Bob Marley
Robert "Bob" Nesta Marley OM (February 6, 1945 – May 11, 1981) was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist for the ska, rocksteady and reggae bands: The Wailers (1964 – 1974) and Bob Marley & the Wailers (1974 – 1981). Marley remains the most widely known and revered performer of reggae music, and is credited for helping spread Jamaican music to the worldwide audience.
Marley's best known hits include "I Shot the Sheriff", "No Woman, No Cry", "Exodus", "Could You Be Loved", "Stir It Up", "Jamming", "Redemption Song", "One Love" and, together with The Wailers, "Three Little Birds", as well as the posthumous releases "Buffalo Soldier" and "Iron Lion Zion". The compilation album, Legend, released in 1984, three years after his death, is the best-selling reggae album ever (10 times platinum in US), with sales of more than 20 million copies.
Early life and career
Bob Marley was born in the small village of Nine Mile in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica as Nesta Robert Marley. A Jamaican passport official would later swap his first and middle names. His father Norval Sinclair Marley was a white Scottish Jamaican. Norval was a Marine officer and captain, as well as a plantation overseer, when he married Cedella Booker, an Afro-Jamaican then eighteen years old. Norval provided financial support for his wife and child, but seldom saw them, as he was often away on trips. In 1955, when Marley was 10 years old, his father died of a heart attack at age 60. Marley suffered racial prejudice as a youth, because of his mixed racial origins and faced questions about his own racial identity throughout his life. He once reflected:
“ I don't have prejudice against meself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don't dip on nobody's side. Me don't dip on the black man's side nor the white man's side. Me dip on God's side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white. ”
Although Marley recognized his mixed ancestry, throughout his life and because of his beliefs, he self-identified as a black African . In songs such as "Black Progress,", "African Herbsman," "Buffalo Soldier", "War" and others, Marley sings about the struggles of blacks and Africans against oppression from the West or "Babylon."
Marley became friends with Neville "Bunny" Livingston (later known as Bunny Wailer), with whom he started to play music. He left school at the age of 14 to make music with Joe Higgs, a local singer and devout Rastafari. It was at a jam session with Higgs and Livingston that Marley met Peter McIntosh (later known as Peter Tosh), who had similar musical ambitions.
In 1962, Marley recorded his first two singles, "Judge Not" and "One Cup of Coffee", with local music producer Leslie Kong. These songs, released on the Beverley's label under the pseudonym of Bobby Martell, attracted little attention. The songs were later re-released on the box set, Songs of Freedom, a posthumous collection of Marley's work.
I Shot The Sheriff
Buffalo Soldier
Later years
Illness
In July 1977, Marley was found to have acral lentiginous melanoma, a form of malignant melanoma, in a football wound - according to widely held urban legend, inflicted by broadcaster and pundit Danny Baker - on his right big toe. Marley refused amputation, because of the Rastafari belief that the body must be "whole."
Marley may have seen medical doctors as samfai (tricksters, deceivers). True to this belief Marley went against all surgical possibilities and sought out other means that would not break his religious beliefs. He also refused to register a will, based on the Rastafari belief that writing a will is acknowledging death as inevitable, thus disregarding the everlasting (or everliving, as Rastas say) character of life.
The cancer then metastasized to Marley's brain, lungs, liver, and stomach. After playing two shows at Madison Square Garden as part of his fall 1980 Uprising Tour, he collapsed while jogging in NYC's Central Park. The remainder of the tour was subsequently cancelled.
Marley played his final concert at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 23, 1980. The live version of "Redemption Song" on Songs of Freedom was recorded at this show. Marley afterwards sought medical help from Munich specialist Josef Issels, who promoted a controversial type of cancer treatment, partly based on avoidance of certain foods, drinks and other substances (Marley was also already a vegetarian, mainly for religious reasons). However, by this time his illness had already progressed to the terminal stage.
Awards and honours
Marley's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame1976: Band of the Year (Rolling Stone)
June 1978: Awarded the Peace Medal of the Third World from the United Nations
February 1981: Awarded Jamaica's third highest honor, the Jamaican Order of Merit
March 1994: Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
1999: Album of the Century for Exodus (Time magazine)
February 2001: A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
February 2001: Awarded Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
2004: Rolling Stone ranked him #11 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
"One Love" named song of the millennium by The BBC
Voted as one of the greatest lyricists of all time by a BBC poll.
2006 A plaque dedicated to him by Nubian Jak community trust and supported by Her Majesty's Foreign Office.
Death and posthumous reputation
While flying home from Germany to Jamaica for his final days, Marley became ill, and landed in Miami for immediate medical attention. He died at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami, Florida on the morning of May 11, 1981, at the age of 36. The spread of melanoma to his lungs and brain caused his death. His final words to his son Ziggy were "Money can't buy life." Marley received a state funeral in Jamaica on May 21, 1981, which combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafari tradition. He was buried in a chapel near his birthplace with his Fender Stratocaster. A month before his death, he had also been awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit.
Marley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Time magazine chose Bob Marley & The Wailers' Exodus as the greatest album of the 20th century.
In 2001, Marley was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and a feature-length documentary about his life, Rebel Music, won various awards at the Grammys. With contributions from Rita, the Wailers, and Marley's lovers and children, it also tells much of the story in his own words.
