World of Jamaican Music

Discover artists and hear songs from everyone on the site! Log in to Spotify in this browser to hear full songs. SourcesYour Voice

An illustrated map of the creators of Jamaican music and how they are connected.

Remembering Derrick Harriott (1939-2026), rocksteady singer and producer. Read his story →

Bob Marley

Artist. Ska, rocksteady, reggae

Active
1962-1981
Sunrise
February 6, 1945, Nine Mile, St. Ann Parish
Sunset
May 11, 1981, Miami, Florida (melanoma)
Also known as
Tuff Gong, The Gong, King of Reggae

Robert Nesta Marley was a Jamaican singer, songwriter, and rhythm guitarist, and the figure through whom most of the world encountered reggae. The image has outlasted the specifics of the work, which is a loss, since he was a technically serious guitarist, a songwriter of unusual range, and a bandleader who held together a difficult group of people for a decade.

Marley was born in Nine Mile, a village in the hills of St. Ann, to eighteen-year-old Cedella Malcolm and Norval Sinclair Marley, a white Jamaican of English descent in his sixties who had worked as a plantation overseer and, by one account, as a construction supervisor in the Jamaican army. Norval's family opposed the marriage, and he provided almost nothing. Bob saw him perhaps twice, once at about five, when Norval took him to Kingston ostensibly for school and in fact to serve as company for an elderly woman. Norval departed in 1955, when Bob was ten.

His early childhood in Nine Mile gave him the rural material that runs through the songwriting: proverbs, storytelling, communal work, and a religious sensibility older than Rastafari. His first instrument was made from bamboo and goatskin. He was inseparable from Neville "Bunny" Livingston, and when Livingston's father Thaddeus began a relationship with Cedella the two households merged, making the boys stepbrothers in practice.

Around twelve he moved with his mother to Trench Town in west Kingston, a government housing scheme built over a drainage ditch and, for all its poverty, one of the densest concentrations of musical talent anywhere. He acquired the nickname Tuff Gong for his fighting. He, Livingston, and a newcomer from Savanna-la-Mar named Winston Hubert McIntosh, later Peter Tosh, took vocal training from Joe Higgs, an established singer who taught harmony to Trench Town youth without charging.

The trio first came together as a group in 1961, later the Wailing Wailers, with Junior Braithwaite and backing singers Beverley Kelso and Cherry Smith (also known as Cherry Green). "Simmer Down," a Marley composition released at the end of 1963, went to number one in Jamaica and reportedly sold around seventy thousand copies. It was an instruction to rude boys to calm down, delivered from inside the community it addressed, and it had no equivalent in the tourist mento or imported American pop then filling the airwaves. Several years of ska and rocksteady sides for Coxsone Dodd followed, on terms that left the group with almost nothing.

After the break with Dodd, the Wailers began working with Lee "Scratch" Perry. Perry's house band, the Upsetters, included the Barrett brothers, Carlton on drums and Aston on bass, and the sessions produced "Duppy Conqueror," "Small Axe," "Soul Rebel," and "My Cup," collected on Soul Rebels and Soul Revolution. The Barretts joined the Wailers permanently around 1970 and stayed until Marley's sunset.

The Perry period changed how Marley worked. By Roger Steffens's account, he increasingly brought the rough idea of a song to the band, generally played as an acoustic number, and left the Barretts to build the riddim around it. Aston Barrett later claimed a share of the writing credit on several songs, a claim the High Court in London dismissed in 2006. Tosh contributed the first prominent lead guitar in reggae. Marley's own role shifted from lead vocalist toward something closer to editor and focal point: writing the lyrics, arranging the harmonies that the I-Threes would later sing, and representing the operation in public.

As a rhythm guitarist he played a Gibson Les Paul Special with P-90 pickups, later fitted with an aluminum pickguard and tailpiece, and used strict downstrokes on the offbeat. Joshua Ray Gooch describes the technique: a single downstroke muted almost at once by the fretting hand, with the double chop as Marley's favorite pattern, on plain major and minor chords without sevenths or extensions. The part was percussive first and harmonic second, a rhythm for the whole band to build its arrangement around; on the original Jamaican mixes of Catch a Fire his guitar sits at the front.

