Marley Bob - The natural mystics: Marley, Tosh, and Wailer

Trench Town, imagined as a gold standard in social housing, had become by the late 1950s and 60s, when Tosh, Marley and Livingston moved in, a ghetto known as The Rock

Marcus Garvey: vilified by some, deified by others, and eventually proclaimed Jamaicas first national hero

Alexander Bustamente (in centre with bow tie) with allies and supporters in 1938. Bustamente was a hero of the Frome Rebellion and the islands first prime minister

Negro Aroused , Kingston Harbour. Edna Manleys ber black man freed from the shackles of his colonial past

Livingston, Marley and Tosh as the Teenagers, prototype R&B crooners who adored Curtis Mayfield

The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari formed by the inimitable master drummer, Count Ossie, who performed for royalty: Princess Margaret and the Rhumba Queen, Margarita Mahfood

The Teenagers with Rita Marley. Tosh, the most proficient guitarist considered himself Marleys teacher

Clement Sir Coxsone Dodd, the producer of Studio One, with Bob Marley. Dodd thought of himself as a father figure to the teenager

Vere Johns presides over the talent contest show Opportunity Hour. Johns stands at the microphone with a range of hopeful contestants on either side

Don Cosmic Drummond (inset with his trombone) was the creative centre of the Skatalites who backed the first efforts of Tosh, Marley and Livingston on Simmer Down

Joe Higgs wearing the beret that rarely left his head. Higgs was the first and lasting mentor of the three Trench Town youth

Leslie Kong, ice-cream vendor, restaurateur and record producer of The Best of the Wailers

The mercurial, maverick Lee Scratch Perry, producer of some of the finest tracks ever recorded by the Wailers

Chris Blackwell, a Jamaican patriot, reggae connoisseur and founder of Island Records

On a state visit to Jamaica in 1966, Emperor Haile Selassie disembarks from his plane only after the Rasta elder Mortimo Planno has persuaded the masses to clear a path for H.I.M.

Rasta elder Mortimo Planno, who introduced Tosh, Livingston and especially Marley to the Rastafari religion

The Wailers in relaxed mode

Colin Grant with the local herbalist, Brother D, at his church in St Thomas, an area renowned for its Obeah-men

Grant with Sister Mariamne Samad, who turned her home into a shrine to Marcus Garvey

The Wailers pass the Old Grey Whistle Test in BBC television studios in 1973

The Wailers pose for a publicity shot for the album Catch a Fire their first for Island Records