History Music / BobMarley

* TheSvengali: Those around Bob often felt that Chris Blackwell was this. In particular, they cite the splitting of the original group, the occasional ExecutiveMeddling in production and tracklistings, and the posthumous release of the effectively BleachedUnderpants release ''Legend''. To his credit, Blackwell has said that nothing happened without Bob's approval and that what made business sense in TheSeventies wouldn't necessarily do so nowadays.

* BleachedUnderpants:
** The Legend compilation was compiled with this in mind. It primarily consists of Bob's love songs, with only a handful of his political songs (most notably, "Get Up Stand Up", "I Shot The Sheriff" and "Redemption Song"). It has nothing at all from his two most political albums "Rastaman Vibration" and "Survival", and it includes the Catch A Fire version of "Stir It Up" which wasn't a single (rather than the actual single from that album, "Concrete Jungle") as well as "One Love (People Get Ready)" which wasn't a single in his lifetime. The compilation is heavy on his most popular album Exodus as well (including 5 of its tracks). The tracklisting was selected via a survey by the Island label, in order to present Bob to an international audience that was alienated by his political and Rastafari-oriented lyrics. It worked a bit too well; Bob is seen by many as a smiling Caribbean ganja-smoker and represented by its lead single "One Love", as opposed to the anti-establishment revolutionary he was. Despite this, the compilation remains very popular both for people getting into his music and casual listeners who just want one Bob release. A politically-themed sequel compilation, "Rebel Music", was released a couple of years after to offset the criticism, although it was never as popular.
** There's a lot of evidence in books that Bob could be quite standoffish to people, jealous and violent, particularly around women, with his widow Rita Marley and ex-bandmate Beverley Kelso having numerous stories like this in books. Some male musicians, particularly those who worked with him in Sweden in 1971, also noted these tendencies, claiming he had a permanent 'screw' (frown), hated being stereotyped, and primarily putting them down to culture shock and unease when not around Rasta culture. To some extent though, this was Jamaican ghetto culture at the time, which was suspicious of everyone.

[[quoteright:297:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Bob-Marley20_8326.jpg]]
[-[[caption-width-right:297:WANTED: The man who shot the sheriff.[[note]]He didn't shoot the deputy, though.[[/note]]]]-]

* MurphysBullet: "Johnny Was" (ft. The Wailer) is about a boy shot down by a stray bullet. Covered by Music/StiffLittleFingers, with some lyrical changes to link the death of this Johnny to UsefulNotes/TheTroubles.

* Retraux: "Slogans" was recorded by Bob as a very sparse vocal, guitar and drumbox demo, but for the Africa Unite compilation it was pulled out of the vaults and overdubbed with a full band and the I-Threes, with Eric Clapton providing a guitar solo. Whilst overdubbed remixes had been attempted before, "Iron Lion Zion" and "I Know A Place", this version was deliberated designed to sound like it could have been released during his lifetime (and indeed, it was a song that Bob mentioned to interviewers in his last few months). "Slogans" was well received by fans and released as a single.

* ''Music/{{Legend}}'' [[/index]](1984, [[GreatestHitsAlbum compilation album]])

* ''Music/{{Legend}}'' (1984, [[GreatestHitsAlbum compilation album]])

* DisappearedDad: His father Captain Marley was a serial womaniser and married his mother Cedella Booker with no intention of staying together, having affairs both before and after he was born. His family, who were white Jamaicans, were notoriously racist, and felt having a child with a lower class black woman brought shame on the family, particularly as Cedella was only 16 at the time (In contrast, Captain was 50). However, they did actually maintain contact until his death, growing estranged due to Captain's attempts to cut Cedella out of Bob's life by sending him away to boarding school and having a relative raise him.

* WelcomeToTheCaribbeanMon: As the face of Reggae music, he's pretty much a default ambassador for the whole area.

* HulaAndLuaus: In the video for "Three Little Birds," for no clear reason, probably because he had nothing to do with the song's release as a single.

* PacifismBackfire: Bob, along with Michael Manley (Jamaica's Prime Minister at the time), helped organise a festival called "Smile Jamaica" in 1976, for which there was a single of the same name. Whilst from all accounts this was just an attempt to raise some good money and help tourism, some Jamaicans who disliked Manley put two and two together and misinterpreted the message of the song as telling them to smile because they couldn't change the political system. Unfortunately, this led to an attempted assassination on Marley and anyone else at his house at the time. To his credit, Bob still played the festival, though left the country shortly after. Many fans can't hear the song "Smile Jamaica" without thinking of the assassination attempt, and how close this song came to being Bob's last (the complete opposite of the positive message intended).

* IJustWantToBeFree: A major theme in his entire work.

* RefrainFromAssuming: "Three Little Birds" is often called "Don't Worry About A Thing" or "Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be Alright". The song's lyrics overall are about the optimistic [[AnAesop Aesop]] being sung by the titular birds in their melodies, but the birds themselves are only mentioned twice, while their message sticks more in the minds of listeners.

* CutAndPasteTranslation: UK label Trojan did not issue "Soul Revolution Part II" at the time of release, though after Bob hit it big, put out a compilation called "African Herbsman", which removed "Memphis" yet added "Lively Up Yourself", "Small Axe", "Trenchtown Rock", "All In One" and "400 Years". They followed it up with a similarly modified reissue of Soul Rebels called Rasta Revolution, which had "My Sympathy" removed and "Mr Brown" and the single version of "Duppy Conqueror" added with "Soul Almighty" moved to the end for timing reasons. There are a fair amount of UK fans who prefer these versions to the original Jamaican tracklists, although Bob did not endorse them as Trojan put them out without consulting him.

** "Punky Reggae Party" name-checks Music/TheDamned, Music/TheJam, Music/TheClash, Toots And The Maytals and Dr. Feelgood. Bob wrote it after realizing that punk and reggae share the same goal - speaking out against injustice.

* ''Music/{{Exodus|Album}}'' (1977)
* ''[[Music/KayaBobMarleyAlbum Kaya]]'' (1978)