Bob Marley's Profile and Biography,aslo include Bob Marley's pictures,videos etc.

Bob Marley

Robert Nesta Marley, OM, (February 6, 1945 – May 11, 1981) better known as Bob Marley, was a Jamaican singer, guitarist, songwriter and activist. He is the most widely known writer and performer of Reggae music, famous for popularising the genre outside of Jamaica. Much of his music dealt with the struggles of the impoverished and/or powerless. Bob Marley is also renowned for the way in which he spread faith through his music.
Early life and career
Bob Marley was born in Nine Miles, Saint Ann, Jamaica. His father, Norval Marley, was born in Jamaica in 1895 to a family originally from Sussex, England. He was a soldier before becoming a plantation overseer, the job he held when he married Bob Marley's mother, Cedella Booker, an eighteen-year-old black girl. Norval Marley's affluent English family disapproved of mixed race relationships and although Norval provided financial support, he seldom saw his son.

Bob Marley was raised by his mother, who moved them to Kingston's Trenchtown slum in the mid-1950s. He became friends with Neville "Bunny" Livingston (aka Bunny Wailer) with whom Marley started to play music. Marley left school at the age of 14 and started as an apprentice at a local welder's shop, while spending his free time with Bunny Livingston, making music. Joe Higgs, a local singer and devout Rastafarian, was key to Bob Marley's success. Many critics realize him as the true mentor of Bob Marley. It was at one of the sessions with Higgs that Marley and Livingston met Peter Tosh (then known as Peter McIntosh) who also had musical ambitions.

In 1962 Bob Marley recorded his first two singles, "Judge Not" and "One Cup of Coffee", produced by Leslie Kong, a local music producer. The singles attracted little attention at that time. Both were later re-released in the album Songs of Freedom.
The Wailers
1963, Bob Marley, Bunny Livingston, Peter Tosh, Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso and Cherry Smith formed a ska and rocksteady group, calling themselves "The Teenagers" which became "The Wailing Rudeboys", "The Wailing Wailers" and finally shortened to "The Wailers". Braithwaite, Kelso and Smith had left The Wailers by 1966, leaving the trio of Marley, Livingston, and Tosh.

Bob Marley soon took on the role of the leader, being the main songwriter and singer. Much of The Wailers early work, including their first single Simmer Down, was produced by Coxsone Dodd at Studio One. The single topped Jamaican Charts in 1964 and established The Wailers as one of the hottest groups in Jamaica. They followed up with songs like "Soul Rebel" and "400 Years". In 1966, Bob Marley married Rita Anderson, and stayed for a few months in the United States where his mother was now living. Upon returning to Jamaica and The Wailers, Marley began practicing Rastafarianism and started to wear dreadlocks (See the section Rastafarianism for more on Marley's religiousness).

After a conflict with Coxsone Dodd, Marley and his band teamed up with Lee "Scratch" Perry and his studio band, the The Upsetters. Although the alliance lasted less than a year, they recorded what many consider the finest work by The Wailers. Marley and Perry split after a dispute regarding the assignment of recording rights, however, they would work together again and remain friends.

The Wailers' first album, Catch A Fire was released worldwide in 1973, and sold well. It was was followed a year later by Burnin' which included "Get Up, Stand Up" and "I Shot The Sheriff", of which a cover version by Eric Clapton became a hit in 1974.

The Wailers broke up 1974, with each of the three main members going on to pursue solo careers.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
Bob Marley went on as "Bob Marley & The Wailers", with the Wailers Band as the backing band and the I Threes as the backing vocalists. The I Threes included Marley's wife Rita Anderson Marley whom he had married in 1966.

In 1975, he had his international breakthrough with his first own hit outside Jamaica with "No Woman, No Cry" from the Natty Dread album. This was followed by Rastaman Vibration which was Marley's breakthrough album in the US, spending four weeks in the Top Ten of the Billboard charts – the highest-charting LP of his career.