In 1972 the Wailers signed to Island Records, and Chris Blackwell advanced them the money to record Catch a Fire. Blackwell remixed the album in London, adding rock guitar and keyboard overdubs and packaging it in a sleeve shaped like a Zippo lighter, which marketed the group to an album-buying rock audience rather than the singles market reggae had occupied. Catch a Fire sold poorly at first, but together with Burnin', which contained "I Shot the Sheriff," it established the band internationally, and Eric Clapton's cover of the latter reached number one in America. Livingston left in 1973 and Tosh soon afterward, over touring conditions and the increasing focus on Marley, and the group continued as Bob Marley and the Wailers.

Natty Dread (1974), Rastaman Vibration (1976), Exodus (1977), Kaya (1978), Survival (1979), and Uprising (1980) are the core of the catalog. "War" set Haile Selassie's 1963 address to the United Nations to music credited to Allan Cole and Carlton Barrett, one of a number of songs from the mid-1970s that, by Roger Steffens's account, Marley credited to friends to keep them out of his publishing contract with Danny Sims. "No Woman No Cry," "Jamming," "One Love," "Redemption Song," and "Buffalo Soldier" came from the same decade.

The politics were dangerous. Marley had supported Michael Manley's People's National Party in 1972, and by 1976 Jamaica was in a state of near civil war between PNP and Jamaica Labour Party gunmen. He agreed to perform at Smile Jamaica, a free concert intended to reduce tension, and Manley then called a snap election for ten days after the concert date, which made the event look like a party rally.

On December 3, 1976, two days before the concert, gunmen entered 56 Hope Road while the band rehearsed. Marley was hit in the arm, Rita Marley was wounded in the head, and manager Don Taylor was shot several times. All survived. Responsibility has never been established; JLP gunmen were widely suspected, and various accounts have implicated others. Marley performed at Smile Jamaica two days later and then left Jamaica, spending time in Nassau and then sixteen months in London.

He returned in April 1978 for the One Love Peace Concert at the National Stadium and, during "Jamming," brought Manley and Edward Seaga onstage and joined their hands. The photograph became one of the defining images of the period. The violence continued.

His voice was a light tenor with a nasal edge that cut through dense arrangements, capable of moving from tenderness to threat inside a line. The phrasing, which owed a good deal to Curtis Mayfield and Sam Cooke, worked against the rhythms of Jamaican speech. Early Wailers recordings show a raw singer; by the mid-1970s he had become one of the most expressive vocalists in popular music, and the roughness he retained was part of the effect rather than a limitation on it.

A football injury in 1977 revealed acral lentiginous melanoma beneath a toenail. Doctors recommended amputation. Marley, whose Rastafarian beliefs opposed the removal of a body part, accepted a lesser procedure. The cancer spread. By 1980 it had reached his lungs and brain. He collapsed while jogging in Central Park during the Uprising tour, played a final show in Pittsburgh, and spent months at a clinic in Bavaria under Josef Issels. He departed in Miami on May 11, 1981, aged thirty-six, on his way home to Jamaica.

Jamaica gave him a state funeral combining Ethiopian Orthodox rites and Rastafarian observance. Edward Seaga, by then prime minister, delivered a eulogy calling him part of the collective consciousness of the nation. He was buried in a mausoleum at Nine Mile with his red Gibson, a Bible, and a stalk of cannabis.

Legend, the posthumous compilation released in 1984, is the best-selling reggae album ever made and has never left the American album chart for long. Marley made Rastafari visible worldwide, established dreadlocks as a recognized political and spiritual sign, and wrote songs that have survived translation into languages he never heard.

