In 1944, Captain Norval Marley (50) married Cedella Booker (18).  Shortly after, on February 6, 1945; which from my research has shown to be a Tuesday, Robert Nesta Marley was born.  In the late 1950's, Bob Marley moved from St. Ann to Trench Town with his mother.  Bob was barely into his teens at this point.  It was there that Marley first met Neville O'Riley Livingston (Bunny Wailer).  Both Bob and Bunny were fascinated with the music that they could pick up from American radio stations.  Some of these artists included Ray Charles, Fats Domino, and Curtis Mayfield.

    When Bob quit school, he took up a job in a welding shop, however his ultimate goal was music.  Bob spent all of his spare time with Bunny and their music.  They were helped by one of Trenchtown's more famous artists, Joe Higgs, whom held sessions for the aspiring artists.  During one of these sessions Bob and Bunny met up with Peter McIntosh (Tosh). 

    By 1961 Marley had made his first single, "Judge Not", and "One Cup Of Coffee" in 1962.   However, they both did not make it.  In 1963 the Wailing Wailers released "Simmer Down", which was their first single, which was on the Coxsone label.   By the following January it was number one in the Jamaican charts, where it stayed for the next two months.  After the release of "Simmer Down" the Wailers started recording on a regular basis with Soxsone Dodd's Studio One company.  By this time Bob's mother, Cedella, had moved to Delaware in the United States.  She had saved money to purchase an airplane ticket for Bob so that he could start a new life.   However, just before he moved to the US, he met Rita Anderson.  The two were married on February 10, 1966.  Bob didn't stay in the US for long however.  He stayed in the US to work long enough to gather money to financially take care of his music.  He stayed in the US for eight months.  In October of 1966 Bob returned to Jamaica.  In April of 1966 Haile Selassie had made a visit to Jamaica.  This gave the Rastafarian movement a bigger influence.

    By 1967 Bob's music reflected his new found beliefs instead of his old Rude Boy attitude.  Bob got back together with Bunny and Peter, and they formed the group The Wailers.  This proved to be conflicting with Coxsone Dodd, and so the group formed their own label, Wail 'N' Soul.  However in late 1967 the label folded.  The band survived by writing for a company associated with Johnny Nash, who in the  1970's had a hit with Bob's "Stir It Up".   In this time The Wailers met Lee Perry.  The Wailers along with Lee Perry resulted in tracks like "Soul Rebel", "Duppy Conqueror", "400 Years", and "Small Axe".   In 1970 Aston 'Family Man' Barrett and brother Carlton joined up with The Wailers.   Aston played the bass, and Carlton played the drums.  At this point in time The Wailers were still not internationally known.  In 1972 The Wailers found themselves stranded in Britian, while trying to promote their single "Reggae On Broadway".  So, Bob walked into Island Records and asked to see the founder, Chris Blackwell.  This started the ties in with Island Records.  Before the release of The Wailers album "Catch A Fire" reggae music was primarily sold as singles, and with this release it changed all of this.   This album was one of great packaging and high promotion.  "Catch A Fire" wasn't an immediate hit, however it had an impact on the media.  Island decided that The Wailers should tour Britian and America.  This was something very new for reggae music.   The Wailers went on tour as the support band for various artists.  However after four shows, The Wailers were taken off the bill.  This was because they were too good, and they took away from the main attraction.  So, The Wailers went to San Francisco where they did a live broadcast concert for KSAN, a new rock station.  In 1973 The Wailers released "Burnin'".  In 1974 Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh left The Wailers and embarked on their solo careers.  The band was renamed "Bob Marley and The Wailers".  In February of 1975 "Natty Dread" was released.  This album included songs such as "Talkin' Blues", "No Woman No Cry", "Revolution", and "So Jah Seh".  

"Bob's reedy form was scarcely visible in the dim, bare-bulbed light of Harry J's Recording Studio at 10 Roosevelt Avenue in Kingston. Dressed in a brown cotton shirt, dungarees and expensive calfskin boots, he was standing with his arms akimbo in the middle of the cluttered, high-ceilinged studio. A wispy ribbon of smoke drifted up from a bulbous spliff in his hand, encircling his browed, dreadlocked head as he concentrated. A clock overhead read 10:30 P.M. on a September night in 1975.

