World of Jamaican Music

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

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Junior Marvin

Artist. Reggae

Active
1977-present
Sunrise
June 22, 1949, Kingston, Jamaica

Junior Marvin played lead guitar in Bob Marley and the Wailers from 1977 until Marley's sunset, and in the Wailers band until 1997. He has also recorded as Junior Hanson, Junior Kerr, and Julian Junior Marvin.

He was born in Kingston and moved to London as a child, where he acted before he played professionally: he had a small part in the Beatles' Help! and appeared in the London cast of Hair. He played in London bands including Herbie Goins and the Night-Timers and White Rabbit, then in the United States with T-Bone Walker, Billy Preston, and Ike and Tina Turner, and joined the Keef Hartley Band for Seventy Second Brave. His own band, Hanson, was signed to Emerson, Lake and Palmer's Manticore label and made Now Hear This (1973) and Magic Dragon (1974). As a session guitarist for Island artists he played on records by Traffic, Steve Winwood, Fairport Convention, Rico Rodriguez, Rebop Kwaku Baah, and Toots and the Maytals, whose Reggae Got Soul was his first reggae session.

On February 14, 1977, he was offered work by Stevie Wonder and by Bob Marley on the same day. He took the Wailers, replacing Al Anderson. He joined as the band was making Exodus at Island's Basing Street studio in London, where they had relocated after the shooting at Hope Road the previous December. His playing is on "The Heathen," "Natural Mystic," "Jamming," and "Three Little Birds," and across Kaya, Survival, and Uprising. His blues and rock vocabulary, the Rough Guide says, was one of the elements Marley took from outside reggae. He described the job as being to "enhance the song and add icing on the cake," and never to "show off."

After Marley's sunset he stayed with the Wailers band, later joined Al Anderson in the Original Wailers until 2011, and formed the Legendary Wailers in 2019.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. He told Daly he was "born Donald Hanson Marvin Kerr Richards Jr," went by Junior Hanson, and later "began to go by Junior Marvin." Andrew Daly, "Junior Marvin on Joining Bob Marley, and the Night Hendrix Shook His Hand," Guitar World, July 22, 2024, https://www.guitarworld.com/features/junior-marvin-bob-marley-and-the-wailers. Wikipedia, citing David Moskowitz's The Words and Music of Bob Marley, lists the other names. "Junior Marvin," Wikipedia, accessed October 2, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_Marvin.
  2. Wikipedia says he appeared in Help! as a child actor. "Junior Marvin." He told Daly he moved to England with his mother after his parents separated. Daly, "Junior Marvin on Joining Bob Marley."
  3. Marvin told Daly he formed White Rabbit with Linda Lewis and worked with T-Bone Walker when young. Daly, "Junior Marvin on Joining Bob Marley." Discogs credits "Junior Kerr" with guitar and vocals on Seventy Second Brave (1972). "Keef Hartley Band, Seventy Second Brave," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/1163294.
  4. Discogs credits "Junior Hanson Marvin" as guitarist and singer on both Manticore albums, and as producer of the second. "Hanson, Now Hear This," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/941394; "Hanson, Magic Dragon," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/13136450. Marvin: "I was proud that I could sign with Manticore Records and make two albums, Now Hear This and Magic Dragon." Daly, "Junior Marvin on Joining Bob Marley."
  5. Discogs credits "Junior Kerr" with lead guitar on Reggae Got Soul (1976). "Toots and the Maytals, Reggae Got Soul," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/606925. Marvin told Daly that Chris Blackwell first noticed him through a session with Steve Winwood. Daly, "Junior Marvin on Joining Bob Marley."
  6. Marvin dates the Wonder call and the meeting with Marley to "Valentine's Day in 1977"; Wonder, he said, offered a ten-year contract. Daly, "Junior Marvin on Joining Bob Marley." Daly writes that Marley "had tagged him as Al Anderson's replacement." Andrew Daly, "Junior Marvin on Bob Marley's Exodus," Guitar Player, January 14, 2025, https://www.guitarplayer.com/music/junior-marvin-on-bob-marley-and-exodus.
  7. Marvin recalled entering Island's London studio for the Exodus sessions in "February or March of 1977." Daly, "Junior Marvin on Bob Marley's Exodus." The Rough Guide says Marley left Jamaica early in 1977 "for fourteen months." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 139.
  8. The 1977 Island LP credits Marvin with lead guitar across Exodus. "Bob Marley and the Wailers, Exodus," Island LP (UK), Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/525689. He discussed his parts on "Jamming," "Three Little Birds," and "Exodus" with Daly. Daly, "Junior Marvin on Bob Marley's Exodus." Discogs credits him with lead guitar on Kaya, Survival, and Uprising. "Bob Marley and the Wailers, Kaya," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/12797560; "Bob Marley and the Wailers, Survival," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/1955052; "Bob Marley and the Wailers, Uprising," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/509137. In his 2006 witness statement Marvin said the sessions produced enough tracks for a second album, Kaya, "because Bob had written a large number of songs," and that Aston Barrett "was very much in charge of the music": Barrett v. Universal-Island Records Ltd. and Others, [2006] EWHC 1009 (Ch), May 15, 2006, https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/ch/2006/1009, paras. 263-64.
  9. The Rough Guide cites "the rock/blues guitar of Junior Marvin" as one of the elements Marley took from outside reggae. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 138. Marvin said Marley "heard that I was the 'young Hendrix of London.'" Daly, "Junior Marvin on Bob Marley's Exodus."
  10. Andrew Daly, "Junior Marvin," Guitar World, July 22, 2024, https://www.guitarworld.com/features/junior-marvin-bob-marley-and-the-wailers.
  11. Wikipedia, citing AllMusic for the 1997 departure. "Junior Marvin."

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