Bob Marley Essay, Research Paper
Marley, Bob (1945-1981), Jamaican singer, guitarist, and
songwriter, a pioneer of Jamaican reggae music.
Considered one of the greatest artists of the genre, he was
the first Jamaican reggae performer to achieve significant
international stardom.
Robert Nesta Marley was born on February,6 1945 in
Rhoden Hall, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica, but soon after
Marley was born the family moved to Kingston and settled
in Trench Town(so named because it was built over a ditch that drained the
sewage of old Kingston). Barley into his teens Bob and his Mother came to
Trench Town .His friends were other street youths, also impatient with their
place in Jamaican society. Soon after getting together with his street friends
Neville O’Riley he began to take his first hesitant musical steps .When he
formed his first harmony group, the Rudeboys, in 1961. The group later became
known as the Wailers. The Wailers included vocalists Bunny Livingston and
Peter Tosh, both of whom later embarked on successful solo careers. The
group’s early recordings were in a style called ska, a hybrid of New Orleans
rhythm and blues and Jamaican mento.. Mento was the first of the reggae
styles. (The term reggae is commonly used as a collective designation for a
number of successive forms of Jamaican pop music ska, rock steady,
poppa-top, and reggae.) By the late 1960s, influences from United States
rhythm and blues, Jamaican folk rhythm. Bob Marley emerged as a rising talent
in the Jamaican genre. In 1967 Bob Marley converted from Christianity to
Rastafarianism, a religion that has had influence with reggae music. The Rastafarian
move
praised the spiritual effects of marijuana and endorsed black racial superiority. Marley’s
music contains elements of spiritualism and mysticism. Some songs call for personal
freedom through revolution, while others embrace carefree attitudes toward life or
convey stories of love. Marley and the Wailers recorded Catch a Fire (1972), Burnin’
(1973), Natty Dread (1975), and Live (1975), among other albums. During the 1970s,
amid great political and economic turmoil in Jamaica, Marley cultivated a rebel image.
He was increasingly becoming a political figure, he survived a 1976
assassination attempt at his home in Jamaica. After that Bob Marley went to Europe and
enjoyed a new degree of success in England, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany.
Other albums that furthered his success were Rastaman Vibrations (1976),Exodus
(1976), Babylon By Bus(1978) , Kaya(1978),and Uprising(1980). Reissues of his
earlier work were also very popular at the time .
During his lifetime Marley’s music influenced the movement towards black political
independence. A movement popular in African and South American nations .His music
for many still symbolizes the hopes of the downtrodden for a better life outside urban
slums. His style ,the clarity, conviction and sincerity of Marley’s performances, and his
unique, melodic style of song writing, have influenced many. Marley will always be
remembered and his sprit will never be forgotten.
Bob Marley died of cancer in 1981.The music world had lost one of its true and potent
activists. A man who went from the ghettos of Trench Town to the top of the world to
spread his message everywhere.