Ash set to make Marley soap opera | Entertainment | Jamaica Gleaner Ash set to make Marley soap opera Published:Sunday | August 22, 2010 | 12:00 AM Previous Pause Next Bob Marley Cindy Breakspeare, former Miss Jamaica and one of the focal points of the pending Bob Marley soap opera. - file 1 There are countless Bob Marley biographies, documentaries and cover songs. Now, a soap opera on the reggae legend is in the works. The Deadline London website reports that American television director Jenny Ash is developing a film on Marley while he was living in London in 1977. She plans to focus on his relationship with Miss World 1976 Cindy Breakespeare and how it affected his marriage to Rita Marley. "There's never been a fiction film about Marley. We've never had a sense of him as a real man, as opposed to the legend," Ash told Deadline London. Ironically, Ash is nominated for an Emmy Award for her work on the critically acclaimed series, America: The Story of Us, which ran earlier this year on the History Channel.

Best and worst of times It was a case of the best and worst of times for Bob Marley in late 1976. His Rastaman Vibration album entered the American pop charts and he played to massive audiences in North America and Europe. But in December, Marley was shot during an assassination attempt at his Hope Road home in St Andrew while rehearsing for the Smile Jamaica peace concert at Heroes Park. Fearing further attacks, he and his band The Wailers left, first for the Bahamas, then settled in London where he led sessions that resulted in the epic Exodus album, released in 1977 and the mellow Kaya, which was released the following year. While he stayed true to the conscious message of his earlier albums for Island Records, Marley showed a softer side on songs like Waiting In Vain, Turn Your Lights Down Low, Is This Love and She's Gone. Breakespeare, who gave birth to Marley's son Damian in 1978, has said he wrote Turn Your Lights Down Low for her. Notorious womaniser Marley was a notorious womaniser who reportedly fathered 12 children.

His former manager, Don Taylor, wrote about his roving eye in the 1995 book, Marley And Me, which portrayed Rita Marley as a scheming, ambitious woman who, but for a professional relationship, Marley had long discarded. Bob Marley's self-imposed exile ended in April 1978 when he headlined the One Love Peace Concert at the National Stadium in Kingston. Bob Marley | Biography & History | AllMusic google+ Artist Biography by Jason Ankeny Reggae's most transcendent and iconic figure, Bob Marley was the first Jamaican artist to achieve international superstardom, in the process introducing the music of his native island nation to the far-flung corners of the globe. Marley 's music gave voice to the day-to-day struggles of the Jamaican experience, vividly capturing not only the plight of the country's impoverished and oppressed but also the devout spirituality that remains their source of strength. His songs of faith, devotion, and revolution created a legacy that continues to live on not only through the music of his extended family but also through generations of artists the world over touched by his genius.

Robert Nesta Marley was born February 6, 1945, in rural St. Ann's Parish, Jamaica; the son of a middle-aged white father and teenaged black mother, he left home at 14 to pursue a music career in Kingston, becoming a pupil of local singer and devout Rastafarian Joe Higgs . He cut his first single, "Judge Not," in 1962 for Leslie Kong , severing ties with the famed producer soon after over a monetary dispute. In 1963 Marley teamed with fellow singers Peter Tosh , Bunny Livingston , Junior Braithwaite , Beverly Kelso , and Cherry Smith to form the vocal group the Teenagers; later rechristened the Wailing Rudeboys and later simply the Wailers , they signed on with producer Coxsone Dodd 's legendary Studio One and recorded their debut, "I'm Still Waiting." When Braithwaite and Smith exited the Wailers , Marley assumed lead vocal duties, and in early 1964 the group's follow-up, "Simmer Down," topped the Jamaican charts.

A series of singles including "Let Him Go (Rude Boy Get Gail)," "Dancing Shoes," "Jerk in Time," "Who Feels It Knows It," and "What Am I to Do" followed, and in all, the Wailers recorded some 70 tracks for Dodd before disbanding in 1966. On February 10 of that year, Marley married Rita Anderson , a singer in the group the Soulettes ; she later enjoyed success as a member of the vocal trio the I-Threes . Marley then spent the better part of the year working in a factory in Newark, DE, the home of his mother since 1963. Upon returning to Jamaica that October, Marley re-formed the Wailers with Livingston and Tosh , releasing "Bend Down Low" on their own short-lived Wail 'N' Soul 'M label; at this time all three members began devoting themselves to the teachings of the Rastafari faith, a cornerstone of Marley 's life and music until his death.

