Legacy of Bob Marley

Bob Marley gave the world brilliant and evocative music; his work stretched across nearly two decades and yet still remains timeless and universal. Bob Marley & the Wailers worked their way into the very fabric of our lives.
"He's taken his place alongside James Brown and Sly Stone as a pervasive influence on r&b", says the American critic Timothy White, author of the acclaimed Bob Marley biography CATCH A FIRE: THE LIFE OF BOB MARLEY. "His music was pure rock, in the sense that it was a public expression of a private truth."
It is important to consider the roots of this legend: the first superstar from the Third World, Bob Marley was one of the most charismatic and challenging performers of our time and his music could have been created from only one source: the street culture of Jamaica.

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Bob Marley Edition Guitar

Bob Marley Limited Edition Les Paul Special electric guitar. The instrument features Bob's likeness on the front of its natural finish, and the authentic signatures of Bob's widow, Rita, and his musical family, including daughters Cedella and Sharon and sons Ziggy, who just won his fourth Grammy, as well as Damian, Julian and Stephen.
The guitar has a solid mahogany body, a mahogany neck, a rosewood fretboard with bar inlays in the colors of the Jamaican flag, an Alnico Classic humbucker at the neck, and an Alnico Hot at the bridge.
Also, Bob's signature phrase and classic song title, "One Love," is printed on the headstock along with Bob's name. Included with the guitar is a beige hemp gig bag with Bob's likeness screened on the front, an Epiphone certificate of authenticity, an owner's manual and the actual Sharpie marker used by Ziggy to sign the guitar.

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Bob Marley's Birthday

February 6 is Marley's birthday. It may strike some as a bit strange to talk about the reggae star's final resting place around the same time that his many fans celebrate his birth. But many things about the way Marley was laid to rest illustrate the reasons why his music and his message are still very much a living presence in people's lives today.
The first annual "Marley Generation" event at The Melting Pot NYC celebrated Bob Marley's Feb. 6 birthday with a look back on his life and a look ahead to how his work is a continuing source of inspiration for contemporary artists.
When the 49th annual Grammy Awards ceremony is presented Sunday Feb. 11, Bob Marley's contributions to the reggae category will be undeniable. Without his work to globalize and popularize Jamaican music, reggae may never had found its way into the mainstream consciousness of the music industry.

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Bob Marley

Bob Marley was a hero figure, in the classic mythological sense. His departure from this planet came at a point when his vision of One World, One Love -- inspired by his belief in Rastafari -- was beginning to be heard and felt. The last Bob Marley and the Wailers tour in 1980 attracted the largest audiences at that time for any musical act in Europe.
Bob's story is that of an archetype, which is why it continues to have such a powerful and ever-growing resonance: it embodies political repression, metaphysical and artistic insights, gangland warfare and various periods of mystical wilderness. And his audience continues to widen: to westerners Bob's apocalyptic truths prove inspirational and life-changing; in the Third World his impact goes much further. Not just among Jamaicans, but also the Hopi Indians of New Mexico and the Maoris of New Zealand, in Indonesia and India, and especially in those parts of West Africa from wihch slaves were plucked and taken to the New World, Bob is seen as a redeemer figure returning to lead this In the clear Jamaican sunlight you can pick out the component parts of which the myth of Bob Marley is comprised: the sadness, the love, the understanding, the Godgiven talent. Those are facts. And although it is sometimes said that there are no facts in Jamaica, there is one more thing of which we can be certain: Bob Marley never wrote a bad song. He left behind the most remarkable body of recorded work. "The reservoir of music he has left behind is like an encyclopedia," says Judy Mowatt of the I-Threes. "When you need to refer to a certain situation or crisis, there will always be a Bob Marley song that will relate to it. Bob was a musical prophet."

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One LOVE.. Bob Marley

BobMarley.com tracks down different definitions of 'One Love'

Love has always been central to Bob Marley's outlook on life, making Valentine's Day an ideal time to consider the meaning of his 'One Love' philosophy.

Another Marley celebrant explained his notion that 'One Love' is bound by family ties. "When you talk about love, you talk about it in a world sense," he said. "And when you say 'One Love,' basically it's all of your family together. We all share the same pie, and it kind of tastes the same to everybody because Mom made it or Dad made it, and you feel that love coming through that."

Considering that the world continues to be torn by war, strife, racism and intolerance, another man interpreted the lyrics and sentiment behind Marley's famous song more broadly. "We have much more in common than we pretend to have in difference," he said. "So when we talk about 'One Love,' or at least when I think about it, I'm thinking about seeing all of the same struggles that we go through, whether they be of an economic nature or of a spiritual nature or dealing with identity. All of that relates to how we come back to 'One,' and when you're one with yourself, then you can be one with everybody else that's around as well."

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