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1.Born on February 6, 1945, in St. Ann Parish, Jamaica, even years after his death, his legacy, like no other musician has lived on and is still commemorated yearly world.
2.He was born Nesta Robert Marley, but a Jamaican passport official swapped his first and middle names when he was a little boy.
3.Bob’s father was a 50-year-old white British naval captain named Norval Sinclair Marley. Bob’s mom, a black country village girl named Cedella, was 19 when, in the small Jamaican village of Nine Mile in Saint Ann Parish, but for his entire life, Marley self-identified as a black African.
4.Bob’s mother had a child by Bunny Wailer’s dad when they were all living together in Trench town. That’s how close Bob and Bunny were.
5.His favorite Reggae singer was Bunny Wailer, and he thought the rest were “skanks.”
6.He was raised Catholic, but converted to Rastafari in the 1960’s.
7.In 1963, Bob Marley and his friends formed the Wailing Wailers. The Wailers got their big break in 1972 when they landed a contract with Island Records.
Bob Marley
8.The first record Bob cut was called “Judge Not.” On its label his name was misspelled as “Bob Morley.” Working at the time in a tin shack as a master welder, Bob, 17, spent most of his pay in a rum-joint jukebox up the street in which his song was a selection. He played his record so often that finally the owner of the place yanked the record out of the jukebox and demanded that Bob leave, and never come back.
9.When he first married his wife Rita and moved to the states, he spent time working at the DuPont and Chrysler plants under the alias “Donald Marley.”
10.For a long time Bob drove a BMW—which, as far as he was concerned, stood for Bob Marley and the Wailers.
11.Bob once said, “<i>America is pure deviltry, dem t’ings dat go on there. Dem just work with force and brutality. Dem lock out the punk thing because they see something happening. So the oppressors bring another man to blind the youth to the truth, and dem call him-John Tra-vol-ta.”
12.In 1976, a few days before the Smile Jamaica Concert, a gunman broke into Bob’s house and shot him in the arm. Bob still performed at the concert not wanting to give the gunman the benefit of the doubt. The gunman is still unknown.
13.Bob Marley has an undetermined number of children, though his official website recognizes eleven.
He was a vegetarian due to his devotion to the Rastafari practice.
14.In July 1973, Bob and the Wailers opened a week of gigs for Bruce Springsteen. Later that year, they joined a 17-city tour of Sly and the Family Stone’s. After four shows, Sylvester Stone fired them for being too good and hogging all the adoration.
Watch Marley’s Redemption Song, Live performance in Dortmund, Germany;
15.When Bob discovered that the reason he was still poor after being so famous for so long was that his long-time manager and friend Don Taylor had been robbing him blind, Bob beat Don to within an inch of his life. Then he fired him.
16.Bob died of cancer (brain, liver, stomach, lungs) died in Miami, Florida, on May 11, 1981, at the age of thirty-six. In one day, 40,000 people filed past his coffin as his body lay in state in Jamaica’s National Arena. And that’s just the number of people who got inside.
17.His final words to his son Ziggy before he died of cancer at the age of 36 were “Money can’t buy life.”
18.Marley has sold more than 20 million records, making him the first international superstar to emerge from the so-called Third World.
19. Bob was a professional level soccer player. But he also played a wicked game of ping-pong, too.
20. In continuous honor of the legend, the Bob Marley Museum was established. Situated along 56 Hope Road, Kingston 6, on the site of the legendary musician’s home, which he purchased in 1975, and was Marley’s home until his death in 1981.This house, features the 19th-Century architecture, which was converted into a museum six years later by his wife, Mrs. Rita Marley. The main museum displays Marley’s personal treasures.
(Source: unbelivable-facts.com & pantheos.com)
