Cartwright Garth - Bob Marley and the Wailers the ultimate illustrated history

THE ULTIMATE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY

RICHIE UNTERBERGER

with
GARTH CARTWRIGHT
PAT GILBERT
GILLIAN G. GAAR
DAVE HUNTER
HARVEY KUBERNIK
and
CHRIS SALEWICZ

2017 Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.

Text 2017 Richie Unterberger, except as noted otherwise

First published in 2017 by Voyageur Press, an imprint of The Quarto Group,

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Digital edition: 978-0-76035-973-0
Hardcover edition: 978-0-76035-241-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Unterberger, Richie, 1962- author. | Cartwright, Garth. | Gilbert, Pat. | Gaar, Gillian G., 1959- | Hunter, Dave, 1962- | Kubernik, Harvey, 1951- | Salewicz, Chris.

Title: Bob Marley and the Wailers : the ultimate illustrated history / Richie Unterberger, with Garth Cartwright, Pat Gilbert, Gillian G. Gaar, Dave Hunter, Harvey Kubernik, and Chris Salewicz.

Description: Minneapolis, MN : Voyageur Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017004255 | ISBN 9780760352410 (paper over board)

Subjects: LCSH: Marley, Bob. | Wailers (Reggae group) | Reggae musicians--Jamaica--Biography. | Marley, Bob--Portraits. | Wailers (Reggae group)--Pictorial works

Classification: LCC ML420.M3313 U57 2017 | DDC 782.421646092 [B] --dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017004255

ACQUIRING EDITOR: Dennis Pernu

PROJECT MANAGERS: Madeleine Vasaly and Alyssa Bluhm

ART DIRECTOR: Cindy Samargia Laun

COVER AND PAGE DESIGN: Beth Middleworth

LAYOUT: Kim Winscher

FRONT COVER: Mike Prior/Redferns/Getty Images

TITLE PAGES: New York, New York, May 1, 1976. Richard E. Aaron/Redferns/Getty Images

COPYRIGHT PAGES: Chicago, Illinois, May 27, 1978. Paul Natkin/Getty Images

TABLE OF CONTENTS: Birmingham, England, July 19, 1975. Ian Dickson/Redferns/Getty Images

Pop music stars usually fade from public consciousness when two generations have passed since the end of their careers. Yet thirty-five years after Bob Marleys death, the reggae pioneer is bigger than ever.

His music is widely played all over the worldnot just in the North American and European nations responsible for the bulk of sales by English-speaking performers, but in every continent. His songs are performed by artists of all age groups and dozens of nationalities and ethnicities. His record salesimpressive, but not among the top echelon of superstars during his lifetimenow number in the hundreds of millions, even without counting the many pirated cassettes and CDs of his work that have circulated for decades, especially in Third-World countries. His best-selling disc, Legend: The Best of Bob Marley and the Wailers, has sold about twenty-five million copies, and as of this writing has spent more than four hundred consecutive weeks on the Billboard album chart.

Marley is everywhere, especially if you take into account the massive numbers of T-shirts, handbags, and other paraphernalia bearing his image. His most important legacy, however, is not in the massive merchandise he generates, but in his status as a symbol of empowerment for the underprivileged. Especially in Africa, hes revered as a spokesperson for the rights of the oppressed. He gained this position not only through the messages of his many songs, but also through the courageous stances he often took in his public life.

Even without these considerations, Marleys purely musical accomplishments were remarkable. With the Wailersespecially Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, who were nearly as important to the group as Marley in the bands first decadehe was crucial to developing and popularizing reggae, the music that remains Jamaicas most renowned export. He and the Wailers were the first reggae act to make albums as unified statements rather than more or less random collections of tracks. Those albums, in turn, were among the first reggae records to gain a wide listenership among rock fans outside of Jamaica, with reggae going on to influence countless musicians, rock and otherwise.

Marley has often been deified as a saint or even a Christ-like figure. But while his achievements were in some respects miraculous, he was, like any idolized artist, a very human and flawed figure. He was not an ideal husband or father, and did not always practice the peace and love extolled in many of his songs.

And despite his enormous fame and legacy, many of the details of his life remain surprisingly mysterious, especially for the years before his rise to international fame in the mid-1970s. Even some of the most prominent Marley biographies report events in different sequences, or give different months or even years for the same pivotal moment. One source, for instance, will report a Wailers single becoming a hit in Jamaica half a year before the month in which another source states it was recorded in the studio. Different close associates of Marley will have substantially different memories of what happened when or where, or why it happened.

Its virtually certain, however, that Marley was born on February 6, 1945, in the village of Nine Mile, Jamaica. Its even more certain that before leaving his teens, he helped spearhead a musical revolution that still echoes around the globe.

Staffordshire, England, June 22, 1978. TRINITY MIRROR/MIRRORPIX/ALAMY STOCK PHOTOS

BEGINNINGS 19451962

When Bob Marley was born, no one would have predicted that a boy of his background could become a musical revolutionary. His race, nationality, and modest family assets all seemed to work against the likelihood of his even rising out of poverty. Yet those same factors may well have fueled his burning desire to better not just himself, but the lot of millions of others with similar disadvantages.