Bob Marley: The Untold Story

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And his voice…it is hard to describe the seeing-ness of his voice. It seems almost trite to say he got the woman thing. He got everybody’s thing. James says Nina Burgess was the voice that most clearly expressed what he as an author was thinking, but it was Kim Clarke speaking in February of 1979 (the first voice in a section called Shadow Dancin’) that broke my heart in two. It all does serve a greater purpose. This is a story about Jamaica in a time where political parties had their respective armed gangs. It is a story about those gangs, those gang members, the politically involved (CIA, reporters, etc.), and those left in the wake of violence that ripped through Jamaica. Of course, the selling point for this book is that it hinges on the famous shooting of Bob Marley (simply “The Singer” in this novel). The first half of the book establishes the political situation in Jamaica, the horrors of living in the country in that time, and all comes crashing together in an assault on Marley’s compound.

By listening to the audiobook, experiences of the graphic violence felt frightening. I was able to imagine being inside the criminals heads...( to begin to understand their years of anger and hopeless feelings). Update I've just watched Autopsy: Bob Marley. Watching the true story of the politics and events surrounding the attempted assassination on Bob Marley involving the CIA, made this book, even in retrospect, really come alive. The spin the author put on it, was the same conclusion as the documentary, although they were very circumspect about putting it. It doesn't matter whether you read the book or see the programme first, each adds to the other. His deft manipulation of language is clearly the success of his storytelling. The way he writes reflects his characters. This may sound like a simple idea, though in reality it is one of the hardest to pull off. The narrative reflects the feel of the characters on a macro and micro scale. He writes in a different style for each one, and it’s superb: he brings their essence alive, who they are and what they sound like. It’s a great technique, one that must be extraordinarily hard to master. This is, no doubt, the reason he won the man booker prize in 2015. the challenging part - for me - was getting situated. at first, the chapters just come at you hard, without context of who these characters are in relation to each other. there is a very handy "cast of characters" section in the beginning but even then, i was lost for quite some time before i managed to understand the connective threads. and you might not have this problem - when i started this i was still on my delicious post-op percocet, so i admit there was some blurriness and some dulling to my cognitive capabilities. but the first chapter is narrated by a ghost for goodness' sake, and then goes right into the voice of a fourteen year old jamaican boy witnessing extreme violence and mentioning characters named, among others, "shotta sherrif," "josey wales," and "doctor love," before the next chapter swerves you into the story of a middle-aged white american man in a fast food restaurant in jamaica and by now your head is spinning with "what have i gotten myself into???"I started to wonder at points what is this book really about? I faultily assumed it was about the failed 1976 assassination attempt on "the singer". That happens halfway through. While the assassination attempt is a pivotal event, and an important hinge to the story, the book is more about the warring gangs associated with the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the People's National Party (PNP), and their effects on history. By the way, I constantly got the JLP and PNP and their associated gangs mixed up in my addled mind. In December 1963 the Wailers entered Coxsone Dodd’s Studio One facilities to cut “Simmer Down,” a song by Marley that he had used to win a talent contest in Kingston. Unlike the playful mento music that drifted from the porches of local tourist hotels or the pop and rhythm and blues filtering into Jamaica from American radio stations, “Simmer Down” was an urgent anthem from the shantytown precincts of the Kingston underclass. A huge overnight smash, it played an important role in recasting the agenda for stardom in Jamaican music circles. No longer did one have to parrot the stylings of overseas entertainers; it was possible to write raw, uncompromising songs for and about the disenfranchised people of the West Indian slums. They were sitting in a tree one day, and Bob started to talk about Christ. He said that Christ’s mission began at age thirty-three. “Me gwan die at t’irty-six,” he said quietly, “jus’ like Christ.” “Stop it, Bob!” said Dion, who had been his first buddy in Wilmington when he arrived from Kingston in 1966. “What are you talkin’ about? You got a good career, you makin’ good money. Why you want to die that young?”

