21 things you probably didn't know about Bob Marley
theGRIO REPORT - On what would have been Bob Marley's 67th birthday, author John Shore offers some insights into the Marley you probably didn't know...
11. Bob’s mother had a child by Bunny Wailer’s dad when they were all living together in Trenchtown. That’s how close Bob and Bunny were.
12. Bunny Livingston (a.k.a. Bunny Wailer)’s given name is Neville O’Riley Livingston.
13. Peter Tosh’s given name was Winston Hubert McIntosh, a.k.a, “The Toughest.” He was murdered in his home on Friday, September 11, 1987, by a 32-year-old hoodlum acquaintance of his named Leppo.
14. The first record Bob cut was called “Judge Not.” 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 the owner of the place finally kicked him out.
15. When later in his career 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. 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.
17. For a long time Bob drove a BMW—which, as far as he was concerned, stood for Bob Marley and the Wailers.
18. Bob was a professional level soccer player. Played a wicked game of ping-pong, too.
19. Bob once said: “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.”
20. Bob died of cancer (brain, liver, stomach, lungs) on May 11, 1981. He was thirty-six years old. 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.
21. One of Bob’s most popular songs, “No Woman, No Cry,” is today sung as a lullaby to babies all over the world.
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