Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley - Softcover

White, Timothy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805080864 ISBN 13: 9780805080865

Publisher: Holt Paperbacks, 2006

Synopsis

The classic biography of reggae legend Bob Marley, updated and revised for the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death

Bob Marley left an indelible mark on modern music, both as a reggae pioneer and as an enduring cultural icon. Catch a Fire, now a classic of rock biography, delves into the life of the leader of a musical, spiritual, and political explosion that continues today.

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.

"Probably the finest biography ever written about a popular musician." ―San Francisco Chronicle

"As close as rock journalism comes to transcendent literature."
―Playboy

"White has a deep appreciation for reggae's immediacy, hypnotic power, and contradictions . . . An exhaustively researched labor of love." ―Chicago Sun-Times

About this title

Review:

Bob Marley, reggae superstar and pop culture icon, left an indelible mark on modern music. Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley delves deep into the life of the lionized leader of a musical, spiritual, and political explosion that still reverberates more than a decade after his death. Almost nothing pertaining to the life of Bob Marley is left out; the origins of Rastafarianism (the Ethiopian religion that was the keystone of his life), the roots of the reggae sound, the Jamaican political and social debacle that informed his lyrics--this is a comprehensive account of the life of the artist and the times that produced him.

Catch a Fire is assiduously researched; the details writer Timothy White presents of the King of Reggae's life are cinematic in scope and, at times, cumbersome. White includes much of his primary source material, ranging from full interviews with band members to unearthed CIA documents, and devotes a whole section to describing his exhaustive research process. The final product is rich with elements of spiritual tome, rock biography, and history text; it is a hagiographic epic--the story of a man and his legend. --Brendan J. LaSalle

About the Author:

One of the most prominent music journalists of the twentieth century, Timothy White wrote extensively on Marley, reggae, and Caribbean music and culture for Rolling Stone, The New York Times, and other leading publications. His close contact with Marley and his family and inner circle of friends led to White being granted access to private papers, photographs, and memorabilia. White died in 2002.

About this edition

• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0805080864
• ISBN 13: 9780805080865
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 576