The Music And Life Of Bob Marley
Bob Marley, son of a 50 year old white quartermaster in the British West Indian Regiment and a 19 year old black Jamaican woman, would have turned 52 years old last year, but melanoma, which was discovered via a toe injury three years before his death, had metastasized and spread to his lungs, stomach and brain. He passed away in Miami on May 11, 1981 at the age of 36.
During his brief life he helped to create an entirely new form of music and then made it an international sensation, composed roughly 103 songs, fathered some 11 children from an estimated 7 different women, brought an entire faith system into international focus (that of Rastafari), survived an assassination attempt, played an important part in freeing Zimbabwe (then called Rhodesia) from colonial rule, received the Third World Peace Medal from the African delegates to the UN, toured the world some three times, kept a virtually undefeated record with his 5-a-side soccer team, received Jamaica's highest official honor, the Order of Merit, and in the end, had built up a $30 million dollar estate and was known to have been providing direct assistance (for survival) to well over 4000 impoverished Kingston residents.
Since his death, his reputation has only grown. His album sales exceed 300 million; the New York Times called Marley the most influential artist of the second half of the twentieth century; Time Magazine named his album "Exodus" the best album of the twentieth century; he is readily acknowledged as perhaps the most potent symbol of freedom in the world. I was browsing a major Boston newspaper arts and culture section recently and found an ad from Virgin records mega store pushing the latest hit CD's. Marley's album "Legend" was on that list. No doubt this is a testament to potency of Marley's music.
Why does Bob Marley remain so popular?
In his own words, it's simple, like the best art and music is: because reggae music "…carry earth force, people rhythm." Bob Marley's music carries the force of nature and opens a direct channel to the truth. That's why his music is so damn popular. I recently met a Unitarian Universalist minister who had just come back from an 8 month sabbatical in Italy and he had the idea to lock all the members of the current US administration and any potential members of the next in a room and force them to listen to everything Bob Marley ever recorded. If they really got his message, any ensuing actions would certainly have to spring from compassion and love, free from ego, hate, fear and division.
Part of what makes Marley so potent is his authenticity. He was born in a tiny village in the central hills of Jamaica and spent his earliest years learning about living from the land. Later, after moving to Kingston, he learned about some of the most intense levels of suffering that a human can experience. This education was NOT an academic pursuit my friends. Bob Marley's hands were deep in the soil planting the seeds, and later, homeless in the city, his bare feet in the urine-ridden stench of one of the most inhumane third world slums on the face of the earth, a place called Trench Town. Despite his wealth and fame, he never left these roots, never distanced himself from the people, anywhere. It's true, he never locked his car when he went to visit friends in the slums of Kingston, Jamaica.
His authenticity came with his refusal to take part in our severely flawed earthly systems, especially those of governments. He spoke of being INin this world but not OF it. Marley and his entourage lived in constant rebellion against the socio-economic systems of the times, but were well aware of local and international social and political happenings, almost to the point of being obsessed with listening to the BBC and reading newspapers etc. If you're going to alter what you write because of fear of loosing your record contract, which is just another way of taking part in the system, you don't have true authenticity. Marley used to view Chris Blackwell, the owner of Island records, the company Marley was signed to, as someone who was secondary to Marley's vision and mission. Marley never bent his artistic intent because of commercial pressure.
Bob Marley was blessed at a very young age with the ability to see through all the layers of deceit, fear and imperfection that is part of the human condition. With this came a certain responsibility and to live up to that responsibility required nothing less than the attitude of rebel and warrior. The war he was fighting was not an obvious one, but one between good and evil, between awareness and ignorance, between the oppressed and the oppressors, a battle that continues within each of us and, by extension, continues between peoples, countries, religions and ideologies. Marley lived these battles, both on the physical and spiritual planes, and, like a true shaman, returned to us bearing wisdom expressed in the deepest possible manner through music.
"My life is only important if me can help plenty of people. If my life is only about my own security, then me don't want it. My life is for people."