In 1976, just two days before a scheduled free concert that Marley and Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley had organized in the run up to the general election, Marley, his wife Rita, and manager Don Taylor, were shot inside the Marley home. Marley received minor injuries in the arm and chest. Don Taylor and Rita were seriously injured, but fully recovered. It is believed that the shooting was politically motivated as the concert was seen as being in support of Michael Manley.

Bob Marley left Jamaica at the end of 1976, and went to England, where he recorded both Exodus and Kaya. Exodus stayed on the British charts for 56 straight weeks. It included three UK hit singles, "Exodus", "Waiting In Vain", "Jamming", and "One Love", a version of Curtis Mayfield's hit "People Get Ready".

Survival, a defiant and politically charged album was released in 1979. Tracks like "Zimbabwe", "Africa Unite", "Wake Up And Live", and "Survival" reflected Marley's support for the struggles of Africans. In early 1980 he was invited to perform at the April 17, 1980 celebrations of Zimbabwe's Independence Day. His last concert was held at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh on September 23, 1980.

Uprising (1980) was Bob Marley's final studio album, and is one of Marley's most directly religious albums, including "Redemption Song" and "Forever Loving Jah". Confrontation, released after Bob Marley's death, contained unreleased material and singles recorded during Marley's lifetime, including "Buffalo Soldier".

Battle with cancer
Diagnosis
In July 1977, Marley was found to have a wound on his right big toe, which he thought was from a football injury. The wound would not completely heal, and his toenail later fell off during a football game. It was then that the correct diagnosis was made. Marley actually had a form of skin cancer, malignant melanoma, which grew under his toenail.

Marley was advised to get his toe amputated, but he refused because of his Rastafarian beliefs that the body must be whole, that to have an amputation would be a sin, that his faith would ensure him living forever regardless of the cancer and because he saw medical doctors as samfai, confidence men who cheat the gullible by pretending to have the power of witchcraft. He also was concerned about the impact the operation would have on his dancing; amputation would profoundly affect his career at a time when greater success was close at hand. Still, Marley based this refusal on his Rastafarian beliefs, saying, "Rasta no abide amputation. I don't allow a mon ta be dismantled." (Catch a Fire, Timothy White) He did have surgery to try to excise the cancer cells. The cancer was kept secret from the wider public.
Collapse and treatment
The cancer spread to his brain, his lungs and his stomach. During the Uprising Tour in the fall of 1980, while trying to break into the US market, he collapsed while jogging in NYC's Central Park. This was after two shows at Madison Square Garden. The illness made him unable to continue with the tour. Marley sought help, and decided to go to Munich in order to receive treatment from cancer specialist Josef Issels for several months, but it was to no avail.
Death
Months before his death he was baptised into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and took the name Berhane Selassie (meaning the Light of the Holy Trinity in Amharic). Then a month before his death, he was awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit. He wanted to spend his final days in Jamaica but he became too ill on the flight home from Germany and had to land in Miami. He died at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami, Florida on May 11, 1981. His funeral in Jamaica was a dignified affair with combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafari. He is buried in a crypt at Nine Miles, near his birthplace, with his Gibson guitar, a bud of marijuana and a Bible.
Posthumous reputation
Bob Marley's music and legend have gone from strength to strength in the years since his early death and continue to produce a huge stream of revenue for his estate, while also bringing him a nearly mythic status in music history. He remains enormously popular and well known all over the world, and particularly so in Africa. In 1993, Marley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Time magazine chose Bob Marley & The Wailers' album "Exodus" as the greatest album of the 20th century.
Controversy over burial place
In January 2005, it was reported that Rita Marley was planning to have her late husband's remains exhumed and reburied in Shashamane, Ethiopia. In announcing the decision to move Marley's remains to Ethiopia, Rita Marley said: "Bob's whole life is about Africa, it is not Jamaica." There was a great deal of resistance to this proposal in Jamaica. The birthday celebrations for what would have been his 60th birthday on February 6th 2005 were celebrated in Shashamane for the first time, having previously always been held in Jamaica. Later that year his son Damian definitely denied the reburial of his father's remains in Ethiopia in an interview.