A photographic and textual meditation on the life of a legend, reissued in special CD-size format.

Twenty years after Bob Marley's untimely death he remains a powerful worldwide presence. His music is at the top of the reggae charts, while his memory is indelibly etched in the minds of millions of his followers.

In the last two years of his life Marley underwent a dramatic change, becoming a gentler and more philosophical version of himself. He also met photographer Bruce Talamon, to whom he granted unprecedented access, both on the stage and off. The result is this remarkable visual record, which, paired with Roger Steffens's sensitive text tracing Marley's life from his youth in Jamaica to worldwide acceptance, captures (in the words of the late Timothy White's introduction) "the private warmth, social equanimity, zealous determination...and personal magnetism" of Bob Marley. 82 b/w photographs.

From Kumina to Mento, Ska to Rocksteady, Reggae to Dancehall, Roots to Ragga - this is the authentic story of Jamaican popular music, told for the first time by Jamaicans. In Jamaica, Reggae is more than music - it is the nation's main collective emotional outlet and its chief cultural contribution to the world. Reggae Routes examines the ways in which this uniquely popular music expresses the dreams, desires and realities of the Jamaican people, capturing the `glad to be alive' spirit which makes Jamaican music so popular worldwide. Jamaican music can be roughly divided into four eras, each with a distinctive beat - ska, rocksteady, reggae and dancehall. Ska dates from about 1960 to mid-1966, rocksteady from 1966 to 1968, while from 1969 to 1983 reggae was the popular beat. The reggae era had two phases, `early reggae' up to 1974 and `roots reggae' up to 1983. Since 1983, dancehall has been the prevalent sound. The authors describe each stage in the development of the music, identifying the most popular songs and artists, highlighting the significant social, political and economic issues as they affected the musical scene. While they write from a Jamaican perspective, the intended audience is `any person, local or foreign, interested in a intelligent discussion of reggae music and Jamaica.' A unique feature of this book is the inclusion of historical radio charts from 1960 to 1966 and a provocative reggae all-time top 100 chart. Copiously illustrated with period photos, record jackets and a variety of music memorabilia, this is the best book ever written on reggae.

Bob Marley is one of the most legendary artists of our time - his music continues to inspire, both in its protest engagement, and the sense of empowerment his songs give. However, among the masses of people congregating around the reggae-culture movement, appreciable knowledge of the essence of his life, music and message is rare. This book is not just another facts-and-figures folio but a serious appraisal of the meaning and purpose of those songs, and interpretations.

'THE BOOK THAT EVERY REGGAE FAN SHOULD READ' John Masouri, Echoes 'Rodigan can still claim a currency few presenters of his vintage can match. Perhaps it's because while his wider musical and professional milieu has been in constant change, his boundless enthusiasm has been constant. Reggae's been lucky to have him' Ian Harrison, MOJO 'Rodigan was a major part of my childhood, he played the hottest tunes and in a style that just resonated with me and millions like me. Being able to contribute anything to a man that filled my life with such joy is an honour, respect, David Rodigan' Ian Wright 'David is a pioneer in Reggae music. As a selector and radio personality, his vast knowledge of Jamaican music and its culture has helped to educate and fascinate music lovers around the world; he's an amazing son of the music, and an icon. We couldn't have made it this far without him' Shaggy This is the unlikely story of David Rodigan: an Army sergeant's son from the English countryside who has become the man who has taught the world about Reggae. As the sound of Jamaica has morphed over five decades through a succession of different genres - from Ska and Rock Steady, to Dub, Roots and Dancehall - Rodigan has remained its constant champion, winning the respect of generation after generation of Reggae followers across the globe. Today, at the age of 63, he is a headline performer at almost all the UK's big music festivals, as well as events across the world. Young people revere him and he is a leading presenter on the BBC's youth network 1Xtra as well as a regular fixture at leading nightclubs such as London's Fabric and at student unions throughout the land. And he continues to go into the heartlands of Reggae, to the downtown dancehalls of Kingston and Montego Bay in Jamaica to compete in tournaments against the greatest sound systems. And yet, for all of this, David Rodigan is the antithesis of the stereotype of an international dance music DJ. 'I look like an accountant or a dentist,' he admitted to The Independent a decade ago. A man of impeccable manners, Rodigan prepares for a big sound clash by retiring to his hotel bed with a Thomas Hardy novel before taking a nap and then a cup of espresso before heading to the club. Rodigan is the inside story of this apparent paradox. It tells how a boy from Kidlington has become an admired international ambassador for a music form that remains as proud as ever of its African roots, a sound that emanates from and fiercely represents the ghetto poor. He now reaches across the age groups, from teens through to those of his own vintage. At the pinnacle of his career, Rodigan has become the DJ for all generations. 'David Rodigan is a force of nature. His spirit and passion are a rare and wonderful thing. He has dedicated his life to carrying the torch for Reggae music and is hugely respected all over the world for his knowledge and talent as a broadcaster and a DJ. Long may he reign on our stages and on our airwaves' Annie Mac