Last updated October 31, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Bradley adds, in brackets to Danny Sims's account, that Norval Marley "had been a construction supervisor in the Jamaican Army": Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 418. Wikipedia describes him as "a white Englishman born in Crowborough, Sussex": "Bob Marley," Wikipedia, accessed October 1, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Marley.
  2. Wikipedia says Norval "rarely saw them" and died when Bob was ten: "Bob Marley," Wikipedia.
  3. Barrow and Dalton describe Higgs "tutoring young vocal harmony groups like the original Wailers and the Wailing Souls in the kitchen of his home in Trench Town," and quote him: "The Wailers weren't singers until I taught them": Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 22, 38. On the move to Trench Town at about twelve, "Bob Marley," Wikipedia.
  4. Barrow and Dalton say the group first got together at Higgs's yard in 1961, "initially calling themselves the Teenagers," with "two backing singers, Beverley Kelso and Cherry Green": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 38. Wikipedia dates the formation to 1963: "Bob Marley," Wikipedia.
  5. Barrow and Dalton say "Simmer Down" "stayed at the top of the Jamaican charts for two months following its release at the end of December 1963": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 38; Bradley also dates it to 1963: Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 94. Wikipedia gives the number one as February 1964 and the sales as "an estimated 70,000 copies": "Bob Marley," Wikipedia.
  6. The books differ on the date. Bradley places the Wailers "with Scratch in 1969": Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 402. Barrow and Dalton put their time with Perry at "less than a year between August 1970 and April 1971": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 138. On the Barretts as Perry's Upsetters, 128.
  7. On "Duppy Conqueror," "Small Axe," and "My Cup," Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 130; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 343. Barrow and Dalton note that how many of the songs on Soul Rebels and Soul Revolution were "co-written" by Marley and Perry "is still open to speculation": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 131.
  8. The High Court summarized Steffens's evidence: Marley would "bring the rough idea of a song to the band members, playing it generally as an acoustic number," and leave the band, "under Aston Barrett's direction, to flesh out the song." Al Anderson's evidence was similar: Marley arrived with the lyrics and basic melody. Barrett v. Universal-Island Records Ltd. and Others, [2006] EWHC 1009 (Ch), May 15, 2006, paras. 260, 269, https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/ch/2006/1009.
  9. Barrett claimed co-authorship, for himself or his brother Carlton, of seven songs on Natty Dread and Rastaman Vibration, among them "Rebel Music (3 O'Clock Roadblock)," "Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)," and "War." The judge found that Marley "did deliberately give writing credits to people who had no part in the composition" of songs, and dismissed the claim. He summarized the evidence of Roger Steffens, that Marley would bring "the rough idea of a song" to the band and leave them, "under Aston Barrett's direction, to flesh out the song," and noted that Steffens "does not specifically endorse any of the Barrett brothers' claims to authorship": Barrett v. Universal-Island Records Ltd. and Others, [2006] EWHC 1009 (Ch), May 15, 2006, paras. 34, 268-69, 289, 401, https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/ch/2006/1009.
  10. On his purchase of the guitar in London in May 1973 and Roger Mayer's later aluminum pickguard, fitted after the One Love Peace Concert in 1978, "Bob Marley's 1970s Gibson Les Paul Special," Ground Guitar, accessed October 1, 2026, https://www.groundguitar.com/bob-marley-guitars-and-gear/bob-marleys-1970s-gibson-les-paul-special/.
  11. Joshua Ray Gooch, "Rhythm Is King: Bob Marley's Hypnotic Pulse," Premier Guitar, January 14, 2017, https://www.premierguitar.com/rhythm-is-king-bob-marleys-hypnotic-pulse.
  12. Barrow and Dalton describe Catch a Fire as recorded at Harry J's, Dynamic, and Randy's, with overdubs by Rabbit Bundrick and Wayne Perkins added in London, and call it "the first reggae album made with a rock audience specifically in mind," released in the UK in December 1972: Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 137. On the £4,000 advance, "Bob Marley," Wikipedia. The recording agreement with Island was signed on August 25, 1972, and its advance "enabled them to return to Jamaica to lay down tracks for the album": Barrett v. Universal-Island Records, para. 21.
  13. Bradley writes that Catch a Fire "sold poorly" at first and that Burnin' "was much better received both critically and commercially": Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 414-15. Barrow and Dalton call Clapton's version "a sizeable hit": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 138. Wikipedia gives its number one on the Billboard Hot 100 as September 14, 1974: "Bob Marley," Wikipedia.
