Many who read this blog may already know this, but today is Bob’s birthday. Marley was born at 2:30 am on February 6, 1945 to Ms. Cedella Booker (Marley) in St. Ann, Jamaica. Marley would go on to become the most celebrated musician of the second half of the 20th century, and is worshipped as a deity in many parts of the world (including my house ; ). Today, I share an article written by noted author and Marley biographer Chris Salewicz and published in the March 1995 issue of Mojo magazine. The article describes Marley’s early years and his introduction to the music business in Kingston, Jamaica.

“Feb 6 1945 st. Ann , Jamaica , daddy was born . i remember us celebrating one of his birthdays in jamaica at 56 hope road with him, no big superstar party just us kids, mommy some cake few laughs and that was it. even if he wasn’t known to the world on feb 6th i would still think of him and in my heart say happy birthday daddy. love.”

David “Ziggy” Marley, February 6, 2012

“Happy Earthstrong Dad. We are blessed you touched this world with your love and hope. CHO!”

Cedella Marley, February 6, 2012

Can’t Fight The Youth: Bob Marley’s Early Years

Chris Salewicz, Mojo, March 1995

Click here to read on Issuu

1945. THE PREGNANCY WAS PROBLEM-FREE. On the first Sunday of February, 1945, Cedella Marley went to church as usual. The next day she hoped to fast, rejoice, and give testimony in church in the evening, as Elder Thomas encouraged his flock to do each Monday. But Cedella’s pregnancy seemed to have run its alloted time-span and, feeling the first twinges of labour, she stayed behind at one of the properties of her father, a vacant shop where she had set up her bedroom. The baby boy was born at around 2.30 on the Wednesday morning of February 6, 1945. He weighed seven pounds four ounces, and he was given the name Nesta Robert Marley.

1949. NESTA WAS A HEALTHY CHILD, BROUGHT up on a country diet of fresh vegetables and fruit. They would always say that Bob loved to eat, and the boy was especially fond of his uncle Titus, who always had plenty of surplus banana leaf or calaloo cooking on his stove. For a long time Nesta’s eyes were bigger than his stomach: it became a joke in the area how he would take up a piece of yam, swallow his first piece and almost immediately fall asleep: one piece just fill up his belly straightaway.

Early on there were signs that the child had been born with a poet’s understanding of life, an asset in a land like Jamaica where a kind of magic realism seemed the norm. When he was around four or five, Cedella would hear stories from relatives and neighbours that Nesta had claimed to read their palm. But she took it for a joke. How could this little boy of hers possibly do something like that? Though she felt slightly shaken when she first heard that what Nesta told people about their futures had come true. There was District Constable Black from Stern Hill, for example: he told Cedella how the child had read his hand and everything he said had come to pass. Then a woman who had also had her palm looked at by Nesta confirmed this.

If Nesta had perceived what was to be the pattern of his own life, he never told his mother. When he was almost five, Omeriah Malcolm, Cedella’s father, received a visit from Captain Norval Marley, Nesta’s 51-year-old white Jamaican father who had married the 17-year-old Cedella and left her the day after her pregnancy was confirmed. What Cedella should do, he suggested, was to give the boy up for adoption by Norval’s brother, Robert, after whom Bob had been named. What was more, Cedella should guarantee that she would not attempt to see the boy anymore. “It’s like he wouldn’t be my child no more! I said, No way”.

But then Norval came out on another visit. He’d had another idea: what if Bob was to come and stay with his father in Kingston for a time? He would pay for his education and let him benefit from all the opportunities offered by his own large, affluent family, the heads of Marley And Co, Jamaica’s largest plant hire company Cedella could see the advantages for her son in this. She felt she could go along with the plan, so Nesta was duly delivered to her husband in Kingston. Hardly had the boy arrived, however, than he was taken downtown, to the house of a woman called Miss Grey Norval Marley left his son with her, promising to return shortly He never did.

1960. THE FIRST TWO DANCES AT WHICH THE Sir Coxsone Downbeat sound system played were in Trench Town; and the first of these was an event put on by Jimmy Tucker, a leading Jamaican vocalist.

The cauldron of Trench Town epitomised one of the great cultural truths about Jamaica: how those who have nothing – and therefore nothing to lose – have no fear of expressing their God-given talents. The pace of life in Jamaica, moreover, follows the laws of nature: rising with the sun, people are active early in the day until the sun goes down.

So it was for Nesta Robert Marley. In the cool of first daylight or long after sunset he would be found, with or without his spar Bunny (Neville Livingston), strumming his sardine-can guitar and trying out melodies and harmonies. Apart from football it was his only solace, the only space where he could feel comfortable within his head.

For often he would feel alienated and ostracised in the city. With his mixed-race origins clearly visible he was considered a white boy and was taunted for this. His complexion could bring out the worst in people: after all, why was this boy from ‘country’ living down in the ghetto and not uptown with all the other light skin people? Being so consistently and miserably tested can bring out the worst in someone, or it can assiduously and resolutely build their character. In young Nesta it ultimately created his iron will, his overpowering self-confidence and self-esteem.

The still air of Trench Town was barely ever disturbed by traffic noise; from those rare yards with a tenant sufficiently fortunate to possess a radio would sail the favourite new songs of the United States, fading in and out as they drifted down the Caribbean from New Orleans or Miami. Nat King Cole, Billy Eckstine, Fats Domino, Brook Benton, Larry Williams, Louis Jordan and white iconoclasts like Elvis Presley and the milder Ricky Nelson all made a strong impression on Nesta; he also absorbed the omnipresent Trinidadian calypso and steel band music that had been adopted by Jamaica almost as its own.

It was in Trench Town that Nesta Robert Marley was exposed for the first time to bebop and modern jazz. At first, however, “me couldn’t understand it,” he later admitted. But in 1960 he began to take part in the evening music sessions held in his Third Street yard by Joe Higgs, one of the area’s most famous residents, due to his role as one of Jamaica’s first indigenous recording artists: as part of the Higgs & Wilson duo, he had cut a number of hit jumping boogies, starting with Manny-O in 1960, for WIRL (West Indies Records Ltd); the producer of these tunes was the owner of the label, Edward Seaga, who became Prime Minister for the Jamaica Labour Party in 1980.