Gavin B.

Since I placed Bob's name into nomination, I want to rise to the occasion and argue the best case for Bob's induction.

Bob wasn't the beginning of reggae nor was he the end of reggae but he almost singlehandedly took the Jamaican music phenomena of reggae off the island and brought it to the rest of the world.

With the rise of Marley, reggae music went international, and by 1978 reggae music had reached the four corners of the globe. Stevie Wonder, America's best selling soul superstar, was opening shows for Bob Marley and the Wailers. Bob's music had reached far beyond the traditional US and European music markets and reached remote village outposts in Africa, South America, the Middle East and Asia.

No other musical performer... not Stevie Wonder, not the Beatles, not James Brown, not Ray Charles, not Aretha Franklin.... nobody else has had that kind of broad global reach with their music.especially in developing nations.

In my travels, I was stunned to find that villagers in the most remote regions of Nepal, Tibet, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Belize and the Australian outback knew about Bob Marley and his music. These same people learned about Marley's music without any access to music radio or television, and these same people knew little of any other kind of music, beyond the music played within the insular boundaries of their tribal village. Nobody before Marley or since has had that same sort of broad global reach.

I can't imagine anyone saying that Bob's music is boring or irrelevant but for those of you who made those comments, I'd suggest that you get aquainted with Bob's music. You simply don't know the man's music and those 14 tracks you've heard on your copy of Legend aren't the benchmark of Bob Marley's incredible legacy. Bob wrote nearly 500 songs in his short lived seven year recording career and very few of those songs were throwaways.

Bob Marley and the Wailers only released 11 "official" albums over the 7 year span of their recording career. An additional release, Confrontation was released 2 and a half years after Bob's death. There are a lot of unauthorized and inferior collections of Bob's music out there and it's best to stick to the original releases to hear the best versions of the songs. Of those 12 official releases, the following 60 songs are the cream of crop:

Catch a Fire Tuff Gong (1973)
Song Picks:Stir It Up, Kinky Reggae, Concrete Jungle, Slave Driver


African Herbsman Produced by Lee Perry for Trojan (1973)
Song Picks:Small Axe, Duppy Conqueror, Trench Town Rock, Sun Is Shining, Lively Up Yourself, Fussing and Fighting


Burnin' Tuff Gong (1973)
Song Picks:Get Up, Stand Up, I Shot the Sheriff, Burnin' and Lootin'


Natty Dread Tuff Gong (1974)
Song Picks:Lively Up Yourself, No Woman, No Cry, Them Belly Full (But We Hungry), Bend Down Low, Revolution


Live! Tuff Gong (1975)
Song Picks:Trench Town Rock, No Woman, No Cry, Get Up, Stand Up


Rastaman Vibration Tuff Gong (1976)
Song Picks:Positive Vibration, Who the Cap Fit, Johnny Was, Roots Rock, Raggae


Exodus Tuff Gong (1977)
Song Picks: Exodus, Jamming, Three Little Birds, One Love/People Get Ready, So Much Things to Say, Natural Mystic, Waiting In Vain


Kaya Creative Sounds (1978)
Song Picks: Is This Love, Sun Is Shining, Running Away, Satisfy My Soul, Kaya, Easy Skanking


Babylon by Bus [live] Tuff Gong (1978)
Song Picks: Exodus, Stir It Up, Kinky Reggae, Lively Up Yourself, Jamming


Survival Island (1979)
Song Picks: So Much Trouble in the World, Babylon System, One Drop, Zimbabwe, Top Ranking, Wake Up and Live


Uprising Tuff Gong (1980)
Song Picks:Zion Train, Could You Be Loved, Redemption Song, Coming In From the Cold, Forever Loving Jah, Bad Card, Real Situation


Confrontation (posthumous) Tuff Gong (1983)
Song Picks: Chant Down Babylon, Buffalo Soldier, Blackman's Redemption, Jump Nyabingi, Trenchtown

If you haven't spent a fair amount of time listening (I mean really listening) to the 60 songs I've selected, it's not possible to assess the scope of Marley's musical legacy. Only two other reggae musicians, Burning Spear and Gregory Isaacs have a larger body of work than Bob's but both their musical careers spanned 30 years beyond Bob's and both are still active musicians. Most people unaquainted with Bob's recording career are surprised that it was so short. Bob Marley wrote a lot of great songs in those 7 years and many of his best songs never got recorded.

My point to those who are skeptical is this: You can call Bob Marley a lot of things but his music wasn't boring or irrelevant. It's fair to say you prefer Peter Tosh's music to Bob's... it's fair to say you don't like the cultural and political values of Rastafarianism... and it's fair to say you don't like reggae music in general. However, to call Bob Marley boring, irrelevant or untalented are all points I challenge you to defend with adequate evidence to support your mischaracterization of Bob and his music.

World-wide sales of Marley's albums are estimated at 250,000,000. Only the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, ABBA and Queen have sold more records. Of all of those artists Marley is the only one without a commerical pop music orientation and he's only artist who recorded nearly all his work on an indie music label under his complete control. By doing so the Marley family has maintained ownership and licensing rights to one of the world's most valuable musical legacies. Nobody, not even the Beatles, have that sort of firm control over their catalog of music.