Beginning in 1968, the Wailers recorded a wealth of new material for producer Danny Sims before teaming the following year with producer Lee "Scratch" Perry ; backed by Perry 's house band, the Upsetters , the trio cut a number of classics, including "My Cup," "Duppy Conqueror," "Soul Almighty," and "Small Axe," which fused powerful vocals, ingenious rhythms, and visionary production to lay the groundwork for much of the Jamaican music in their wake. Upsetters bassist Aston "Family Man" Barrett and his drummer brother Carlton soon joined the Wailers full-time, and in 1971 the group founded another independent label, Tuff Gong, releasing a handful of singles before signing to Chris Blackwell 's Island Records a year later. 1973's Catch a Fire , the Wailers ' Island debut, was the first of their albums released outside of Jamaica, and immediately earned worldwide acclaim; the follow-up, Burnin' , launched the track "I Shot the Sheriff," a Top Ten hit for Eric Clapton in 1974.

With the Wailers poised for stardom, however, both Livingston and Tosh quit the group to pursue solo careers; Marley then brought in the I-Threes , which in addition to Rita Marley consisted of singers Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt . The new lineup proceeded to tour the world prior to releasing their 1975 breakthrough album Natty Dread , scoring their first U.K. Top 40 hit with the classic "No Woman, No Cry." Sellout shows at the London Lyceum, where Marley played to racially mixed crowds, yielded the superb Live! later that year, and with the success of 1976's Rastaman Vibration , which hit the Top Ten in the U.S., it became increasingly clear that his music had carved its own niche within the pop mainstream. As great as Marley 's fame had grown outside of Jamaica, at home he was viewed as a figure of almost mystical proportions, a poet and prophet whose every word had the nation's collective ear.

His power was perceived as a threat in some quarters, and on December 3, 1976, he was wounded in an assassination attempt; the ordeal forced Marley to leave Jamaica for over a year. 1977's Exodus was his biggest record to date, generating the hits "Jamming," "Waiting in Vain," and "One Love/People Get Ready"; Kaya was another smash, highlighted by the gorgeous "Is This Love" and "Satisfy My Soul." Another classic live date, Babylon by Bus , preceded the release of 1979's Survival . 1980 loomed as Marley 's biggest year yet, kicked off by a concert in the newly liberated Zimbabwe; a tour of the U.S. was announced, but while jogging in New York's Central Park he collapsed, and it was discovered he suffered from cancer that had spread to his brain, lungs, and liver. Uprising was the final album released in Marley 's lifetime -- he died May 11, 1981, at age 36.

Posthumous efforts including 1983's Confrontation , the best-selling 1984 retrospective Legend , and the 2012 documentary Marley kept the man's music alive, and his renown continued to grow in the years following his death -- even decades after the fact, he remains synonymous with reggae's world-wide popularity. In the wake of her husband's passing, Rita Marley scored a solo hit with "One Draw," but despite the subsequent success of singles "Many Are Called" and "Play Play," she had largely withdrawn from performing to focus on raising her children by the mid-'80s. Oldest son David , better known as Ziggy , went on to score considerable pop success as the leader of the Melody Makers , a Marley family group comprised of siblings Cedella , Stephen , and Sharon ; their 1988 single "Tomorrow People" was a Top 40 U.S. hit, a feat even Bob himself never accomplished. Other Marley children -- including Damian , Julian , and Ky-Mani -- pursued careers in music as well.

Bob's cry for One Love - Entertainment - JamaicaObserver.com Bob's cry for One Love BY HOWARD CAMPBELL Observer senior writer Wednesday, February 06, 2013 Â Â Â Tweet WHEN Bob Marley arrived at the Norman Manley International Airport in late February 1978, it had been two years since he left Jamaica. He fled the country in December 1976 following an assassination attempt on his life. The reggae star returned to Kingston for the One Love Peace Concert, scheduled for Saturday, April 22 at the National Stadium in Kingston. Two years earlier, he was shot in the arm while rehearsing for the Smile Jamaica show, another event meant to bring peace among Jamaica's political factions. Marley, who died in May 1981, would have turned 68 today. In two months, it will be the 25th anniversary of the One Love Peace Concert, where he briefly brought then bitter adversaries Prime Minister Michael Manley and Opposition Leader Edward Seaga together in a symbolic truce. Manley was the charismatic socialist leader of the People's National Party (PNP).

Seaga headed the conservative Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) which opposed Manley's radical policies and close ties with communist Cuba. Tommy Cowan was head of Talent Corporation at the time and helped market Marley's music in Jamaica. He met him at the airport and remembers a joyous homecoming. "A lot of the brethren came out to see him. There was a motorcade and a lot of jubilation," Cowan recalled. Despite the unresolved shooting at his Hope Road home in December 1976 where he, his wife Rita, manager Don Taylor, and another colleague were shot, Cowan said Marley seemed relaxed and happy to be home. He was back in Jamaica at the coaxing of west Kingston enforcer Claudius Massop, who visited him in London where Marley lived after leaving Jamaica. Massop and fellow inner-city heavyweights Tony Welsh and Earl 'Tek Life' Wadley travelled to the British capital and convinced Marley that his presence at the proposed peace show would help defuse gang violence in Jamaica. Cowan points out that the concert went beyond politics. He said Marley had other things on his mind.