The sessions for the Wailers' Rastaman Vibration album had been temporarily set aside to allow for a special, emergency project. Engineer Sylvan Morris, a burly, solemn black, sat hunched over the sixteen-track board on the other side of the soiled glass window that separated the grimy control booth from the studio proper; he sipped from a bottle of Dragon stout and waited for some signal to start the tape. There was no sound, except Sylvan's labored swallowing, followed by a stifled burp.

Perhaps two minutes passed before Bob raised his Medusa's mane. He clamped on a set of headphones, took a cheek-hollowing tug on the spliff and nodded slowly. An instrumental track the Wailers had laid down during the afternoon began to pour from the giant monitors hanging above the mixing board.

There was a lock-step drum pattern, a numbing bass piloting the drums into the one-drop, and muted rhythm guitar. Bob stepped quickly to the boom mike and paralyzed the ten people gathering in the cramped engineer's booth as he began to sing:

Selassie Lives! Jah-Jah lives, childran!

Jah lives! Jah-Jah lives!

Fools sayin' in dere heart,

Rasta yar God is dead

But I an I know ever more

Dreaded shall be dreaded and dread...

The faces of Family Man and Carly were frozen in a wide, beatific smile they shared with the others present: Al Anderson; Lee Perry and his wife; Rita; Marcia Griffths and her friend Judy Mowatt, former lead singer with the Gaylets and the third member of a recently formed trio called the I-Threes--the Wailers' new backup vocal group; and two recent additions to the Wailers, organist Bernard "Touter" Harvey and rhythm guitarist Earl "Chinna" Smith. Nobody moved, their eyes riveted on the skinny man beyond the glass. His narrow teardrop head was thrown back and billowy garlands of thick white smoke were streaming from his flared nostrils as he pledged timeless devotion to Jah Rastafari.

As he sang, the crisp, sparse mesh of music grew louder and louder, spiraling upward, higher and higher in a dizzying cycle of tension-and-release, tension-and-release, until its psychic grip became unbearable. Beads of sweat spread across the wide brow of Family Man's round, bearded face, his massive grin growing manic, almost grotesque.

Without warning, Marley suddenly whirled about and exploded into a raspy, primal exultation that rumbled through the building like a tidal wave. The umber statues on the other side of the glass leapt to life; they began bucking and winging with furious
abandon and then started to mambo back and forth from an anteroom as Marley shifted his coarse tenor into highest gear:

The truth is an offense but not a sin!

Is he laugh last, is he who win!

Is a foolish dog barks at a flying bird!

One sheep must learn to respect the shepherd!

Jah lives! Selassie lives, chill-drannn!

Jah lives! Jah-Jah lives!

Within a week, "Jah Live" was in every record store in Kingston. A fellow from the Daily Gleaner came past Harry J's to ask Marley about the instant single, and Bob gave him a look that nearly stopped the reporter's heart in midbeat.

"Yuh cyan't kill God," he whispered."   (Selection from "Catch A Fire, The Life of Bob Marley"; Timothy White; p. 269-271".

    In April of 1976 "Rastaman Vibration" was the next album which appeared.  This album shows more of the Rasta beliefs of Bob, and included songs with great significance such as "Positive Vibration", "Crazy Baldhead", and "War", a song whose lyrics were taken from a speech given to H.I.M. Haile Selassie.

    With Bob's growing political importance on the island of Jamaica, and his firm beliefs in Rastafarianism, he announced that he would give a free concert, which was to held on December 5, 1976 which would be held at Kingston's National Heroes Park.  However, just after the concert was announced an election was called for on December 20th, by the government.  With this Bob was made a 'target', and on the eve of the concert, gunmen broke into the home of Bob Marley (56 Hope Rd.)  The gunmen did not kill Bob, however injured him.  He retreated to a safe place in the hills, however still performed the concert.  The song "Smile Jamaica" was written by Bob at the request of Prime Minister Michael Manley.  This song most recently in 1988 was the theme song of the Jamaican hurricane relief concert in London.      

This page will be updated with *NEW* information as often as I receive it.

Sources

Most of my information was acquired by the Songs of Freedom box set booklet.
Thanks to Johnny's Library of Bob Marley Lyrics
Also information taken from "Catch A Fire, The Life of Bob Marley"; Timothy White; p. 269-271

Recommended Readings
"Catch A Fire, The Life of Bob Marley", by Timothy White