12 reasons to love Bob Marley on His 72nd birthday
Decades after his death, Reggae legend Bob Marley continues to impact the world with his music, philosophies and movement.On May 11 1981, Robert Nesta Marley breathed his last in a Miami hospital having spent the previous four years first ignoring, then fighting the cancer and brain tumour that cut short his life.The maestro would have been 72years old if he were still alive.
The BBC proclaimed Marley’s ‘One Love’ as Song of the Millennium and in 2001, Marley was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys.
In no particular, we chronicle 12 reasons you should love Bob Marley on his 72nd birthday.
- “Redemption Song”
“I remember the first time I heard ‘Redemption Song,'” biographer Chris Salewicz, the author of Bob Marley: The Untold Story, says of what is widely regarded as Bob Marley’s finest song, encapsulating everything he believed and stood for in one simple, stripped-down acoustic performance. “It sounded absolutely extraordinary. I saw him perform it at his last London show, at the Crystal Palace. It was the last song of all. That’s the last song I saw him do. It’s obviously magnificent. It’s a masterpiece. When he was recording his last album Uprising, [the head of his label] Chris Blackwell supposedly asked him near the end of the sessions if he had anything more and he came back the next day with ‘Redemption Song.'” Also check out this bonus version recorded in New York City in 1980.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFGgbT_VasI
- The Wailers
Marley’s band—founded by Marley, Peter Tosh, and Bunny Wailer—inarguably made Marley sound unlike anyone who had come before him in popular music. Marley, Tosh, and Wailer, along with Junior Braithwaite, Beverly Kelso, and Cherry Smith, developed an inimitable style and unmatched groove in the 10 years before the release of the band’s Island Records debut in 1973, but Tosh and Wailer left in 1974. The next incarnation of the band, including Carlton Barrett, Aston “Family Man” Barrett, Junior Marvin, Al Anderson, Tyrone Downie, Earl “Way” Lindo, and Alvin “Seeco” Patterson, plus backing vocals from the I Threes, was no less potent, and is probably the Wailers most fans are familiar with. “The Wailers had a thing that you can’t just buy,” Ziggy Marley says. “You can’t just rent musicians who can do that. They had something there that was like intuitive. They all believed in a certain philosophy and way of life. They were a unit.”
- Chris Salewicz’s Bob Marley: The Untold Story
British music journalist Chris Salewicz’s 2010 biography of Marley is another must-read. While Salewicz also interviewed Marley during the artist’s lifetime, unlike White he had the luxury of time in assembling his book. The Untold Story is chock full of detail that helps put Marley’s ascendance into perspective, allowing Salewicz to tackle big questions like what it was about Bob Marley that made him so popular in a world dominated by rock ‘n’ roll, and how, even in death, he has remained the single most successful reggae artist ever while becoming a shining beacon of radicalism and peace to fans all over the globe.
- He never played the superstar
“He was very humble, quiet, and hesitant, almost nervous,” biographer Chris Salewicz says of Marley. “It was very revealing about him, really. There was this humility about him. After I interviewed him I was heading on from Jamaica to New York, so I had a heavy coat draped over my bag when I was getting ready to leave for the airport. While we were standing there talking, saying our goodbyes, Bob picked up my coat and moved it into the shade. He told me it was so the sun wouldn’t bleach it. There aren’t many A-list stars who would ever do that.”
- He survived an assassination attempt
On December 3, 1976, Marley, along with his wife Rita and manager Don Taylor, was shot while peeling a grapefruit in the kitchen of his Kingston home. It’s believed the gunmen attempted to take Marley’s life to prevent him from playing the Smile Jamaica concert Marley helped organized in hopes of helping to calm the political unrest in Jamaica at the time, but which had been co-opted by the ruling party. Author Marlon James’s recent A Brief History of Seven Killings has a remarkable account of the attempt on Marley’s life and the politics surrounding it. While the gunmen were never officially apprehended, Taylor later said he was present at a “kangaroo court” execution of the perpetrators, and author Chris Salewicz says in Untold Story that Marley was there, too.
- Following the assassination attempt Marley performed at Smile Jamaica
Marley, Rita, and Taylor all survived the assassination attempt. Amazingly, Marley performed at the Smile Jamaica concert a few days later, turning a scheduled one-song appearance into a stellar 90-minute set. It turned Marley into a living legend in Jamaica.
7.Tuff Gong
Tuff Gong is the brand name that has become associated with Bob Marley’s estate, and it’s hard to walk through a college campus without seeing at least a few T-shirts emblazoned with its logo. Tuff Gong was Marley’s nickname—he was a fierce fighter in his early days and footballer later in life—and the moniker came from the nickname given to the founder of the Rastafari movement that Marley followed, Leonard “The Gong” Howell. Today Tuff Gong is a merchandising brand and record label, highly coveted among reggae artists, which still boasts a full-service recording studio in Kingston, Jamaica.
- Without him we might never have gotten to hear Peter Tosh
Winston Hubert McIntosh aka Peter Tosh founded the Wailers with Marley and Bunny Wailer in 1963, and created the distinctive sound of the band with them before leaving with Wailer in 1974. As a solo artist he released several excellent, influential albums, toured with the Rolling Stones, and dueted with Mick Jagger on the Temptations’ “Don’t Look Back,” but never attained the commercial heights of his internationally famous former bandmate and close friend. He was murdered during a home invasion in Jamaica in 1987.
- Even Bob Marley’s first demos were great
In February 1962, Marley recorded four songs, “Judge Not,” “One Cup of Coffee,” “Do You Still Love Me?” and “Terror,” at Federal Studio for local music producer Leslie Kong. Three of the songs were released on Beverley’s with “One Cup of Coffee” being released under the pseudonym Bobby Martell.
- Legend
Despite the fact that it has been endlessly reissued in a wide variety of formats since it was first released in 1984, this best-of compilation is arguably the greatest album, beginning to end, of all time. It has sold 27 million copies worldwide, and did what Marley was unable to do in his lifetime: reach a huge, mainstream audience. It was also the first time most people heard his near-perfect “Redemption Song.” “Bob was a revolutionary at heart, but Legend is a way for people to get to know him,” Ziggy Marley says.
- He was a great/terrible dancer
Despite the fact that Marley clearly had as much soul as any recorded artist ever, he wasn’t a smooth mover. “The funny thing is, Bob Marley couldn’t dance,” Chris Salewicz says. “He kind of plodded around a bit, though it was great in its own way, too.”
- He had a surefire cure for stage fright
According to Bunny Wailer, in an interview for the film Marley, to cure stage fright Bob Marley used to take Wailer and Peter Tosh to a local Kingston graveyard at 2 a.m. to practice their vocals and harmonies because, said Wailer, “Bob felt that if you could sing there you’d never be nervous singing anywhere else.”
Culled from:Privateerholdings.com