"He wanted the Ethiopian Orthodox Church involved because he wanted unification of all Rastafarians, whether it be Bobo or Twelve Tribes of Israel," said Cowan. "It was important because the concert was held near the anniversary of His Majesty's (Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I) visit to Jamaica." An all-star cast including Dennis Brown, Jacob Miller and Inner Circle, Culture, Zap Pow (with Beres Hammond) and Peter Tosh performed for a full house that evening. Tosh unleashed a fiery tirade against Jamaica's politicians and gentry, blaming them for the country's economic and tribal dilemma. Marley was more diplomatic than his former Wailers colleague. He started with Conquering Lion, before going into hits like Natural Mystic, Trench Town Rock, Positive Vibration, and War. While performing a high-energy rendition of Jamming, Marley invited Manley and Seaga, who were seated in the second row, to join him on stage. It was a spontaneous call that shocked even Cowan. "It was a spiritual moment, Bob was in a different world. But I must admit, I wondered if they would come on stage," he said.

Holding their arms aloft, Marley seemed to savour the moment even if Manley nor Seaga did. It was an image for the ages. Marley continued his performance with One Love, a song that has become synonymous with world peace. He capped an emotional set with Jah Live, his defiant 1974 ode to Selassie. Bob Marley stayed in Jamaica until May when he and his band left for the United States to promote Kaya, his latest album. The following year, Island Records released his Survival album which was followed by an epic concert marking independence for Zimbabwe (previously white-ruled Rhodesia) in April 1980. One year later, Marley died from cancer in a Florida hospital. His powerful statement at the One Love Peace Concert temporarily eased tensions among PNP and JLP supporters. But in 1980 when Marley was being hailed as a peace agent in Africa, Manley called a general election that saw the JLP decisively taking power. It came at a bloody cost; leading up to the polls on October 30, over 800 persons were murdered.

ADVERTISEMENT Bob Marley - Interview About Assasination Attempt Before Smile Jamaica and WAR from Smile JA - YouTube Bob Marley - Interview About Assasination Attempt Before Smile Jamaica and WAR from Smile JA Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Feb 2, 2014 Bob Marley - Interview About Assassination Attempt Before Smile Jamaica Concert Plus WAR from Smile Jamaica Concert Dec 5th 1976 Category HAPPY BIRTHDAY Robert Nesta “BOB MARLEY”.. | maureenlermer HAPPY BIRTHDAY Robert Nesta “BOB MARLEY”.. / maureenlermer My tribute to … Robert Nesta “Bob” Marley , OM (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981) was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska , rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers (1963–1981).

Marley remains the most widely known and revered performer of reggae music, and is credited with helping spread both Jamaican music and the Rastafari movement to a worldwide audience. [1] Marley’s music was heavily influenced by the social issues of his homeland, and he is considered to have given voice to the specific political and cultural nexus of Jamaica. [2] His best-known hits include “ I Shot the Sheriff “, “ No Woman, No Cry “, “ Could You Be Loved “, “ Stir It Up “, “ Jamming “, “ Redemption Song “, “ One Love ” and, “ Three Little Birds “, [3] as well as the posthumous releases “ Buffalo Soldier ” and “ Iron Lion Zion “. The compilation album Legend (1984), released three years after his death, is reggae’s best-selling album, going ten times Platinum which is also one Diamond in the U.S., [4] and selling 25 million copies worldwide.

[5] [6] He was born as Nesta Robert now known as Bob Marley Bob Marley began growing his hair into dreadlocks after converting to the Rastafarian religion in the late 1960s Bob Marley moved to England after he is shot in an assassination attempt at his home in Jamaica on December 3rd, 1976. We call ourselves de Wailers… because we started out cryin’, Bob Marley explained, referring to the hardships band members experienced growing up in poverty in Jamaica. Bob Marley and The Wailers were presented with a gold record for the successful sales of the 1980 album ‘Uprising’. Bob Marley died on May 11th in 1981 and received a Rastafarian funeral service at the Ethiopian Orthodox church in Jamaica on May 21st. He was laid to rest in a mausoleum in his birthplace of Nine Miles. A bronze statue of the legendary reggae artist Bob Marley stands in the Celebrity Park outside the National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica. THANKS BOB MARLEY FOR THE WONDERFUL SONGS… lyrics… and more………..