Music and Politics
The decade of the 1970's found Jamaica struggling for a way out of poverty and as a result she became caught as a pawn in the Cold War. Michael Manley's People's Socialist National Party (PNP), representing the have-nots, was locked in a deadly battle to hold on to power against Edward Seaga's conservative Jamaican Labour Party (JLP), representing the haves. One could say that there was a third party involved, led by Bob Marley, that could be characterized as compassionate in nature, (not at all to be confused with what's called "compassionate conservatism" today!) Marley's vision for the island and for the world was based in the conviction to break down divisions and act from a place of selflessness, whereas the two Jamaican political parties seemed to be locked in a cat and dog fight over power. Philip Agee, former CIA officer (as interviewed in the DVD Marley documentary, "Rebel Music") confirms that the CIA was supplying guns and anti-PNP propaganda to the conservative JLP. (Some Jamaican's began calling Seaga "CIAga.") In this interview Agee states, "The CIA would look upon the radical political content of reggae as dangerous because it would help to create a consciousness among the poor people, the great majority of Jamaicans." Radical political content of reggae? Try these Marley lyrics:
See them fighting for power
But they know not the hour
So they bribing with
Their guns, spare-parts and money
Trying to belittle our integrity
They say what we know
Is just what they teach us
Thru political strategy
They keep us hungry
When you gonna get some food
Your brother got to be your enemy
(from the song, "Ambush in the Night" Album, "Survival")
Raising consciousness, a dangerous thing!? Marley certainly did not view it as such, and this, with his vision of peace and freedom that was of a much more lasting and transcendental nature, placed him in what would become a mortal catch 22 situation. To back down from his conscious-raising composing and recording was simply out of the question for someone so committed to truthfulness, yet people were dying in the streets on a daily basis for taking a stand for what they thought was right. This led to the attempt on Marley's life on Friday, December 3, 1976 at his home in Kingston, just two days before he was to perform a free concert (the famous "Smile Jamaica" concert) to help cool the violent political climate. A bullet grazed Bob's chest and lodged in his forearm. Don Taylor, his manager, barely survived with multiple gunshot wounds. Rita Marley (Bob's wife) sustained non-life threatening wound to her head. Bob went on with the concert amidst an indescribable atmosphere of defiance, fear and commitment. To this day it has not been decisively determined who made this attempt and why, and remains a hot topic of controversy.
What sets Marley apart from so many others is his ability to see the tremendous injustices taking place especially with white cultures against black cultures, but not to remain stuck in anger and vengefulness, even after a politically motivated attempt on his life! Marley was both a warrior for the rights of black and oppressed third world cultures but also hinted at a battle against what could be called spiritual poverty, something that is being seeing in middle, upper and high classes in first world countries today and marked by increasing levels of depression.
Cost of living get so high,
Rich and poor, they start a cry.
Now the weak must get strong.
They say, "Oh, what a tribulation."
(from the song, "Dem Belly Full." Album, "Natty Dread")
Moreover, here's a musician who could romanticize even the worst situations with songs like No Woman No Cry and Trench Town Rock, remind us of the fact that we're all in this world together, "Well, the biggest man you ever did see was just a baby in this life."(Coming in from the Cold), give us infinite hope when the chips are down, "Are you the victim of the system, any day now they gonna let you down, Remember Natty will be there to see you through."(I Know), deliver a love song that touches the depths of the universe (and your groin), and tell us straight-up what is the key to changing things for the better, "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but our selves can free our minds," (Redemption Song). And finally, as a confirmation of Marley's total world coup, he was miraculously able to say all of this AND deliver it to the world through his status as pop star!
A sunset as viewed by someone who has accepted the suffering of their life as opposed to what one sees in that same sunset who has spent their life trying to avoid their suffering, looks, and feels quite different. In the case of the latter, the beauty might even be entirely missed. Bob Marley not only accepted his own suffering, but perhaps took on much of the suffering of the world and could express it all; the anger, frustration, contempt, sorrow, passion and ecstatic beauty. This is why some are led to see Marley as a prophet, a modern day Buddah!
His musicians rallied around him with their own genius, especially that of Family Man Barrett (bass) and his brother Carly (drumset), to create arrangements that reflected Marley's depth of feeling and his ability to cut to the simple truth. The reggae beat, slow and sensual but carrying with it the thunder of the kick-drum attack, filling the bubble, and releasing from high atop a pregnant gap of silence, moments before that bombo note hits the floor: the One-Drop, a rebel riddim, a direct line to our African heritage and the blank news-print paper that Bob Marley filled with articles upon articles of poetic revelation!
