Bob Marley
How did Bob Marley contributed to the American music?
I was assigned an oral presentation about Bob Marley's accomplishments and musical contribution. I could'nt find an answer to the pioneering issue on his web site. Some people think that I just don't get it, well probably it's because I don't belong to his generation. If anybody can help me with an answer I would appreciate that a lot.
This is really a question for my sister who worked for his(Bob Marley) record label for years, but I lived through the time he broke into American radio so here's my take:
In the 1960's a man named Chris Blackwell began a tiny 'record label' called Island Records in which he signed musical artists like The Dixie Cups who broke into the American music scene with the song "Iko Iko" a reggae-flavored song by female vocalists. Mr. Blackwell specialized in bringing Jamaican music into the larger international music scene. In the late 1960's Desmond Dekker another Island Records' artist had another hit called "The Israelites". There were other artists and songs that were mild hits like "Montego Bay" and "I Can See Clearly Now (The Rain Is Gone)" this last which pretty much became a 'standard' song. (A 'standard' is a song which is recorded frequently by various artists and which makes a regular amount of money-royalites-per year.)
However, reggae music itself did not make any lasting major impact until Bob Marley broke into the "FM Underground" which was really just the FM radio frequency stations that did not play 'popular' or 'mainstream' music--it's the difference between say KROQ or STAR radio and KIIS or another major radio station that plays only major HIT songs.
Bob Marley was accepted at the FM stations and accepted by music fans who back then (when I was young) were NOT as divided musically as they are today. There were not R&B stations, nor oldies stations, nor alternative stations. Basically AM or popular radio played Soul, R&B( Motown), POP, Girl Groups, British Rock (Beatles and Stones and a plethora of British bands part of the "British Invasion". A radio station such as a KHJ-AM (here in Los Angeles) would play all of the above styles of music and artists together as regular programming.
But FM radio was mostly rock in its varied versions: rock, acid rock (drug rock), protest rock (anti-VietNam war rock) etc., and etc. But FM was definitely more experimental in the fact that Bob Marley could be played on FM stations without being a major artist.
Bob's "No Woman, No Cry" was the first song I ever heard by him on FM radio and I immediately loved it. Although he did not take the country by storm, Marley is still respected as a great artist/musician. He did however, open the gates for other reggae artists like Peter Tosh, Black Uhuru, King Sunny Ade, and Bob's band The Wailers (with Bunny Wailer) Inner Circle (you know, the TV show "Cops" theme song: "Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha' gonna do when dey come for you...?" well, that's a reggae song!
Most of the ska music you hear is derivative of reggae music. Bob Marley was the catalyst for all of the reggae influenced bands of today.
You know the caucasian guys who walk around with those funky unbrushed-looking 'braids' or 'dreadlocks' as they are properly called, and wearing the tri-colored red, yellow and green beret' hats? Well that style originated in Jamaica as both a political statement and a religious statement-'Jah Rastafari'. Rastafarian is a religious movement in Jamaica in which God is called "JAH" pronounced just how it sounds. Bob Marley brought dreadlocks, and mesmerizing reggae music to America.
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