OnE Love … PeAce Thanks Marley… Oh, and “Stir it up” was “our” song 😦 Anyway, have a great day! An account of an attempt to murder Bob Marley in 1976 | Music | The Guardian Share on Messenger Close Money is like water in the sea,' Bob Marley insisted earnestly on that late 1976 afternoon as our conversation by the Sheraton pool in Kingston turned to business and politics. 'People work for money, den dem don't want to split it. It's that kind of attitude,' he continued scornfully. 'So much guys have so much - too much - while so many have nothing at all. We don't feel like that is right, because it don't take a guy a hundred million dollars to keep him satisfied. Everybody have to live. Michael Manley say 'im wan' help poor people... They feel something good is gonna happen,' he said reflectively, then continued: 'We need a change from what it was. It couldn't get worse than that.' Sounding more sure, he concluded fiercely, almost defiantly, 'You have to share.

I don't care if it sounds political or whatever it is, but people have to share.' Bob's last comment might sound odd: why should the outspoken revolutionary poet be so concerned about anyone's political misinterpretation? But we were speaking just days before the free Smile Jamaica concert he was due to play for the people, and large crowds are always volatile. Bob was conscious of the heightened tension that always surrounded the build-up to a Jamaican election. His generous humanist statement could be labeled as socialism. People might say he was definitively backing Michael Manley's People's National Party (PNP), with its affiliation to Castro and Russia, and rejecting the Jamaican Labour Party (JLP), headed by Edward Seaga, dubbed in widespread graffiti as 'CIA-ga' because of the American secret service's overt support of his team. That could mean trouble. Times had changed since Bob and his wife Rita had backed Manley in the 1972 election. The island seemed to be full of guns. People were more desperate and violent, and Bob was a far more public figure. Now he had to screen every word and be extra-careful not to be misunderstood.

For an effectively fatherless mixed-race child of the rural areas and stifling ghettoes to be receiving more acclaim than any Jamaican ever was a wake-up call that a new society had actually arrived. Bob's international success made him a symbol of a troubled island's hopes. He now found himself in the unenviable position of being the prize of a tug-of-war between the island's two political parties. As the material for his album Exodus began to brew in 1976, the island was convulsed with lethal political agitation, and Bob's star status did not confer immunity - rather, it was the reverse. 'People see him as a big man now, gone international,' as his boyhood friend Mikey Smith explains. 'Everyone want Bob Marley deh 'pon their team.' Less than two decades after Jamaican independence, the system left behind by the British had frayed, and the infrastructure was crumbling. I remember arriving in Jamaica from Los Angeles once, having been shopping earlier that day, and how obscene it was to compare LA supermarkets' towering stacks of produce with the island supermarkets, with shelves so empty they seemed to sell air.

There was music, style and creativity in abundance, but shortages of everything else from rice to rolling papers. Driving anywhere was an adventure, as the ancient taxis seemed to be held together with rubber bands and hope, and the roads all over the island had potholes like craters. Power cuts were as regular as police roadblocks. Deadly tribal wars, the seeds of which had been planted centuries before, were being fought between the opposing JLP and PNP areas. Families turned against one another from block to block. People risked death to cross Kingston's disputed areas, such as the one between Fifth and Seventh Streets, or the several desolate areas where soldiers camped out and extracted rough justice from any passer-by. Bob had his own way of dealing with it. During another conversation, when he paused from taking energetic puffs on a communal 'chalice' and passed it on, I asked if he was bothered much by the police. 'I hardly ever on the streets to get stopped. I is a man who don't really travel up and down too much,' he replied laconically. Effectively, the stress on the streets was keeping Bob at home, just like his bred'ren in the ghetto.

When his plan for a free concert became known, he was approached separately by the JLP and the PNP, both eager for his support, but he chose to do a non-aligned event, albeit inevitably with government approval. 'Michael [Manley] jumped on it with full endorsement,' says Wailers' art director Neville Garrick. 'He said, "All you guys have to do is rehearse."' At first Manley proposed that the show be held on the lawns at Jamaica House, the Prime Minister's official residence. 'No, mek it somewhere central that don't have no political affiliation,' Bob insisted. Finally, the show was billed as a collaboration between the Wailers and the government's cultural office. So Bob was righteously angered when it was sprung on him that the election date had been brought forward to coincide with the Smile Jamaica show. Despite his best intentions, the Wailers's noble offering to the people had effectively been co-opted by Manley's PNP. The populist project now appeared to be little more than a promotional gig in the very territorial spirit Bob was trying to discourage. It was a cynical move on the PNP's part, which took a lot of the joy out of the idea.