  14. Barrow and Dalton write that Livingston quit "at the end of spring 1973," that the trio "had done their last work together by the end of 1973," and that "Peter and Bunny left, both feeling that too much attention was given to Bob": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 137-38. Bradley notes that they had left before Natty Dread: Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 416.
  15. On "War" on Rastaman Vibration (1976), Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 142. On the credit and the 1963 speech, "War (Bob Marley Song)," Wikipedia, accessed October 1, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_(Bob_Marley_song). In the 2006 case Allan Cole's earlier affidavit claimed that he had written the song with Marley, and the judge could not find that Carlton Barrett and Cole were its sole authors: Barrett v. Universal-Island Records, paras. 333-35. Steffens writes that at this point Marley "began assigning composer credits on many of his best songs to friends in an attempt to avoid old contractual obligations which he felt robbed him of his proper royalties": Roger Steffens and Leroy Jodie Pierson, Bob Marley and the Wailers: The Definitive Discography (2005), quoted in Barrett v. Universal-Island Records, para. 285, which also records Marley's 1973 composer agreement with Danny Sims's Cayman Music (paras. 24, 278); Steffens told the court that his source was Sims himself (para. 286).
  16. Barrow and Dalton record the 1976 state of emergency and Manley's re-election on December 15: Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 454. In Steffens's oral history, Stephen Davis recalls that Manley "called for elections right after the concert was announced," and Jeff Walker that the concert was "announced as cosponsored by the Ministry of Culture": Roger Steffens, "The Night Bob Marley Got Shot," Rolling Stone (Australia), July 10, 2017, https://au.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-night-bob-marley-got-shot-1877, an excerpt from Roger Steffens, So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley (New York: W. W. Norton, 2017).
  17. Barrow and Dalton note that early in December gunmen wounded "both the singer and his manager, Don Taylor": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 454. Steffens dates the attack to December 3, at about 8:30 in the evening, when gunmen drove through gates "from which the longtime guards had mysteriously disappeared"; he calls their number "a subject of controversy" and notes "continuing allegations" of links between them and American intelligence agencies. In the same account Stephen Davis gives Donald Kinsey's recollection that the bullet grazed Marley's chest and lodged in his left arm while Taylor "got five bullets," and Tyrone Downie recalls that Rita Marley "had a bullet in her head": Steffens, "Night Bob Marley Got Shot."
  18. Bradley dates the One Love Peace Concert to Saturday, April 22, 1978, at the National Stadium: Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 472. Barrow and Dalton write that Marley "forces Manley and Seaga to hold hands": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 454.
  19. Bradley notes that the gang truce "didn't last as long as the show took to put together": Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 494.
  20. Derrick Harriott, quoted by Bradley, recalled that in the mid-1960s "Bob Marley and the Wailers were sounding like Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions": Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 161. Barrow and Dalton credit Lee Perry's own vocal phrasing with a strong influence on Marley's singing from 1970 on: Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 127, 130.
  21. Wikipedia dates the melanoma diagnosis, under his right big toe, to July 1977: "Bob Marley," Wikipedia. Bradley notes the cancelled US tour of September 1980, his collapse in Central Park, treatment "in Bavaria, New York and Miami," and his age, thirty-six: Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 485.
  22. Bradley says the funeral "was presided over by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, while his coffin was carried by members of the Twelve Tribes of Israel," with Seaga in attendance: Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 485. Barrow and Dalton date the state funeral to May 21, 1981: Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 454.
  23. The Les Paul Special he played on stage is not in the grave but in the Bob Marley Museum: "Bob Marley's 1970s Gibson Les Paul Special," Ground Guitar.
  24. Barrow and Dalton report that Legend had sold "over sixteen million copies worldwide by the end of 2000": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 141. Bradley calls it the best-selling reggae album since its release in 1984: Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 284.

World of Jamaican Music: the whole map