Marley was as much a saint as he was a man, vexed as we all are by the ways of life on earth. Nowhere in recent history is the juxtaposition between the divine and the lowly Babylonian ways of mankind so acute. His life was replete with layers of controversy, contradiction and broken promises. To dig deeper into his life reveals the culture surrounding Marley, like the air of "homoerotic violence" that at least one observer recounts, his renowned polygamy, the outright theft committed by most of those closest to him, the loneliness and depression that he felt despite having so many and so much around him, the difficult to understand role of Rastafari and religiosity in his life, and his copious amounts of pot smoking, which, in his case, seemed to sharpen his awareness, not dull it.
But his music transcends all of that, in fact, it even transcends the reggae idiom itself. Bob Marley's music "…carry earth force, people rhythm"! Don't think about it too much, just blast it on your stereo!
The Marley Gap
When Bob Marley died, a giant gap was created in reggae (and the pop music world in general), that has left musicians and producers chasing their tails. Marley set a nearly impossibly high president. (And thank God, or Jah as it were, that it's there!) To approach it would require one to, amongst other things, depart from a market-driven mentality and to break out of the tightly compartmentalized stereotype of reggae today.
"It's only machine that make money." There are many artists and musicians out there who are pursuing their vision and who are not worried only about the selling of their product, but their voice seems to be drowned out by the screaming bratty child of the money making machine. This, paired with the spiritual poverty of our times and the shallowness of the mainstream media, that some argue is contributing much to lowering levels of consciousness in favor of pure sales, creates quite a difficult atmosphere to work in.
No doubt, there are bright spots here and there with occasional tracks from Marley's children, Morgan Heritage, Burning Spear, Beres Hammond, and Luciano to mention a few, but by and large much of what is called "roots" reggae today lacks the combination of beauty, depth, subtlety, refinement, musicianship and risk that Marley and his contemporaries were masters of. Much of what's new in reggae feels like a hollow shell, a spiritless stripped down imitation of formula created for consumption, rather than an expression of deep soul searching and high-level artistry.
The sleeping lion of reggae's Rebel Music needs some Stirring up! ~ By Matt Jenson / Berklee Today
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| https://www.facebook.com/bobmarley4ever |
During his brief life he helped to create an entirely new form of music and then made it an international sensation, composed roughly 103 songs, fathered some 11 children from an estimated 7 different women, brought an entire faith system into international focus (that of Rastafari), survived an assassination attempt, played an important part in freeing Zimbabwe (then called Rhodesia) from colonial rule, received the Third World Peace Medal from the African delegates to the UN, toured the world some three times, kept a virtually undefeated record with his 5-a-side soccer team, received Jamaica's highest official honor, the Order of Merit, and in the end, had built up a $30 million dollar estate and was known to have been providing direct assistance (for survival) to well over 4000 impoverished Kingston residents.
Since his death, his reputation has only grown. His album sales exceed 300 million; the New York Times called Marley the most influential artist of the second half of the twentieth century; Time Magazine named his album "Exodus" the best album of the twentieth century; he is readily acknowledged as perhaps the most potent symbol of freedom in the world. I was browsing a major Boston newspaper arts and culture section recently and found an ad from Virgin records mega store pushing the latest hit CD's. Marley's album "Legend" was on that list. No doubt this is a testament to potency of Marley's music.
Why does Bob Marley remain so popular?
In his own words, it's simple, like the best art and music is: because reggae music "…carry earth force, people rhythm." Bob Marley's music carries the force of nature and opens a direct channel to the truth. That's why his music is so damn popular. I recently met a Unitarian Universalist minister who had just come back from an 8 month sabbatical in Italy and he had the idea to lock all the members of the current US administration and any potential members of the next in a room and force them to listen to everything Bob Marley ever recorded. If they really got his message, any ensuing actions would certainly have to spring from compassion and love, free from ego, hate, fear and division.