The lightly sardonic voice of Bob's lawyer, Diane Jobson, drops uncannily into Bob's rasping snarl as she recalls how he said, 'Diane, dem want to use me to draw crowd fe dem politricks.' Bob had encouraged his Hope Road home in Kingston to become a 'safe house,' a neutral zone, in which youths caught up in the turmoil of the warring political factions could hang out and reason away from the old violent mindset. At a certain point, Bob's utopian vision of the yard as sanctuary was bound to collide with street conflicts. He was in a delicate position, and to add to the irony, the enemies Bob was trying to reconcile were often relations, old neighbours and schoolmates. I had been invited to stay at Hope Road, and around 5.30 one morning I woke, restless, and looked out of my bedroom window. Bob was standing in the otherwise quiet yard under the big mango tree, talking angrily to two men whom I couldn't see clearly. There was something ominous in their exchange. Even at a distance, Bob's body language was different from anything I'd seen before tense and taut, he was brusquely intent on making his point.

It was unsettling - and clearly a very private moment. I turned away and went back to bed. But sleep wasn't easy. For me, this brief and somehow troubling glimpse suggested a new side to this complex man, the rough one that gave him the name Tuff Gong. Among those who've reasoned about Bob's Exodus , it's usually held that the album is wholly a product of the traumatic event that was about to take place. But in reality, Bob already sensed that he was living in a time where imminent horror coloured everyday beauty. Proof positive: relaxing in the rehearsal room late one night, I heard music floating up from below, so I drifted down the stairs that ran outside the building. The moonlit yard under the mango tree was crowded with around 15 people sitting on the ground, the downtown kids who found refuge there and the Dreads who made it home. Tucked under the veranda of the lit tle house was a bedroom with nothing but some hooks on the wall, a chair, and Bob, in dusty sandals and shorts, sitting on the edge of a narrow iron bed.

It was just the kind of scenario that comes to mind when Bob lilts through the lines, 'We'll share the shelter/Of my single bed' on 'Is This Love'. Bob was playing his guitar, trying on chords for size. A young girl sat at the other end of the bed, her eyes fixed on Bob. He sang to her and to all of us as he strummed wrath and reality on his 12-string acoustic. His picking provided rhythm and hints of harmony as he sang, 'Guiltiness, rest on their conscience, oh yeah...' Everyone there was absorbed by the unaffected anger that stalked his crisp delivery. The words hit home to anyone who'd ever been aware of injustice in their lives - which meant everyone present, and many who would eventually hear the song in its majestic cut on the Exodus album. For many around town, 3 December 1976 was proving a difficult day, anyway. Bob's label boss Chris Blackwell was on his way to Hope Road when he stopped off at Lee Perry's Black Ark to check out some new tracks.

Sitting in the small, womb-like control room, covered with red, green, and black fake fur and stills from kung-fu flicks and westerns of the spaghetti and Hollywood varieties, Blackwell was entranced by the neon towers and canyons of Perry's spacey new track, 'Dreadlocks in Moonlight', topped with the producer's own warbling vocals. 'Me waan the Gong to voice dis ya one,' explained Scratch. Blackwell said: 'No. You can't improve on your own version. This is great. Make me a tape to carry.' So he sat down to watch Scratch work. No one mixed like Scratch. The skinny little man in a peak cap, undershirt and shorts danced with the four-track Teac machine from which he coaxed such shattering sounds. Darting in toward the knobs and faders, he'd flick them as if flame flashed from his fingertips, then twirl and pirouette, dipping back just in time to catch the beat. Blackwell was unsurprised when technical hitches made the promised few minutes stretch into over an hour. He resigned himself to being late for the Wailers' rehearsal.

For Neville Garrick, the day was also not going as planned. Heading for rehearsal, he was stopped by a policeman and arrested for weed. Neville was already somewhat edgy, still shaken by the reaction he'd got when handing out his newly designed stickers for the Smile Jamaica concert to some Dread friends. One man retorted: 'Me no put no political label deh pon my vehicle, Rasta.' Garrick was confused, thinking everyone should know that Bob was performing an apolitical event. But then he looked at his own design again, and realised that the rising sun he'd drawn to symbolise the dawning of a new, more loving island bore a close resemblance to the PNP logo. Over at the villa of Dermot Hussey, the island's most noted reggae broadcaster, the Wailers' keyboard player, Tyrone Downey, was lying on the floor trying to relax from the stress that had been going down at Hope Road. Sensitive and imaginative, Downey had been the baby of the Wailers, a protege of Family Man, who had first used him on sessions when Downey was 12. He'd been nicknamed 'Jumpy' when he first went on the road because of his wariness.

Now Downey was legitimately nervous. Ever since the change of the election date that had so alarmed Bob, men had been bearing down on Hope Road, dropping heavy warnings to the singer. 'Me hope you know what you a do, Dread,' they would say, looking grim. Hussey offered to drop off Downey and his girlfriend at Hope Road for the rehearsal on his way to do Progressions , his 8pm radio show. 'I'll be back,' Hussey announced as he pulled away from Hope Road. He was in the habit of stopping by number 56 when Bob was readying for a tour, and as the rehearsals went on from nine at night until two in the morning, Hussey had no intention of missing out on that night's session, bad vibes or not. He didn't know about the two plainclothes cops who had been stationed outside the house during rehearsals, due to the gravity of the political situation, and thus didn't notice their absence. Diane Jobson had arrived at Hope Road in good spirits, bearing especially sweet grapefruit and some herb from Bob's favourite grower. But soon a profound nausea she'd never experienced before washed over her.

