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Bob Marley House/Tuff Gong Studios
“The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.”
Bob Marley
The 1970s ended in pain for Bob Marley. While his success has made him an essential artist of the reggae scene, his health is not so good. When he picks up his guitar to compose the song that is to become Redemption Song, the musician knows he is ill. She was just diagnosed with skin cancer. Faced with his own mortality, he nevertheless concentrated on work, entrenched in his house acquired in 1975, where the studios and offices of Tuff Gong, the label he formed with the Wailers, are also located. The most astute observers of his work would later write that Redemption Song, more than any other composition on the Uprising album, reflects the distress in which the artist found himself at the time. Alone with his guitar, Marley embodies his song. When the album was released, Redemption Song served as the conclusion. The ultimate stroke of genius of a record destined to become the last of a most prolific career. Three years later, in 1983, Confrontation was published posthumously.
Born in poverty on February 6, 1945, Bob Marley started making music at a very early age. Well surrounded, especially close to Peter Tosh, with whom he sings hymns in church, he feeds his inspiration by listening to the classics of American soul broadcast by a radio in Miami whose waves reach Kingston. In his neighborhood, when he was still a child, Bob Marley was known to the neighborhood for reading the future in the palm of his hand. It turns out that his predictions are coming true. A job that the young man does not occupy nevertheless a long time, preferring to devote himself only to the music. Initially versed in ska and rocksteady, he fully embraced reggae after a stint in the United States where he found himself working on the line at a Chrysler car plant. It is there that he composes the song It’s Alright. Back home, he founded his label Tuff Gong, whose name refers to Leonard “Gong” Howell, the founder of the Rastafari movement.
The rest is a success story. Inspired and rebellious, Bob Marley breaks the codes to better impose his own. Free, he infuses his music with his struggles, beliefs and passions and inspires millions of people around the world. When the disease condemned him, while the doctors announced the end of the fight, he insisted on giving a final concert in Pittsburgh, part of the Uprising Tour. He died a few months later, on May 11, 1981, at the age of 36. His work, however, has made him an immortal, whose words and music will forever accompany the fight against injustice around the globe.
Bob Marley is the sixth most successful deceased musician, after Prince, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson.
Bob Marley Museum
Now home to a museum dedicated to Bob Marley’s work, 56 Hope Road in Kingston was once both the artist’s main residence and recording studio.
In 1970, Bob Marley and the Wailers formed their own label, Tuff Gong. They moved into a two-story colonial-style wooden house and set up a studio. In 1975, the success of their music allowed Bob Marley to buy the place and move in with his wife Rita. It is here that he worked until his death in 1981. Founded in 1985, the museum now houses many objects related to the musician such as guitars, records, murals and song lyrics.
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Cult! music: 100 mythical music places [French Edition]
Embark immediately on an exhilarating world tour with some of music’s most iconic bands and artists!
Head to Melbourne, Australia for a stroll along AC/DC Lane before crossing the iconic Abbey Road pedestrian crossing in the company of The Beatles. Visit Janis Joplin‘s home in San Francisco and find out how Johnny Cash ended up playing his greatest hits to a crowd of prisoners in San Quentin. Travel the winding roads of Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and stop in Japan to catch up with Deep Purple, Phil Collins and Daft Punk. Drive down the Tina Turner Highway before entering some of the most legendary studios in music history. Go back to the troubled origins of Billie Holiday and make a pact with Robert Johnson at the famous crossroads in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Embark immediately on an exhilarating world tour with some of music’s most iconic bands and artists! Relive the Jimi Hendrix concert on the Isle of Wight before paying tribute to Bob Marley in Jamaica.
Produced by a team of pop-culture specialists and enhanced by numerous anecdotes, Cult! musictells the secrets of the places that made the history of music.
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By Gilles Rolland
Passionné de cinéma, de rock and roll, de séries TV et de littérature. Rédacteur de presse et auteur des livres Le Heavy Metal au cinéma, Paroles de fans Guns N' Roses, Paroles de fans Rammstein et Welcome to my Jungle : 100 albums rock et autres anecdotes dépareillées. Adore également voyager à la recherche des lieux les plus emblématiques de la pop culture.