Part of what makes Marley so potent is his authenticity. He was born in a tiny village in the central hills of Jamaica and spent his earliest years learning about living from the land. Later, after moving to Kingston, he learned about some of the most intense levels of suffering that a human can experience. This education was NOT an academic pursuit my friends. Bob Marley's hands were deep in the soil planting the seeds, and later, homeless in the city, his bare feet in the urine-ridden stench of one of the most inhumane third world slums on the face of the earth, a place called Trench Town. Despite his wealth and fame, he never left these roots, never distanced himself from the people, anywhere. It's true, he never locked his car when he went to visit friends in the slums of Kingston, Jamaica.
His authenticity came with his refusal to take part in our severely flawed earthly systems, especially those of governments. He spoke of being INin this world but not OF it. Marley and his entourage lived in constant rebellion against the socio-economic systems of the times, but were well aware of local and international social and political happenings, almost to the point of being obsessed with listening to the BBC and reading newspapers etc. If you're going to alter what you write because of fear of loosing your record contract, which is just another way of taking part in the system, you don't have true authenticity. Marley used to view Chris Blackwell, the owner of Island records, the company Marley was signed to, as someone who was secondary to Marley's vision and mission. Marley never bent his artistic intent because of commercial pressure.
Bob Marley was blessed at a very young age with the ability to see through all the layers of deceit, fear and imperfection that is part of the human condition. With this came a certain responsibility and to live up to that responsibility required nothing less than the attitude of rebel and warrior. The war he was fighting was not an obvious one, but one between good and evil, between awareness and ignorance, between the oppressed and the oppressors, a battle that continues within each of us and, by extension, continues between peoples, countries, religions and ideologies. Marley lived these battles, both on the physical and spiritual planes, and, like a true shaman, returned to us bearing wisdom expressed in the deepest possible manner through music.
"My life is only important if me can help plenty of people. If my life is only about my own security, then me don't want it. My life is for people."
Music and Politics
The decade of the 1970's found Jamaica struggling for a way out of poverty and as a result she became caught as a pawn in the Cold War. Michael Manley's People's Socialist National Party (PNP), representing the have-nots, was locked in a deadly battle to hold on to power against Edward Seaga's conservative Jamaican Labour Party (JLP), representing the haves. One could say that there was a third party involved, led by Bob Marley, that could be characterized as compassionate in nature, (not at all to be confused with what's called "compassionate conservatism" today!) Marley's vision for the island and for the world was based in the conviction to break down divisions and act from a place of selflessness, whereas the two Jamaican political parties seemed to be locked in a cat and dog fight over power. Philip Agee, former CIA officer (as interviewed in the DVD Marley documentary, "Rebel Music") confirms that the CIA was supplying guns and anti-PNP propaganda to the conservative JLP. (Some Jamaican's began calling Seaga "CIAga.") In this interview Agee states, "The CIA would look upon the radical political content of reggae as dangerous because it would help to create a consciousness among the poor people, the great majority of Jamaicans." Radical political content of reggae? Try these Marley lyrics:
See them fighting for power
But they know not the hour
So they bribing with
Their guns, spare-parts and money
Trying to belittle our integrity
They say what we know
Is just what they teach us
Thru political strategy
They keep us hungry
When you gonna get some food
Your brother got to be your enemy
(from the song, "Ambush in the Night" Album, "Survival")
Raising consciousness, a dangerous thing!? Marley certainly did not view it as such, and this, with his vision of peace and freedom that was of a much more lasting and transcendental nature, placed him in what would become a mortal catch 22 situation. To back down from his conscious-raising composing and recording was simply out of the question for someone so committed to truthfulness, yet people were dying in the streets on a daily basis for taking a stand for what they thought was right. This led to the attempt on Marley's life on Friday, December 3, 1976 at his home in Kingston, just two days before he was to perform a free concert (the famous "Smile Jamaica" concert) to help cool the violent political climate. A bullet grazed Bob's chest and lodged in his forearm. Don Taylor, his manager, barely survived with multiple gunshot wounds. Rita Marley (Bob's wife) sustained non-life threatening wound to her head. Bob went on with the concert amidst an indescribable atmosphere of defiance, fear and commitment. To this day it has not been decisively determined who made this attempt and why, and remains a hot topic of controversy.