'Is you hold de nice spliff, Diane?' Bob called out. Chuckling, she handed over some luscious buds and went to relax and play with some of the yard children in Neville Garrick's little house in the compound. In the newly built narrow galley kitchen by the rehearsal room, breezy and bright with a door at each end, Gilly the cook's blender was whirring as he sliced and diced fruit with quick precision. He could hear the Wailers' rehearsal perfectly. They had already polished 'Baby We've Got a Date', 'Trench Town Rock', 'Midnight Ravers', and 'Rastaman Chant'. Gilly remembers that Bob called a break, saying: 'Fams, you tek over rehearsin' the horns.' So Family Man Barrett led David Madden and the Zap Pow Horns into 'Rastaman Vibration'. Now that the Smile Jamaica show was almost upon them, everyone was looking forward to it, despite the tension in the town. Bob was light-hearted, joking around with Fams and Carly Barrett, who was sitting on a stool.

Juggling the fat grapefruit Diane had brought, he asked Garrick to drive Judy Mowatt of his backing group, the I-Threes, to her Bull Bay home, a couple of hours away. She had had bad dreams the previous night and was still shaken. Garrick protested not only did he want to see the rest of the rehearsal, but the best herbsman on the island was due to pass through with his wares. It was getting dangerously near Christmas, when good weed is hard to come by, and Garrick planned to lay in a store. 'Neville, you gwan like you love herb more than the rest of we,' teased Bob. 'Don't worry, we gwan hold some for you.' Thus reassured, and seeing fatigue in Judy's kindly eyes, Garrick took the keys to Bob's new silver BMW and they set off. Now, this was a famous set of wheels, chosen because the initials suggested Bob Marley and the Wailers, and Bob didn't let many people drive it. Everyone started moving. Rita Marley headed to her Volkswagen.

Bob's friend and neighbour Nancy Burke was asked by Seeco, the Wailers' percussionist, to move her car so the girls could leave. Burke was feeling buoyant that night she'd just got back from chaperoning Bob's sometime girlfriend Cindy Breakspeare as she won the Miss World contest in London. It was a great coup. In fact, even entering the contest had been daring of Breakspeare though Jamaican Miss World entrants had traditionally supplied wives for many local politicians, including Edward Seaga, Michael Manley's socialist Jamaica had dropped its Miss World membership, along with Cuba. Because of the tension in town, guards had lately been posted at the entry to Hope Road's circular drive, but no one was there and the gate was closed. Still, even that inconvenience couldn't dent Burke's good mood. She was dragged away from the kitchen by a little girl, one of Breakspeare's protegees, to join Diane Jobson and the other kids in Neville's cottage. Out on the road, Garrick, Mowatt, and the Hope Road doorman, a Trench Town youth named Sticko, were already way off in the distance.

Before steering her car through the gateposts, Rita paused to let another vehicle drive in - then screamed and jammed on the brakes as pain seared her scalp. The other car's unseen passenger had shot her through her window and scorched on into the yard. 'Give me a juice, nah!' A booming cry in the kitchen made Bob and Gilly look up as Bob's manager, a swaggering, sharp-witted hustler called Don Taylor, strode in. But Taylor was followed almost immediately by three intruders - gunmen, charging in through the doors at either end of the kitchen. One brandished two automatics like he was Jimmy Cliff in The Harder They Come . They fired round after round, the sound deafening as the kitchen became a battlefield. The Wailers and their militant Dread posse were caught off guard. Indeed, even though this was the moment Bob had been dreading, when the shock came, he froze. Everything went into slow motion. He felt something push him, and he fell down only later did he realise it was streetwise Don Taylor, raised working the volatile bars and brothels of the Kingston waterfront. The bullet aimed at Bob's heart instead smashed into his upper arm.

Later, Bob was advised that an operation to remove it carried the risk of loss of control of his fingers, so the lead would stay there till he was in his coffin. The noise of four automatics belching bullets suddenly silenced. 'I recognise one guy,' mutters Gilly tersely. He won't name names. 'They came in with two guns blazing and I ran out thanks to the power of the Most High.' With an expertise learnt in his child hood flights from the Trench Town cops, Gilly raced through the yard and over the wall. In the rehearsal room, bullets smashed into Carly's drum stool, and he fell to the floor. The next shots hit the wall, right where his head had been. Fams was trying to run for it but got caught up in the leads trapped under Carly's stool. The brothers disentangled themselves and sprinted for the bathroom, where they hid in the bathtub behind the shower curtain, hearts pounding. The Wailers's newest American guitarist, Donald Kinsey, was so freaked he left the island and the band the next day, never to return. Tucked away in Neville's little house, Diane Jobson and Nancy Burke had no idea what was happening.