The history of the original Wailers - Tosh, Livingstone and Marley - as never before told. Over one dramatic decade, a trio of Trench Town R&B crooners, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer and Bob Marley, swapped their 1960s Brylcreem hairdos and two-tone suits for 1970s battle fatigues and dreadlocks to become the Wailers - one of the most influential groups in popular music. Now one of our best and brightest non-fiction writers examines for the first time the story of the legendary reggae band. Charting their complex relationship, their fluctuating fortunes, musical peak, and the politics and ideologies that provoked their split, Colin Grant shows us why they were not just extraordinary musicians, but also natural mystics. And, following a trail from Jamaica through Europe, America, Africa and back to the vibrant and volatile world of Trench Town, he travels in search of the last surviving Wailer. 'In Grant's hands life in Trench Town in the 1960's is energetic and theatrical, rich in comedy and tragic irony...This brilliant book is not just about Jamaica, but about ourselves' Guardian

An inspiring collection of poems, meditations, and lyrics by one of the world's most revered musical legends Bob Marley's music defined a movement and forever changed a nation. Known worldwide for their message of peace and unity, Marley's songs-from "One Love" to "Redemption Song" to "Three Little Birds"-have touched millions of lives. This collection is the best of Bob Marley presented in three parts: "The Man," giving an in-depth look into the life of Bob Marley; "The Music," comprising his most memorable lyrics as well as links to many of his songs in iTunes; and "The Revolution," containing his meditations on social equality and the Rastafari movement. Enriched with iconic photographs, Listen to Bob Marley provides insight into a reggae legend, the inspirational man behind the music.

Distillation of Sound focuses on the original music of Jamaica and how, through dub reggae, Jamaican culture was expanded and shifted. It will further the discussion on dub music, its importance to Jamaican culture, and its influence on the rest of the world. Dub music in Jamaica started in the early 1970s and by the end of the decade had influenced an entire population. The music began to use the rhythm track of a song as a song itself and spread quickly throughout the sound systems of the island. The importance of dub music and its influence on the music world frames the discussions in this new book. How dub travelled and distilled to three places in the world is covered in chapters focussing on the rise and spread of dub in New York City, in England and in Japan. Abbey discusses the separation between dub as a product and dub as an act of the engineer. Codifying these two elements, and tracing them, will allow for a more definitive approach to the culture and music of dub. To define it, and its surrounding elements, five of the first albums produced in the genre are discussed in three parameters that help to define and set up the culture of dub music. The albums discussed are Java, Java, Java, Java (Impact All Stars), Aquarius Dub (Herman Chin Loy), Blackboard Jungle Dub (Lee 'Scratch' Perry), The Message Dubwise (Prince Buster), King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown (Augustus Pablo). From the Preface: 'Jamaican music has always been about creating with what is at hand. Taking what is around you and making it into something great is the key to dub and Jamaican culture. This attitude is what this project is about. There is not enough written on the music that has inspired and influenced so many people around the world and this is an addition to the conversation. Dub music fixates on the engineer as a musician and, in doing so, allows for the creator to interact with echnology. Through this, the mixing board and other electronic elements become musical instruments. Now, these technologies are dominant in contemporary music and allow for people to easily create in their own homes. Without the engineers and musicians in the following work, these changes and shifts in technology and music would not have occurred. Dub is also a refiguring of already existing music. What this demonstrates is that music is ever evolving and can be shifted through technology. It also suggests that recorded music can always be modified and expanded upon. In our contemporary world, this modification is seen every day online and in people's daily lives. Dub created a way to view these changes through music. The influence of technology in the development of culture is the key to this work and to our development in society. How technology can be modified, changed, and evolved through the interaction of the engineer is the focus of this project. This work will further the importance of dub music and culture in our society. The definition and distinction between version and dub is also an important element in the following work. Jamaican music needs to be discussed more for its influence and creative force in the entirety of the music world. The author is a professional musician with the groups J. Navarro & the Traitors, Detroit Riddim Crew, and 1592 and a producer of dub, reggae and ska, and a professor of English and literature at Oakland Community College in Michigan, USA. Genuine popular and academic appeal. Will appeal to students and scholars of music and Jamaican culture - and to academic libraries. Has genuine popular appeal to those with an interest in Jamaican culture and music.

