Bob Marley and the Wailers

The full title of Ritchie Unterberger’s book is ‘Bob Marley and the Wailers. The Ultimate Illustrated History’.

Imagine, for a moment, that you were compiling the ultimate illustrated history of Bob’s life, what photographs would you include? There would doubtless be pictures of Bob’s parents, his birthplace and other places that meant a lot to him, as well as pictures of ‘Bunny’ Livingston, Peter Tosh, Joe Higgs, Desmond Dekker, Rita Anderson, Haile Selassie, Johnny Nash, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Chris Blackwell and all the other people who played an important part in his life, topped off with pictures of the man himself at all stages of his life, both in private and in performance.

This book scores very well on most of these fronts, supplemented by plentiful photographs of records, posters and other memorabilia but is remiss in including no photograph of Marley’s manager Danny Sims. There are also no photographs of Bob in Zimbabwe or playing football. In addition, some photographs could have been better chosen. For example, there is a picture of Bob on stage with Michael Manley and Edward Seaga at the One Love Peace concert in Kingston on 22 April 1978, but it’s not a photograph of the two politicians shaking hands or a more iconic one of Bob hand-in-hand with the two men.

The text, which includes brief album reviews and a selected discography, is generally very good, although here too, in one or two places, there’s scope for improvement. For example, it states that, “If his mixed racial background was … the possible source of some teasing from his peers as he grew up in black Jamaican society, Marley never let it hold him back”, when Kevin Macdonald’s excellent documentary ‘Marley’ (one of the sources used in the text) makes it crystal clear that there’s no question but that this was a source of teasing, or even bullying, of Bob in his youth.

I don’t wish, however, to end on a negative note. If ‘Bob Marley and the Wailers. The Ultimate Illustrated History’ is not pictorially definitive or literally word perfect it is nevertheless a very enjoyable book indeed, which is lavishly illustrated throughout and much better researched and written than most such books. Any Marley fan would be very pleased to have it grace their shelves.

A very informative piece of work, you can really tell that the author did a lot of research into the background and story of the musical group. Indeed it reads like a very unbiased piece and attempts to lay facts as facts without taking sides or sensationalising the legend of Bob Marley.
I feel this book is quite well suited to someone who is familiar with Bob Marley and a fan of his work, but hasn’t done so much reading about him before, as this book gives a nice overview of the Wailers from beginning to end, and the bibliography has a nice selection of further reading material that would go in-depth on people and events that the reader would be more interested in; for instance I really want to read Bob’s “High Times” interview after seeing it mentioned in this book.
People who have read into Bob’s life before might fight this book a little slow paced and not containing much information that they didn’t already know, with the exception of maybe his earlier life and the origin of the reggae music scene. But overall it is a good compilation and the illustrations work well to paint a picture to the story.

If you like Bob Marley you will love this book. The books starts with Bob's birth and goes up past his death in 1981. Death did not slow Bob Marley down in his quest to make Reggae known around the world. His band mates the Wailers are still going strong today and carrying on his legacy.

The books takes you through an illustrated tour of all things Bob Marley. His life, his death, and his music. I was actually fascinated with not only the pictures but also the written parts of this book. I thought I knew a lot about Bob Marley before reading this book to find out I actually knew very little. I knew basic facts before and honestly very few. After reading this book Not only do I know more about Bob Marley but I also understand him more.

I have always enjoyed Bob Marley's music. This book is the perfect edition to the albums I have of Bob's. Great book for any library or music collection.

I received this book from the Author or Publisher via Netgalley.com to read and review.

I was pleasantly surprised because I wasn't expecting to read the most comprehensive work on Reggae's most representative figure.

The Quarto Series of music books are a lot of fun and this one does not disappoint. This book is all about the photographs and it is filled with lots of great ones. The biography and discography are straight foreword with no real surprises. This book will appeal to casual and hardcore fans. Kick back with some good tunes and enjoy the read.

This book is an illustrated history of Bob Marley. There are 6 chapters broken down by years - beginnings, Ska, Reggae, International Breakthrough, 3rd world superstar and final years as well as a chapter on his legacy and discography. The book says that Pop Stars usually fade after 2 generations have passed since the end of their career - but it has been 35 years since Bob Marley has died and he is still as big as ever. There are lot of cool photos throughout the book and photos of his records and notes all all of the lps. A really cool read. I enjoyed it!

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated.

A very informative piece of work, you can really tell that the author did a lot of research into the background and story of the musical group.