Silently, both women prayed as gunfire spasmed as if it would never stop. Terrified, the children cowered under the bed. When the shooting stopped, all their hearts convulsed. In the silence, unthinkable questions shouted inside their heads. Had anybody - everybody - been killed? And was Brother Bob still alive? The eerie quiet was broken when Burke heard Seeco's wrenching shout outside their window. ' Blood claat! Is Seaga men! Dem come fe kill Bob!' That view was endorsed by word in the street, as passers-by said that before the ambulances and police arrived, they saw a car shoot out of the yard. But instead of driving uphill in the direction of University College Hospital, as might have been expected of any improvised transport for the wounded, the car headed downtown, straight toward the notorious Tivoli Gardens - the JLP headquarters, still a virtual no-go zone three decades on. 'Down in Trench Town, we heard it as a news flash over the radio, and as soon as we hear it, we know what the source was, even if we didn't know the person till after.

We knew what it was about,' definitively states Bob's old Trench Town neighbour Michael Smith, of the group Knowledge. 'All of these things came from the politics, Bob deciding to do the concert for Manley when he had turned down doing a show for the JLP. At that time they had Bob Marley as an international star, and everyone wanted Bob on their side.' So Bob's best intentions for a non-political concert had bitterly backfired. Jobson rushed out into the yard, where Rita was reeling, bleeding from the head. She begged, 'Diane, take me to the hospital!' But seeing that Rita was still standing and coherent, Jobson ran past her and into the kitchen. Just minutes before, it had been packed and buzzing. Now she was horrified to find an empty room and see a half-peeled grapefruit lying on the floor in puddles of blood . She breathed again only when she heard Bob call out to her weakly, 'Is alright, Diane. Me here still.' Comforting the hysterical children, Nancy Burke watched as Bob walked out in his blood -drenched shirt between two policemen to the waiting car, holding his arm in its reddening bandage.

The anguished self-questioning, as so often happens in the unfolding stages of trauma and grief, would soon come. He didn't look shaken or fearful. The Tuff Gong was angry. Bob Marley and the Wailers | Download Music, Tour Dates & Video | eMusic Bob Marley and the Wailers Rate It! Avg: 4.5 (200 ratings) Born: St. Ann, Jamaica Biography All Music Guide All Music Guide: Reggae's most transcendent and iconic figure, Bob Marley was the first Jamaican artist to achieve international superstardom, in the process introducing the music of his native island nation to the far-flung corners of the globe. Marley's music gave voice to the day-to-day struggles of the Jamaican experience, vividly capturing not only the plight of the country's impoverished and oppressed but also the devout spirituality that remains their source of strength. His songs of faith, devotion, and revolution created a legacy that continues to live on not only through the music of his extended family but also through generations of artists the world over touched by his genius. Robert Nesta Marley was born February 6, 1945, in rural St.

Ann's Parish, Jamaica; the son of a middle-aged white father and teenaged black mother, he left home at 14 to pursue a music career in Kingston, becoming a pupil of local singer and devout Rastafarian Joe Higgs. He cut his first single, "Judge Not," in 1962 for Leslie Kong, severing ties with the famed producer soon after over a monetary dispute. In 1963 Marley teamed with fellow singers Peter Tosh, Bunny Livingston, Junior Braithwaite, Beverly Kelso, and Cherry Smith to form the vocal group the Teenagers; later rechristened the Wailing Rudeboys and later simply the Wailers, they signed on with producer Coxsone Dodd's legendary Studio One and recorded their debut, "I'm Still Waiting." When Braithwaite and Smith exited the Wailers, Marley assumed lead vocal duties, and in early 1964 the group's follow-up, "Simmer Down," topped the Jamaican charts.

A series of singles including "Let Him Go (Rude Boy Get Gail)," "Dancing Shoes," "Jerk in Time," "Who Feels It Knows It," and "What Am I to Do" followed, and in all, the Wailers recorded some 70 tracks for Dodd before disbanding in 1966. On February 10 of that year, Marley married Rita Anderson, a singer in the group the Soulettes; she later enjoyed success as a member of the vocal trio the I-Threes. Marley then spent the better part of the year working in a factory in Newark, DE, the home of his mother since 1963. Upon returning to Jamaica that October, Marley re-formed the Wailers with Livingston and Tosh, releasing "Bend Down Low" on their own short-lived Wail 'N' Soul 'M label; at this time all three members began devoting themselves to the teachings of the Rastafari faith, a cornerstone of Marley's life and music until his death.

