The Legend

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TRENCHTOWN
Marley spent his formative years in Trenchtown, a government housing scheme in West Kigston.
It was in Trenchtown where Marley was exposed to Rastafari, and met future Wailers Bunny Livingston and Peter Tosh.

The Origin of "Reggae"
As far as Jamaican record-buyers are concerned, the word reggae was coined on a 1968 Pyramid dance single, "Do the Reggay (sic)," by Toots and the Maytals. Some believe the term is derived from Regga, the name of a Bantu-speaking tribe on Lake Tanganyika. Others say it is a corruption of "streggae," Kingston street slang for prostitute.

Bob Marley claimed the word was Spanish in origin, meaning "the king's music." Veteran Jamaican studio musicians offer the simplest, and probably the most plausible, explanation. "It's a description of the beat itself," says Hux Brown, lead guitarist on Paul Simon's 1972 reggae-flavored hit, "Mother and Child Reunion," and the man widely credited with inventing the one-string quiver/trill that kicked off Simon's single as well as many of the top island hits of the preceeding years.
"It's just a fun, joke kinda word that means the ragged rhythm and the body feelin'. If it's got a greater meanin', it doesn't matter," Brown said.

JAMAICA... a short history!
The Caribbean island of Jamaica has had a far greater impact on the rest of the world than one would expect from a country with a population of under three million.
In the seventeenth century, for example, Jamaica was the world centre of piracy. From its capital of Port Royal, buccaneers led by Captain Henry Morgan plundered the Spanish Main, bringing such riches to the island that it became as wealthy as any of Europe's leading trading centres. In 1692, four years after Morgan's death, Port Royal disappeared into the Caribbean in an earthquake. Such a karmic sense of poetry is Jamaica.

Beliefs, Practices and Sacraments of the RASTAFARI
Rastafarians acknowledge that their religion is the blending of the purest forms of both Judaism and Christianity; they also accept the Egyptian origins of both these religions. In affirming the divinity of Haile Selassie, Rastafari rejects the Babylonian hypocrisy of the modern church. The church of Rome, and even the council of Rome, are considered to be particularly Babylonian: was it not from this city that Mussolini invaded the holy land of Ethiopia in 1935? Religions always reflect the social and geographical environment out of which they emerge, and Jamaican Rastafari is no exception: for example, the use of marijuana as a sacrament and aid to meditation is logical in a country where a particularly potent strain of 'herb' grows freely.

Marijuana: The Weed of Wisdom
In fact, the herb "ganja" (marijuana) was regarded as "wisdomweed," and Rasta leaders urged that it be smoked as a religious rite, alleging that it was found growing on the grave of King Solomon and citing biblical passages, such as Psalms 104:14, to attest to its sacramental properties: "He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man, that he may bring forth food out of the earth."

"Ital" Diet and Dreadlocks
A set of dietary and hygienic laws were formulated to accompany the religion's doctrine. They urged their flocks to shun the ingestion of alcohol, tobacco, all meat (especially pork), as well as shellfish, scaleless fish, snails, predatory and scavenger species of marine life, and many common seasonings like salt. In short, anything that was not "ital," a Rasta term meaning pure, natural or clean, was forbidden.

They also outlawed was the combing or cutting of hair, citing the holy directive in Leviticus 21:5: "They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh." Their nappy tresses were allowed to mat and twine themselves into ropy dreadlocks, so called to mock non-believers' aversion to their appearance. (The noun "dread" has also since evolved into a word of praise.)

Babylon Will Fall
The Rastas deny allegations by other relgious groups that they were antiwhite or antibrown (mulatto) and invited all to repent and accept Jah (a shortened form of Jehovah). They vowed that at a secret hour known only to a devout few, converts would return to Ethiopia by an undisclosed means, leaving behind the tropical steambath of Jamaica, which they considered to be literally Hell on Earth. Until that time, Rastas would refuse to take part in the machinations of daily life and commerce in "Babylon," the sphere of temporal captivity of the spirit.

The poor flocked to the Rastas' call, since the cult's creed lent a certain nobility to their alienated status. As Rastas, they could now await with dignity the Judgment Day, when the last shall be first and the first shall be last.

GANJA in JAMAICA
Called kan in the Amharic Bible, the ganja of India, i.e. Asian hemp, was brought to the New World by the Spanish around 1545. Britain offered colonial planters generous subsidies to encourage them to cultivate hemp and break the Russian monopoly on the crop, whose fibers were used mainly for rope.

Today, an estimated 65 percent of Jamaican adults and 80 percent of the population under twenty-one have tried ganja. The rural poor and enterprising Rastas grow and sell the crop simply because it is a splendid source of income, its cultivation and harvest requiring far less exertion than toiling in the island's bauxite mines.

The police continue to harass Rastas, mostly for their flagrant use of ganja, which remains illegal in Jamaica, but also because of their strange appearance and their "subversive" political and religious beliefs. The authorities' principal targets tend to be Rasta reggae singers whose songs tell of Jah's wrath and the government's moral decay.