In 2006, the State of New York renamed a portion of Church Avenue from Remsen Avenue to East 98th Street in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn "Bob Marley Boulevard".
Marley's best known hits include "I Shot the Sheriff", "No Woman, No Cry", "Exodus", "Could You Be Loved", "Stir It Up", "Jamming", "Redemption Song", "One Love" and, together with The Wailers, "Three Little Birds", as well as the posthumous releases "Buffalo Soldier" and "Iron Lion Zion". The compilation album, Legend, released in 1984, three years after his death, is the best-selling reggae album ever (10 times platinum in US), with sales of more than 20 million copies.
Early life and career
Bob Marley was born in the small village of Nine Mile in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica as Nesta Robert Marley. A Jamaican passport official would later swap his first and middle names. His father Norval Sinclair Marley was a white Scottish Jamaican. Norval was a Marine officer and captain, as well as a plantation overseer, when he married Cedella Booker, an Afro-Jamaican then eighteen years old. Norval provided financial support for his wife and child, but seldom saw them, as he was often away on trips. In 1955, when Marley was 10 years old, his father died of a heart attack at age 60. Marley suffered racial prejudice as a youth, because of his mixed racial origins and faced questions about his own racial identity throughout his life. He once reflected:
“ I don't have prejudice against meself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don't dip on nobody's side. Me don't dip on the black man's side nor the white man's side. Me dip on God's side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white. ”
Although Marley recognized his mixed ancestry, throughout his life and because of his beliefs, he self-identified as a black African . In songs such as "Black Progress,", "African Herbsman," "Buffalo Soldier", "War" and others, Marley sings about the struggles of blacks and Africans against oppression from the West or "Babylon."
Marley became friends with Neville "Bunny" Livingston (later known as Bunny Wailer), with whom he started to play music. He left school at the age of 14 to make music with Joe Higgs, a local singer and devout Rastafari. It was at a jam session with Higgs and Livingston that Marley met Peter McIntosh (later known as Peter Tosh), who had similar musical ambitions.
In 1962, Marley recorded his first two singles, "Judge Not" and "One Cup of Coffee", with local music producer Leslie Kong. These songs, released on the Beverley's label under the pseudonym of Bobby Martell, attracted little attention. The songs were later re-released on the box set, Songs of Freedom, a posthumous collection of Marley's work.
I Shot The Sheriff
Buffalo Soldier
Later years
Illness
In July 1977, Marley was found to have acral lentiginous melanoma, a form of malignant melanoma, in a football wound - according to widely held urban legend, inflicted by broadcaster and pundit Danny Baker - on his right big toe. Marley refused amputation, because of the Rastafari belief that the body must be "whole."
Marley may have seen medical doctors as samfai (tricksters, deceivers). True to this belief Marley went against all surgical possibilities and sought out other means that would not break his religious beliefs. He also refused to register a will, based on the Rastafari belief that writing a will is acknowledging death as inevitable, thus disregarding the everlasting (or everliving, as Rastas say) character of life.
The cancer then metastasized to Marley's brain, lungs, liver, and stomach. After playing two shows at Madison Square Garden as part of his fall 1980 Uprising Tour, he collapsed while jogging in NYC's Central Park. The remainder of the tour was subsequently cancelled.
Marley played his final concert at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 23, 1980. The live version of "Redemption Song" on Songs of Freedom was recorded at this show. Marley afterwards sought medical help from Munich specialist Josef Issels, who promoted a controversial type of cancer treatment, partly based on avoidance of certain foods, drinks and other substances (Marley was also already a vegetarian, mainly for religious reasons). However, by this time his illness had already progressed to the terminal stage.
Awards and honours
Marley's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame1976: Band of the Year (Rolling Stone)
June 1978: Awarded the Peace Medal of the Third World from the United Nations
February 1981: Awarded Jamaica's third highest honor, the Jamaican Order of Merit
March 1994: Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
1999: Album of the Century for Exodus (Time magazine)
February 2001: A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
February 2001: Awarded Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
2004: Rolling Stone ranked him #11 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
"One Love" named song of the millennium by The BBC
Voted as one of the greatest lyricists of all time by a BBC poll.
2006 A plaque dedicated to him by Nubian Jak community trust and supported by Her Majesty's Foreign Office.
Death and posthumous reputation
While flying home from Germany to Jamaica for his final days, Marley became ill, and landed in Miami for immediate medical attention. He died at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami, Florida on the morning of May 11, 1981, at the age of 36. The spread of melanoma to his lungs and brain caused his death. His final words to his son Ziggy were "Money can't buy life." Marley received a state funeral in Jamaica on May 21, 1981, which combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafari tradition. He was buried in a chapel near his birthplace with his Fender Stratocaster. A month before his death, he had also been awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit.
Marley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Time magazine chose Bob Marley & The Wailers' Exodus as the greatest album of the 20th century.
In 2001, Marley was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and a feature-length documentary about his life, Rebel Music, won various awards at the Grammys. With contributions from Rita, the Wailers, and Marley's lovers and children, it also tells much of the story in his own words.
In 2006, the State of New York renamed a portion of Church Avenue from Remsen Avenue to East 98th Street in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn "Bob Marley Boulevard".
留言
張貼留言