Beginning in 1968, the Wailers recorded a wealth of new material for producer Danny Sims before teaming the following year with producer Lee "Scratch" Perry; backed by Perry's house band, the Upsetters, the trio cut a number of classics, including "My Cup," "Duppy Conqueror," "Soul Almighty," and "Small Axe," which fused powerful vocals, ingenious rhythms, and visionary production to lay the groundwork for much of the Jamaican music in their wake. Upsetters bassist Aston "Family Man" Barrett and his drummer brother Carlton soon joined the Wailers full-time, and in 1971 the group founded another independent label, Tuff Gong, releasing a handful of singles before signing to Chris Blackwell's Island Records a year later. 1973's Catch a Fire, the Wailers' Island debut, was the first of their albums released outside of Jamaica, and immediately earned worldwide acclaim; the follow-up, Burnin', launched the track "I Shot the Sheriff," a Top Ten hit for Eric Clapton in 1974.

With the Wailers poised for stardom, however, both Livingston and Tosh quit the group to pursue solo careers; Marley then brought in the I-Threes, which in addition to Rita Marley consisted of singers Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt. The new lineup proceeded to tour the world prior to releasing their 1975 breakthrough album Natty Dread, scoring their first U.K. Top 40 hit with the classic "No Woman, No Cry." Sellout shows at the London Lyceum, where Marley played to racially mixed crowds, yielded the superb Live! later that year, and with the success of 1976's Rastaman Vibration, which hit the Top Ten in the U.S., it became increasingly clear that his music had carved its own niche within the pop mainstream. As great as Marley's fame had grown outside of Jamaica, at home he was viewed as a figure of almost mystical proportions, a poet and prophet whose every word had the nation's collective ear. His power was perceived as a threat in some quarters, and on December 3, 1976, he was wounded in an assassination attempt; the ordeal forced Marley to leave Jamaica for over a year.

1977's Exodus was his biggest record to date, generating the hits "Jamming," "Waiting in Vain," and "One Love/People Get Ready"; Kaya was another smash, highlighted by the gorgeous "Is This Love" and "Satisfy My Soul." Another classic live date, Babylon by Bus, preceded the release of 1979's Survival. 1980 loomed as Marley's biggest year yet, kicked off by a concert in the newly liberated Zimbabwe; a tour of the U.S. was announced, but while jogging in New York's Central Park he collapsed, and it was discovered he suffered from cancer that had spread to his brain, lungs, and liver. Uprising was the final album released in Marley's lifetime -- he died May 11, 1981, at age 36. Posthumous efforts including 1983's Confrontation, the best-selling 1984 retrospective Legend, and the 2012 documentary Marley kept the man's music alive, and his renown continued to grow in the years following his death -- even decades after the fact, he remains synonymous with reggae's world-wide popularity.

In the wake of her husband's passing, Rita Marley scored a solo hit with "One Draw," but despite the subsequent success of singles "Many Are Called" and "Play Play," she had largely withdrawn from performing to focus on raising her children by the mid-'80s. Oldest son David, better known as Ziggy, went on to score considerable pop success as the leader of the Melody Makers, a Marley family group comprised of siblings Cedella, Stephen, and Sharon; their 1988 single "Tomorrow People" was a Top 40 U.S. hit, a feat even Bob himself never accomplished. Three other Marley children -- Damian, Julian, and Ky-Mani -- pursued careers in music as well. Remembering Bob Marley's Jamaica Homecoming on His 68th Birthday tweet When Bob Marley arrived at the Norman Manley International Airport in late February 1978, it had been two years since he had left Jamaica. He had fled the country in December 1976, following an assassination attempt on his life. The reggae star returned to Kingston for the “One Love Peace Concert,” scheduled for Saturday, April 22 at the National Stadium.

Two years earlier, he had been shot in the arm while rehearsing for the “Smile Jamaica” show, another event meant to bring peace among Jamaica’s political factions. Marley, who died in May 1981, would have turned 68 today. Two months from now will be the 25th anniversary of the “One Love Peace Concert,” where he briefly brought then bitter adversaries Prime Minister Michael Manley and Opposition Leader Edward Seaga together in a symbolic truce. Manley was the charismatic socialist leader of the People’s National Party. Seaga headed the conservative Jamaica Labour Party, which opposed Manley’s radical policies and close ties with communist Cuba. Tommy Cowan was head of Talent Corporation at the time and helped market Marley’s music in Jamaica. He met him at the airport and remembers a joyous homecoming. “A lot of the brethren came out to see him. There was a motorcade and a lot of jubilation,” Cowan recalled.

Question: Which late singer/musician was shot in an assassination attempt in Jamaica in December 1976?
Answer: Bob Marley