Post by TM79 on May 11, 2016 12:00:52 GMT
Good morning. Planning to do squats and a metcon later. Here is today's installment of history. On this day in 1981:
Nesta Robert "Bob" Marley died at the age of 36.
Nesta Robert Marley was born on February 6, 1945, in rural St. Ann Parish, Jamaica, the son of a middle-aged white Jamaican Marine officer and an 18-year-old black Jamaican girl. At the age of nine, Marley moved to Trench Town, a tough West Kingston ghetto where he would meet and befriend Neville “Bunny” Livingston (later Bunny Wailer) and Peter McIntosh (later Peter Tosh) and drop out of school at age 14 to make music. Jamaica at the time was entering a period of incredible musical creativity. As transistor radios became available on an island then served only by a staid, BBC-style national radio station, the music of America suddenly became accessible via stateside radio stations. From a mix of New Orleans-style rhythm and blues and indigenous, African-influenced musical traditions arose first ska, then rock steady—precursor styles to reggae, which did not take shape as a recognizable style of its own until the late 1960s.
Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer performed together as The Wailers throughout this period, coming into their own as a group just as reggae became the dominant sound in Jamaica. Thanks to the international reach of Island Records, the Wailers came to the world’s attention in the early 1970s via their albums Catch a Fire (1972) and Burnin’ (1973). Eric Clapton spread the group’s name even wider by recording a pop-friendly version of “I Shot The Sheriff” from the latter album. With the departure of Tosh and Wailer in 1974, Marley took center stage in the group, and by the late 70s he had turned out a string of albums— Exodus (1977), featuring “Jamming,” “Waiting In Vain” and “One Love/People Get Ready;” Kaya (1978), featuring “Is This Love” and “Sun Is Shining”; and Uprising (1980), featuring “Could You Be Loved” and “Redemption Song.”
While none of the aforementioned songs was anything approaching a hit in the United States during Bob Marley’s lifetime, they constitute a legacy that has only increased his fame in the years since his death on this day in 1981.
Comments: Bob Marley is one of my favorite musicians. He is one of the few musicians that I listen to regularly who was almost entirely responsible for putting a genre of music on the map. His sound was so raw, unique and profound that many other artists have made careers emulating it, and continue to do so to this day. Back in 2004, I was in a drug store in Spain and bought a two-disk set titled "Bob Marley's Most Famous Hits," for $15 US. It was probably the best CD purchase I ever made. The name was somewhat misleading in that it didn't include his most popular hits. What it did include were about 44 lesser known songs of his that really opened my eyes to what his music was like below the surface. It was not the re-recorded, digitally mastered, sharp sound that you hear on many of his more widely sold/popular albums. It was scratchy and rough, as if it were recorded in an old, smoky garage. Still, that trademark, unmistakable soul shone through as brightly as ever.
That two disk set was thrown away a long time ago, scratched up and ruined from years in my car. However, I do still have that music on my iphone and on a thumb drive. And there it will sit until the day (if this dream ever comes true) that I retire in the Caribbean and go out to work in my shop, maybe shaping a surfboard or building a piece of furniture. Those old, scratchy, familiar tunes will be playing in the background...
Nesta Robert "Bob" Marley died at the age of 36.
Nesta Robert Marley was born on February 6, 1945, in rural St. Ann Parish, Jamaica, the son of a middle-aged white Jamaican Marine officer and an 18-year-old black Jamaican girl. At the age of nine, Marley moved to Trench Town, a tough West Kingston ghetto where he would meet and befriend Neville “Bunny” Livingston (later Bunny Wailer) and Peter McIntosh (later Peter Tosh) and drop out of school at age 14 to make music. Jamaica at the time was entering a period of incredible musical creativity. As transistor radios became available on an island then served only by a staid, BBC-style national radio station, the music of America suddenly became accessible via stateside radio stations. From a mix of New Orleans-style rhythm and blues and indigenous, African-influenced musical traditions arose first ska, then rock steady—precursor styles to reggae, which did not take shape as a recognizable style of its own until the late 1960s.
Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer performed together as The Wailers throughout this period, coming into their own as a group just as reggae became the dominant sound in Jamaica. Thanks to the international reach of Island Records, the Wailers came to the world’s attention in the early 1970s via their albums Catch a Fire (1972) and Burnin’ (1973). Eric Clapton spread the group’s name even wider by recording a pop-friendly version of “I Shot The Sheriff” from the latter album. With the departure of Tosh and Wailer in 1974, Marley took center stage in the group, and by the late 70s he had turned out a string of albums— Exodus (1977), featuring “Jamming,” “Waiting In Vain” and “One Love/People Get Ready;” Kaya (1978), featuring “Is This Love” and “Sun Is Shining”; and Uprising (1980), featuring “Could You Be Loved” and “Redemption Song.”
While none of the aforementioned songs was anything approaching a hit in the United States during Bob Marley’s lifetime, they constitute a legacy that has only increased his fame in the years since his death on this day in 1981.
Comments: Bob Marley is one of my favorite musicians. He is one of the few musicians that I listen to regularly who was almost entirely responsible for putting a genre of music on the map. His sound was so raw, unique and profound that many other artists have made careers emulating it, and continue to do so to this day. Back in 2004, I was in a drug store in Spain and bought a two-disk set titled "Bob Marley's Most Famous Hits," for $15 US. It was probably the best CD purchase I ever made. The name was somewhat misleading in that it didn't include his most popular hits. What it did include were about 44 lesser known songs of his that really opened my eyes to what his music was like below the surface. It was not the re-recorded, digitally mastered, sharp sound that you hear on many of his more widely sold/popular albums. It was scratchy and rough, as if it were recorded in an old, smoky garage. Still, that trademark, unmistakable soul shone through as brightly as ever.
That two disk set was thrown away a long time ago, scratched up and ruined from years in my car. However, I do still have that music on my iphone and on a thumb drive. And there it will sit until the day (if this dream ever comes true) that I retire in the Caribbean and go out to work in my shop, maybe shaping a surfboard or building a piece of furniture. Those old, scratchy, familiar tunes will be playing in the background...