Believe it or not, this past Saturday marked Bob Marley's 65th birthday. That's right, arguably the most iconic music figure of the 20th century would've officially reached retirement age on February 6th, something understandably hard to fathom for fans and followers whose images of Marley remain fiercely vivid and youthfully vivacious. There's already been a whole slew of events going on around the world to commemorate the anniversary, and fortunately, the global media isn't short on insightful interview candidates--Bob, after all, was famously virile, and most of his offspring have carried on his reggae torch today. Perhaps no other person, though, knew Marley as intimately as his wife, Rita, and in a revealing interview with Gibson, she described some of the more curious corners of her husband's persona--and the kinds of things that made a musical revolutionary tick.In the interview, which originally took place in 2007 but has only now been published in its entirety, Rita describes the outwardly laid-back Bob as "strict and extremely disciplined," adding that he "didn't joke around" when it came to his music. She's careful to point out, however, that his serious attitude wasn't at all related to an oversized or inflated ego. As she says, "he also never stopped to think, 'Okay, I'm Bob Marley,' where he took himself too seriously. He was Robert--or 'Robbie'--before he was 'Bob.'" Rita also discusses some of the musical influences on the group--The Supremes, Curtis Mayfield, and James Brown, to name a few--and talks at length about Bob's uniquely jovial relationship with Lee "Scratch" Perry, with whom he worked on the famously playful track 'Mr. Brown.'
Ultimately, though, Rita returns to the sanctity with which her husband held music, and the dutiful sobriety with which he composed. She even chillingly hints that part of Bob's dogged determination arose from some sense that his life would be tragically short. As she muses, "He did it with a really serious commitment, as if he knew he wasn't going to be around, physically, for very long. It was as if he knew he needed to get it right, now. He was on a mission."
