It was shortly after
the dawning of 1977 that Marley went into the studio to record what would
become his next masterpiece work, entitled Exodus . It was a very apt title
for this refugee since he had indeed been forced to make a rapid exodus
from Jamaica.
Exodus was released that summer and proved to be a masterpiece,
staying high on the British charts for several weeks in a row. The album
seemed to capture Bob Marley’s state of mind—hopeful, yet reflective of
what had happened to him. The first track, was a piece called “Natural
Mystic.” It just so happened that “Natural Mystic” was one of the pet names
that Bob’s associates called him by, and in many ways, the song itself was
said to serve as a herald to his return to writing new music.
Many of the other songs were typical Rasta anthems, calling for unity
and resolve in the face of oppression. The last half of the album then
evolved into feel good tunes such as “Jamming,” “Turn Your Lights Down
Low,” and “One Love,” the latter of which would prove to be one of Bog
Marley’s biggest hit songs of all time.
 Soon after Exodus was released, the band went out on tour in support of
it. As was usually the case, the tour would have them crisscrossing both
America and Europe. Just prior to setting out, however, Marley managed to
get pulled over by the police. During the traffic stop, the cops found
marijuana, which then gave them incentive to search Marley’s London flat.
Despite the fact that the police found about a pound of marijuana at
Marley’s residence, he managed to escape with just a warning and a small
fine.
After arriving in Paris, France in the summer of 1977, Marley’s tour
began in earnest. He blazed a path through France to Belgium, Holland,
Germany, and Denmark. By July, he was setting course for the United
States, which turned into one of his most successful tours of all time.
Once Marley wrapped up his tour in America, he finally made his return
to Jamaica. Unfortunately, by this time, Jamaica had become even more
politically unstable. Manley had won re-election, but his opposition had
become even more vocal and volatile than ever. It was so bad in fact that
Manley had declared martial law and sent out the troops just to keep some
semblance of the peace.
It was in this incredibly tumultuous backdrop that Marley hosted the
One Love Peace Concert. On April 22, 1978, at the National Stadium in
Kingston, Marley and his bandmates took the stage in an attempt to use the
power of their music to heal the wounds of the nation. Bob Marley
headlined the event with several other smaller acts playing in support.
In the build-up for the concert, Marley managed to produce and release
a brand new album of all new material called Kaya . Although the album
had several memorable songs, it has often been lambasted by critics as
being too commercialized and straying away from Marley’s roots.
At any rate, for the One Love Peace Concert, when Marley and
company took the stage, tens of thousands of fans were in attendance. They
expected much from the reggae superstar, and Bob Marley did not
disappoint. He ended up playing for about an hour, with extended variations
of hit songs such as “Positive Vibration,” “Trench Town Rock,” and of
course, “One Love.”
The most memorable moment of the concert came in the midst of the
song “Jamming.” While the band jammed, Marley began what started out as
a random tribute to the late Haile Selassie, which ultimately turned into a
call for Prime Minister Michael Manley and opposition leader of the JLP,
Edward Seaga—both of whom were in attendance—to get on stage and
make amends.
Marley stunned the audience when he requested, “I’m trying to say,
could we have, could we have, up here on stage. . . . The presence of Mr.
Michael Manley and Mr. Edward Seaga. I just want to shake hands and
show the people that we’re gonna unite.”
Incredibly enough, with the pressure on, both Manley and Seaga got up
and headed toward the stage to heed Marley’s call. Both men stood before
him on the platform as Marley grabbed each man by the hand before
bringing the two men’s hands together in what was meant to be a show of
solidarity and unity despite party differences.
It’s certainly debatable how much of a difference the One Love Peace
Concert made when it came to bringing actual peace to Jamaica, but
regardless of the results, this iconic moment lives on as one of the greatest
in Jamaican history.
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 Conclusion
The final years of Bob Marley’s life were busy ones. In 1979, he released
an album entitled Survival , which was filled with several reggae anthems
about standing strong in the face of oppression. One of the most notable
tracks was the song “Zimbabwe,” which was a call for the independence of
the African region of Rhodesia. This part of the world would indeed gain
independence and would eventually become the modern nation of
Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe. In one of the strange ironies of Bob
Marley’s life, it would be Zimbabwe and its long-time leader Robert
Mugabe that would shelter Mengistu Haile Mariam—the dictator that took
over Ethiopia after Haile Selassie’s death—after he was deposed in 1991.
Mengistu lives in Zimbabwe to this day despite having been convicted of
genocide by the Ethiopian government.
Close on the heels of Survivor , Marley released his follow-up album,
Uprising , in 1980. This would be the last album produced in his lifetime.
This work would contain some of his most powerful songs, such as
“Forever Loving Jah” and “Redemption Song.”
It was shortly after Uprising was released that Marley’s health began to
take a turn for the worse. He had run himself ragged with virtually non-stop
touring and recording for the last few years of his life, and he seemed near
exhaustion. By the time of the American leg of the Uprising tour in the fall
of 1980, it was clear that something was wrong. Marley was often sick in
bed, and then one day whilst taking a jog in Central Park in New York, he
fell to the ground and went into convulsions.
A friend who was with him at the time managed to get Marley back to
his hotel, where he managed to recoup, but it would prove to be just a brief
respite. Shortly thereafter, Marley finally broke down and went to see a
doctor. An examination revealed that the reggae star was riddled with
cancer. Marley had been diagnosed with a type of skin cancer as early as
1977, after which he had the nail and nail bed of one of his toes removed in
the hopes that this would be enough to combat the illness. Unfortunately,
after his collapse in 1980, it was discovered that the cancer had continued to
spread throughout his body.
 Marley was as devastated as anyone would be, but he wasn’t going to
give up without a fight. He tried a vigorous round of alternative medicine to
see if there was some way to get well. In these efforts, he went all the way
to Germany to the Sunshine House Cancer Clinic to be treated by the
controversial Dr. Josef Issels.
Issels believed that a more holistic approach was needed to treat cancer,
and he championed the idea of boosting the immune system in order to fight
the illness. This had him advising patients to take on very specific diets and
other healthcare regimens. Marley did just as he was asked, but after a few
months, it was clear that he was only getting worse.
Wishing to be back home, he boarded a plane for Jamaica. During the
flight, his condition became so bad that after disembarking in Miami,
Florida, he was rushed straight to the hospital. He struggled and fought
valiantly, but Bob Marley would ultimately pass away on May 11, 1981,
aged 36. He was gone, but his legend will never die.
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 Bibliography
Farley, Christopher (2007). Before the Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley .

Goldman, Vivien (2006). The Book of Exodus: The Making and Meaning of
Bob Marley and the Wailers' Album of the Century .

Gooden, Lou (2003). Reggae Heritage: Jamaica's Music History, Culture &
Politic .

Marley, Rita; Jones, Hettie (2004). No Woman No Cry: My Life with Bob
Marley .

Moskowitz, David (2007). Bob Marley: A Biography .

Salewicz, Chris (2009). Bob Marley: The Untold Story .

Unterberger, Richie (2017). Bob Marley and the Wailers: The Ultimate
Illustrated History .
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