With a preface by Bunny Wailer.
Doctor Dread has committed his life to producing reggae music and releasing it on his label, RAS Records. He has become one of the world's foremost reggae producers, and has worked with almost all the genre's icons: Bunny Wailer, Black Uhuru, Ziggy and Damian Marley, Gregory Isaacs, etc. This book, full of behind-the-scenes stories, has shocking chapters that will reveal aspects of reggae never before explored.

A hybrid of reggae and rap, reggaeton is a music with Spanish-language lyrics and Caribbean aesthetics that has taken Latin America, the United States, and the world by storm. Superstars--including Daddy Yankee, Don Omar, and Ivy Queen--garner international attention, while aspiring performers use digital technologies to create and circulate their own tracks. "Reggaeton" brings together critical assessments of this wildly popular genre. Journalists, scholars, and artists delve into reggaeton's local roots and its transnational dissemination; they parse the genre's aesthetics, particularly in relation to those of hip-hop; and they explore the debates about race, nation, gender, and sexuality generated by the music and its associated cultural practices, from dance to fashion.

The collection opens with an in-depth exploration of the social and sonic currents that coalesced into reggaeton in Puerto Rico during the 1990s. Contributors consider reggaeton in relation to that island, Panama, Jamaica, and New York; Cuban society, Miami's hip-hop scene, and Dominican identity; and other genres including "reggae en espanol," underground, and dancehall reggae. The reggaeton artist Tego Calderon provides a powerful indictment of racism in Latin America, while the hip-hop artist Welmo Romero Joseph discusses the development of reggaeton in Puerto Rico and his refusal to embrace the upstart genre. The collection features interviews with the DJ/rapper El General and the reggae performer Renato, as well as a translation of "Chamaco's Corner," the poem that served as the introduction to Daddy Yankee's debut album. Among the volume's striking images are photographs from Miguel Luciano's series Pure Plantainum, a meditation on identity politics in the bling-bling era, and photos taken by the reggaeton videographer Kacho Lopez during the making of the documentary "Bling'd: Blood, Diamonds, and Hip-Hop."

Contributors. Geoff Baker, Tego Calderon, Carolina Caycedo, Jose Davila, Jan Fairley, Juan Flores, Gallego (Jose Raul Gonzalez), Felix Jimenez, Kacho Lopez, Miguel Luciano, Wayne Marshall, Frances Negron-Muntaner, Alfredo Nieves Moreno, Ifeoma C. K. Nwankwo, Deborah Pacini Hernandez, Raquel Z. Rivera, Welmo Romero Joseph, Christoph Twickel, Alexandra T. Vazquez

Bob Marley was a reggae superstar, a musical prophet who brought the sound of the Third World to the entire globe. Before the Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley goes beyond the myth of Marley to bring you the private side of a man few people ever really knew. Drawing from original interviews with the people closest to Marley--including his widow, Rita, his mother, Cedella, his bandmate and childhood friend, Bunny Wailer, his producer Chris Blackwell, and many others--Legend paints an entirely fresh picture of one of the most enduring musical artists of our times.

This is a portrait of an artist as a young man, from his birth in the tiny town of Nine Miles in the hills of Jamaica, to the making of his debut international record, "Catch a Fire." We see Marley on the tough streets of Trench Town before he found stardom, struggling to find his way in music, in love and in life, and we take the wild ride with him to worldwide acceptance and adoration. From the acclaimed journalist, Christopher John Farely, the author of the bestselling AALIYAH and the reporter who broke the story on Dave Chappelle's retreat to South Africa, Legend is bursting with fresh insights into Marley and Jamaica, and is the definitive story of Marley's early days.

Throughout Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, and America, Bob Marley represents far more than just the musician who translated spiritual and political beliefs into hypnotic, hard-hitting songs such as "Get Up, Stand Up," "No Woman, No Cry," and "Jammin'." Marley was born in rural Jamaica and reared in the mean streets of Kingston's Trenchtown his ascent to worldwide acclaim, first with The Wailers- Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingstone- and later as a solo artist, is a riveting story of the spiritual awakening of a uniquely talented individual.Now, for the first time, a symphony of voices has joined together to offer perspective on one of this century's most compelling figures. Dealing with Bob Marley as a man and myth, from his "rude boy" teens to international fame and his tragic death at the age of thirty-six, Every Little Thing Gonna Be Alright then explores the larger picture, examining Marley as the spokesman for Jamaica's homegrown religion of Rastafarianism, as a flash point for the pressure cooker of Jamaican politics, and his unique status as the first pop musical superstar of the so-called "Third World."

Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh, the Itals, the Ethiopians-they all dropped dazzling proverbs into their best known reggae tunes.

"What come bad in the morning, can't come good in the evening."

"They love to give you a basket to carry water."

"The harder the battle be, ago sweeter the victory."

In "Reggae Wisdom: Proverbs in Jamaican Music" Swami Anand Prahlad looks at the contexts and origins of these proverbs, using them as a cultural sheet music toward understanding the history of Jamaican culture, Rastafari religion, and the music that is that culture's worldwide voice.

Prahlad's fieldwork in Jamaica is extensive. For him, the study of Jamaican sayings and music is not only an academic endeavor. It is also a personal and poetic exploration. Prahlad says, "I am writing not only as a folklorist but also as a member of the international reggae community, a group of people around the globe who look to this music for its joy, wisdom, and strength."

His unique, groundbreaking study argues that contemporary reggae artists are self-styled Rastafari priests for an international community of listeners and devotees. These "warrior/priests" serve as educators, healers, prophets, advisers, and social critics. Their proverbs become sources of strength and inspiration for members of the reggae community.

Several chapters in "Reggae Wisdom" offer important insights into Rastafari ideology, the history of reggae, the life and folk culture of Jamaican communities, and the recording scene that gave rise to roots reggae. One chapter, based on the author's fieldwork in Jamaica, considers the use of proverbs by ordinary individuals in Jamaican society. Other chapters focus on proverbs used by musical artists such as Bob Marley. Chapters also explore the contexts of album cover art, promotional materials, concert venues, and performance styles and conventions.

As Prahlad says, "What better way to enter this rich and powerful, eclectic world of sound and sense than through the magical world of proverbs?"

Swami Anand Prahlad is an associate professor of English and anthropology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is the author of "African American Proverbs in Context" (University Press of Mississippi).

Within this book over fifty contemporary reggae artists and producers--ranging from Cultural Roots to Dancehall, and including Buju Banton, Shabba Ranks, Tony Rebel, Burning Spear, Bunny Wailer, Judy Mowatt, Oku Onuora, Junior Reid, Ken Boothe, Sister Carol, and Third World--present their views on the state of reggae music today, its developments since the death of Bob Marley over a decade ago, and the directions in which the music is evolving. Their voices interact with over 150 photographs of reggae artists and island life to reveal the thriving rhythm and pulse of Jamaican music and culture in the '90s.

This is a comprehensive biography of a brilliant musician and his lover who forever shaped the course of ska, reggae, and popular music worldwide despite poverty, class separation, mental illness, racial politics, exploitation, and sexism that resulted in murder. Through the words of Don Drummond's childhood friends, classmates, musicians, medical staff, legal counsel, and teachers, comes a first-hand story of his ""unusual mind."" They recall the early days in the recording studio, playing the instrumental backup for Bob Marley and others, and the nights in the Rasta camps where musicians burned the midnight oil and more. They roam the halls of the primitive and haunting mental hospitals; remember the gyrations of his lover, Margarita, the Rumba Queen, as she tantalised audiences at Club Havana; tell what happened that tragic night when Drummond stabbed Margarita four times; reveal details of the trial (delayed more than a year as Drummond was ruled mentally unfit) and offer insights into the ways that Drummond likely died in the asylum at age 35.

One of the twentieth century's most iconic cultural figures, Bob Marley was responsible for popularising reggae music throughout the world. His unique blend of politically conscious lyrics and melody won him legions of fans far beyond the Caribbean. But Marley was no mere pop star: his strong attachment to Rasta beliefs and practices and his fierce hostility to the injustice of 'Babylon' made him an important spokesman for the dispossessed. In this new biography, Garry Steckles follows Marley's eventful life through the early days in rural Jamaica, arrival in Kingston, first recordings and performances to his spectacular status as an international superstar. Throughout he analyses Marley's political and religious beliefs, while also concentrating on his relationships with fellow musicians, family and influential figures such as Chris Blackwell. A chapter focusing on Marley's long-term legacy explores what the musician contributed to world music and what the religious believer gave to Rastafarianism.