The conflict, centered upon the animosity between the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the People’s National Party (PNP) provides a glimpse of a Jamaica that tourists don’t see…along with CIA paranoia about the advent of communism (and other “isms”). One of his finest character creations is Nina – who had a one-night stand with the Singer – and who consistently reinvents herself four times in the novel, displaying the impossibility of fully escaping the violence of the past. Harvey, Chris (13 October 2015). "Marlon James interview: 'I didn't want to fall into a pornography of violence' ". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 22 November 2015.If patois is defined as : a form of a language that is spoken only in a particular area, then I am not going to rate myself as a "fail" for not enjoying the struggle to read this! In fact, I didn't enjoy it so much that I didn't finish it! Under the supervision of the author's widow and with the collaboration of a Marley expert, this fourth edition contains a wealth of new material on the Jamaican singer, songwriter and musician , including many revisions made by the author before his untimely death. An appendix to the new edition chronicles Marley's legacy in recent years, as well as the ongoing controversy over the possibility that Marley's remains might be exhumed from Nine Mile, Jamaica, and reburied in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where hundreds of Rastafarians live. The new edition also contains an expanded discography and is factually updated throughout. Marley is depicted as a man of great vision, but also a human with his faults and failings. I thought James' view of Bob Marley was pretty balanced. He didn't deify the man, while at the same time treating him with great respect. He also sprinkles excerpts from Marley's songs throughout the text, so it helps if you are familiar with Bob Marley's lyrics. Marley is not one of the novel's narrators, and thus, his actions and speech are always related third hand by others. So at the same time, he is the central character and a very peripheral one.

Traveling to Europe, Marley underwent unconventional treatment in Germany and was subsequently able to fight off the cancer for months. It soon became clear that Marley didn't have much longer to live, however, so the musician set out to return to his beloved Jamaica one last time. Sadly, he would not manage to complete the journey, dying in Miami, Florida, on May 11, 1981. Bob is sometimes brought into political arenas, which he tries to avoid and keep his music his only political message. However, at concerts like the "Smile Jamaica" concert, Marley is the centerpiece for Jamaican political figures and plays a role in trying to encourage peace and stability in Jamaica. If you read anything this year, make it A Brief History of Seven Killings. It is truly masterful beyond just words. It is probably, without doubt, the book I have recommended the most in the last 6 months to others! The characters are so well-drawn and so realistic written in their own unique patois. This was my second ride on this merry-go-round and I bombaclot loved it. Again. The book is so big and so complex that I HIGHLY recommend a second reading to fully appreciate the links between the characters and plotlines, sort of like I would also recommend for similarly layered masterpieces like Conversation in the Cathedral, Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow, etc. This extensive biography therefore gives us not only the interesting details of Marley's childhood, upbringing, rise in the Jamaican music underground, and eventual international success, it also gives us a thorough depiction of the history of the Jamaican island and its politics, the spirituality and politics of Haile Selassie, the particulars of rastafarian practices, a full accounting of Marley's parents and their families, and a down-and-dirty play-by-play of the legal and familial ripples that carried Marley's legacy into the future after his death. ❤️

Photographs by Kate Simon

In those moments after crossing the finish line--the ones after I walked around hunched over, hoping I wouldn’t puke all over the other runners-- I felt awesome. The sprawling story has several timelines and locations, and a large and varying cast of characters. There's even a ghost, Sir Arthur George Jennings, a fictitious murdered white Jamaican politician, who reappears at various points in the story. This was a book for which the full cast audio definitely leant color to the experience and brought it to life. The cast was, for the most part, terrific, except for Chapter Ten in the last section, "Sound Boy Killing", in which Josey Wales' Jamaican accent didn't sound right. In 1975, after meeting Marley in London, Simon gained unique access to the Wailers, capturing intensely personal moments and events. Rebel Music presents over 400 photographs from Kate Simon’s remarkable archive, most of which were published here for the first time. The story of the life of Bob Marley is an interesting one, but the telling of it here was not up to the task, sadly.

If I could do anything I wanted, I'd want to be a student in one of Marlon James' literature classes. I want to hear how he talks and explains books. While working on Exodus, Marley and the Wailers recorded songs that were later released on the album Kaya (1978). With love as its theme, the work featured two hits: "Satisfy My Soul" and "Is This Love." Also in 1978, Marley returned to Jamaica to perform his One Love Peace Concert, where he got Prime Minister Michael Manley of the PNP and opposition leader Edward Seaga of the JLP to shake hands on stage. Because it is a biography, it gets average marks for the sheer amount of data available, especially in the appendices, but readers should practice skepticism when reading it. Unfortunately, it's largest negative comes from the fact that most of the story ignores Marley's musical inspiration and methodology in favor of secondary stories full of obvious speculation, making one wonder if the author actually cared about the musician's music in the first place. I’m a really, really, really ambitious writer,” he told Vogue. “Why not? I did set out to write a big novel. I tried to write what I thought was a great novel. Whether it succeeded or not, it’s not up to me to decide that. Yeah, I was playing big game.”Remember the violence so brutal and the lovin' so sweet it will make you diabetic just reading about it? Somehow, the Jamaican Patois all makes it more palatable. "Sufferah", it sounds all cool and light, but a dramatic meaning lurks behind it. Even their swearwords sound like superheroes. Bombocloth and Battyman, to the rescue!!