Bob Marley: The Untold Story

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I think that Marlon James has set the bar for post-modern fiction in this second decade of the 21st century, that his Man Booker Prize of 2015 was more than warranted, and that he is of supreme talent as a writer and impersonator in his writing. He alludes in his afterword that he had enough material for a second book. I will be the first in line for that one. In December 1963 the Wailers entered Coxsone Dodd’s Studio One facilities to cut “Simmer Down,” a song by Marley that he had used to win a talent contest in Kingston. Unlike the playful mento music that drifted from the porches of local tourist hotels or the pop and rhythm and blues filtering into Jamaica from American radio stations, “Simmer Down” was an urgent anthem from the shantytown precincts of the Kingston underclass. A huge overnight smash, it played an important role in recasting the agenda for stardom in Jamaican music circles. No longer did one have to parrot the stylings of overseas entertainers; it was possible to write raw, uncompromising songs for and about the disenfranchised people of the West Indian slums.

The names of all the characters are listed in the front of the book...(extremely useful for me). After listening to the audio first.....(I got the physical book to help me with the follow along with the audiobook. ( not the other way around). There are lots of point of view narrators, too many to list. Each chapter is told from the point of view of a different character. However, some of the main point-of-view characters include the young Jamaican woman mentioned earlier, Nina Burgess; an American journalist, Alex Pierce; gang dons Papa-Lo and Josey Wales (named after a character in an American Western movie) ; Barry DiFlorio, the CIA station chief in Jamaica; Weeper, a gang enforcer who works for Josey Wales; Doctor Love, a Latino explosives expert trained at the infamous School of the Americas; Bam-Bam, an adolescent gang member; Tristan Phillips, a Jamaican inmate at Rikers Island in New York; and John-John K, a young American hit man. The classic biography of reggae legend Bob Marley, updated and revised for the twenty-fifth anniversary of his deathThis was a book for which the full cast audio definitely leant color to the experience and brought it to life. The cast was, for the most part, terrific, except for Chapter Ten in the last section, "Sound Boy Killing", in which Josey Wales' Jamaican accent didn't sound right. This Man Booker Prize, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Minnesota Book Award and OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature winner 2015 had such an impact on me, that a few hours before writing this review I'd returned from an impromptu drink with a Jamaican born friend so he could explain to me the path of Jamaica from World War II to the 1980s to help me better frame the book against real history. This is a book I already want to read again with my new knowledge, indeed the only criticism I can have of this book, is I feel, to truly enjoy and appreciate this work one really should brush up / learn about Twentieth century Jamaican history. Gwaaarn! 9.5 out of 12. The sprawling story has several timelines and locations, and a large and varying cast of characters. There's even a ghost, Sir Arthur George Jennings, a fictitious murdered white Jamaican politician, who reappears at various points in the story. This extensive biography therefore gives us not only the interesting details of Marley's childhood, upbringing, rise in the Jamaican music underground, and eventual international success, it also gives us a thorough depiction of the history of the Jamaican island and its politics, the spirituality and politics of Haile Selassie, the particulars of rastafarian practices, a full accounting of Marley's parents and their families, and a down-and-dirty play-by-play of the legal and familial ripples that carried Marley's legacy into the future after his death. ❤️

Patois dialect is fabulous. I don't think I could have read this 'without' the audiobook's help. Following everything along with only the physical book would have made the experience harder - and more dry. I was very disappointed with this book. After reading it, I have a pretty good idea of what Marley's childhood was like, a hazy picture of his adult life but no understanding at all of how a poor man from a third-world country was able to popularize a genre of music that was almost universally disdained in most of the world.I really liked this book because it went into great detail about Bob Marley's life. I learned a lot about Bob Marley that I had not known before I read this book. I enjoyed reading about how he became successful by making reggae music become popular throughout the world. I liked the fact that Bob Marley was dedicated to his beliefs and his faith. He expressed these things in his music, and he wanted people to understand the deep message built into his lyrics. Under the supervision of the author's widow and with the collaboration of a Marley expert, this fourth edition contains a wealth of new material on the Jamaican singer, songwriter and musician , including many revisions made by the author before his untimely death. An appendix to the new edition chronicles Marley's legacy in recent years, as well as the ongoing controversy over the possibility that Marley's remains might be exhumed from Nine Mile, Jamaica, and reburied in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where hundreds of Rastafarians live. The new edition also contains an expanded discography and is factually updated throughout. Wait Johnny," you are no doubt saying to yourself at this point, "you said that you are taking one star away from your review, yet I count five stars still in appearance. What is up with that?"