PASSING ON...
A Nagging Injury
While playing soccer in Paris with a top French team in May 1977, during the European leg of the Exodus tour, he had injured his right toe again during a bad tackle. The toenail was torn off. Again, it seemed minor at first. This time however, the lesion did not heal. But he pressed on through the Scandinavian concert dates. Worries among Bob's inner circlew of Dreads concerning his physical well-being quietly mounted.
On July 7, 1977 Denise Mills, executive assistant to Chris Blackwell and the chief Island Records official accompanying the Exodus tour, took a limping Bob Marley to see a physician, who told Bob his wound looked disturbingly bad. It got so bad, in fact, that London doctors ultimately prescribed amputation of the right toe. Bob refused, in acccordance with Rasta proscription against such surgery. He was flown to Miami from London where Dr. William Bacon, a black orthopedic surgeon, performed a skin graft on the toe. Bacon called the operation "a success".

Bob Collapses in Central Park
On Sunday morning, September 21, 1980, Bob and Skilly had gone jogging in Central Park to get Bob "energized," as Cole put it. The night after the second show of his Madison Square Garden concert series with the Commodores, Bob had awoken in a daze; he had trouble remembering the show, even the fact that he had almost passed out during the performance.

As Bob was running around the pond near Central Park South that Sunday morning, he felt his body freezing up on him. He turned to tell Skilly something was wrong, but his neck suddenly became rigid; he couldn't speak. He was unable to move his head as he fell forward.
Skilly got Bob back to their hotel, the Essex House. Bob gradually revived, but he was severely shaken. Nevertheless, the decision was made to go on to Pittsburgh the following day for a Tuesday night show. His performance at the Stanley Theater on Tuesday, September 23, 1980 was to be his last.

Terminal Cancer
Bob was secretly admitted to Manhattan's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and underwent radium treatments that caused the locks around his forehead and temples to drop off. After two days, word leaked out that he was there. Although he was scheduled to be in the hospital for at least two weeks, when he learned the rumor had been announced on WNEW-FM and published in the New York papers, he immediately checked out, ignoring doctors' warnings that without proper, intensive treatment, he might not live another ten weeks. Based on tests taken thus far, cancer tissue was detected in his liver, lungs and brain, and there was evidence that the disease was spreading to other vital organs.

A Jamaican physician, Dr. Carl Fraser, a favorite of Twelve Tribes Rastas, who called him "Pee Wee," suggested that Bob seek treatment from Dr. Josef Issels, a seventy-two-year-old German doctor who specialized in helping those with so-called hopless, untreatable or terminal cancer. By November, Bob was scheduled to move to Issels' clinic in Rottach-Egern, a tiny town in Bavaria's foothills near the Austrian border.

On February 6, 1981, Junior Marvin, Seeco Patterson and Tyrone Downie hosted a little birthday party for Bob in his quarters at the Ringberg Clinic. They sat together watching a TV show about the World Cup that featured highlights of Pele's performances over the years in the championship matches. Bob seemed strong, alert and in good spirits.
But as spring arrived in the Tegernsee Valley, the day finally came when Issels announced he could do no more. Bob was flown back to Miami. In a phone call to his attorney, David Steinberg, he made him promise that he would not rest until the publishing rights to all of Bob's songs were retrieved and turned over to his family. "Maddah, don' cry," he said afterward to Ciddy as she stood at his bedside, clutching his hand, "I'll be all right. I'm gwan ta prepare a place." He died just before noon on May 11, 1981, only forty hours after he left Germany.

At that moment, back in Kingston, Judy Mowatt was sitting on the veranda of her home on the outskirts of the Liguanea section of Kingston when a great burst of thunder shook the heavens and a bolt of lightning hurtled through her open window, glancing off the framed photograph of Bob on her mantelpiece. Frightened, her children began to cry; after calming them, Judy turned on the radio and heard the JBC bulletin that Bob was gone.

The people of Jamaica came from all over the island to attend Marley's funeral. His funeral service was held in Kingston's National Heroes Arena. He had been given radiation treatment to fight the cancer invading his body, and as a result, his dreadlocks had fallen out. Rita, his wife, had kept the locks and they were woven into a wig which was placed on his head. Sharing Bob's coffin with him were his Bible and his Gibson guitar.

At the state funeral there were readings from the Bible by Jamaica's Governor General, and by Michael Manley, the Leader of the Opposition Party. Edward Seaga, the Prime Minister, eulogized The Honourable Robert Nesta Marley.

The Wailers, with the I-Threes backing them up on vocals, performed some of Bob's songs. The Melody Makers, a group consisting of four of Bob and Rita Marley's children, led by their eldest son Ziggy, also performed in his honor. His mother, Mrs. Cedella Booker, sang "Coming In From the Cold", one of the last songs Bob wrote.

After the funeral in Kingston, Bob's coffin was then driven across the island to Nine Miles, Bob's birthplace, a tiny hamlet in the middle of Jamaica. Half the island flocked there to pay their respects. A joyous celebratory occasion, the funeral of Bob Marley was the most significant day of national mourning that the island had experienced.
In April 1981, Bob Marley was awarded Jamaica's Order of Merit, one of its highest honors, in recognition of his contributions to the nation's culture.