What sets Marley apart from so many others is his ability to see the tremendous injustices taking place especially with white cultures against black cultures, but not to remain stuck in anger and vengefulness, even after a politically motivated attempt on his life! Marley was both a warrior for the rights of black and oppressed third world cultures but also hinted at a battle against what could be called spiritual poverty, something that is being seeing in middle, upper and high classes in first world countries today and marked by increasing levels of depression.
Cost of living get so high,
Rich and poor, they start a cry.
Now the weak must get strong.
They say, "Oh, what a tribulation."
(from the song, "Dem Belly Full." Album, "Natty Dread")
Moreover, here's a musician who could romanticize even the worst situations with songs like No Woman No Cry and Trench Town Rock, remind us of the fact that we're all in this world together, "Well, the biggest man you ever did see was just a baby in this life."(Coming in from the Cold), give us infinite hope when the chips are down, "Are you the victim of the system, any day now they gonna let you down, Remember Natty will be there to see you through."(I Know), deliver a love song that touches the depths of the universe (and your groin), and tell us straight-up what is the key to changing things for the better, "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but our selves can free our minds," (Redemption Song). And finally, as a confirmation of Marley's total world coup, he was miraculously able to say all of this AND deliver it to the world through his status as pop star!
A sunset as viewed by someone who has accepted the suffering of their life as opposed to what one sees in that same sunset who has spent their life trying to avoid their suffering, looks, and feels quite different. In the case of the latter, the beauty might even be entirely missed. Bob Marley not only accepted his own suffering, but perhaps took on much of the suffering of the world and could express it all; the anger, frustration, contempt, sorrow, passion and ecstatic beauty. This is why some are led to see Marley as a prophet, a modern day Buddah!
His musicians rallied around him with their own genius, especially that of Family Man Barrett (bass) and his brother Carly (drumset), to create arrangements that reflected Marley's depth of feeling and his ability to cut to the simple truth. The reggae beat, slow and sensual but carrying with it the thunder of the kick-drum attack, filling the bubble, and releasing from high atop a pregnant gap of silence, moments before that bombo note hits the floor: the One-Drop, a rebel riddim, a direct line to our African heritage and the blank news-print paper that Bob Marley filled with articles upon articles of poetic revelation!
Marley was as much a saint as he was a man, vexed as we all are by the ways of life on earth. Nowhere in recent history is the juxtaposition between the divine and the lowly Babylonian ways of mankind so acute. His life was replete with layers of controversy, contradiction and broken promises. To dig deeper into his life reveals the culture surrounding Marley, like the air of "homoerotic violence" that at least one observer recounts, his renowned polygamy, the outright theft committed by most of those closest to him, the loneliness and depression that he felt despite having so many and so much around him, the difficult to understand role of Rastafari and religiosity in his life, and his copious amounts of pot smoking, which, in his case, seemed to sharpen his awareness, not dull it.
But his music transcends all of that, in fact, it even transcends the reggae idiom itself. Bob Marley's music "…carry earth force, people rhythm"! Don't think about it too much, just blast it on your stereo!
The Marley Gap
When Bob Marley died, a giant gap was created in reggae (and the pop music world in general), that has left musicians and producers chasing their tails. Marley set a nearly impossibly high president. (And thank God, or Jah as it were, that it's there!) To approach it would require one to, amongst other things, depart from a market-driven mentality and to break out of the tightly compartmentalized stereotype of reggae today.
"It's only machine that make money." There are many artists and musicians out there who are pursuing their vision and who are not worried only about the selling of their product, but their voice seems to be drowned out by the screaming bratty child of the money making machine. This, paired with the spiritual poverty of our times and the shallowness of the mainstream media, that some argue is contributing much to lowering levels of consciousness in favor of pure sales, creates quite a difficult atmosphere to work in.
No doubt, there are bright spots here and there with occasional tracks from Marley's children, Morgan Heritage, Burning Spear, Beres Hammond, and Luciano to mention a few, but by and large much of what is called "roots" reggae today lacks the combination of beauty, depth, subtlety, refinement, musicianship and risk that Marley and his contemporaries were masters of. Much of what's new in reggae feels like a hollow shell, a spiritless stripped down imitation of formula created for consumption, rather than an expression of deep soul searching and high-level artistry.
The sleeping lion of reggae's Rebel Music needs some Stirring up! ~ By Matt Jenson / Berklee Today
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