Bob Marley

Everyone’s talking about...

THE Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s Caribbean tour will embrace a celebration of reggae legend Bob Marley, who’s also the subject of a West End musical and a Saatchi Gallery exhibition. What’s his story?

Born Nesta Robert Marley in Jamaica in 1945 to a poor black teenage mum and white sixtysomething English dad, he had his first hit, One Love, with The Wailers in 1965. He tried to make it globally – living in Neasden, North-West London, in summer 1972, and playing a gig to Peckham schoolchildren to try to get noticed. In 1973, he supported soul singer Sly Stone’s tour but was sacked for overshadowing the headliner. His career rocketed when Eric Clapton covered his song I Shot The Sheriff in 1974. The following year, Marley had his first international hit, No Woman, No Cry.

And beyond the music?

Marley, below, had militant social views, now largely airbrushed from his image. He gave a songwriting credit on No Woman, No Cry to a friend who ran a soup kitchen so the royalties would fund it. He popularised Rastafarianism and its tenets of vegetarianism, no haircuts (hence dreadlocks) and smoking cannabis for ‘spiritual and medicinal’ reasons. Today, the Marley estate sells a brand of legal weed – and coffee (how do you make it? Stir It Up, presumably).

All peace and love, then?

Yes, but not always reciprocated. In 1976, seven gunmen shot Marley at his Jamaican home, leaving him so shaken he spent the next two years in London indulging his love of football, supporting Spurs and joining kickabouts in Battersea Park.

What’s his legacy?

His greatest-hits collection, Legend, is the UK’s 17th best-selling album ever, and Marley the 11th highestearning dead celebrity, Forbes magazine says. More oddly, the tiny Caribbean fish parasite Gnathia marleyi was named after him.

How did he die?

During treatment for a football injury in 1977, a malignant melanoma was found under a toenail. He rejected advice to have the toe amputated. Three years later he collapsed, and the cancer was found to have spread. A diet-based ‘alternative therapy’ failed and he died in Miami on May 11, 1981, aged 36. His final words to son Ziggy, one of at least 11 children: ‘Money can’t buy life.’