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New Book: No Woman No Cry: My Life with Bob Marley by Rita Marley
NEW RELEASE
Published by Hyperion
May 5, 2004
Hardcover; $22.95
ISBN: 0-7868-6867-8
In NO WOMAN NO CRY: My Life with Bob Marley (Hyperion; May 5, 2004; Hardcover; $22.95), Rita Marley presents a no-holds-barred account of life with one of the most famous musicians of all time. Written with Hettie Jones, this memoir is by the woman who knew him best, who was his only wife, and who remained married to him until his death in 1981.
Through reggae, Bob Marley and the Wailers took Jamaica and the world by storm. While Rita displayed an indisputable devotion to her husband and his music, life with Bob was not easy. There were his liaisons with other women – which produced seven children out of wedlock – and many of the affairs were conducted under Rita’s nose. The press also repeatedly reported that Bob was unmarried. “When we got to New York, a new element was added, because it was a record company recommendation that you shouldn’t let your fans know you were married,” Rita writes. “They thought, how could you be a devoted husband and sell records? I didn’t know this until I read, in a newspaper interview: ‘Bob, we hear you’re married—is it true you’re married to Rita?’ And his answer was, ‘Oh, no, she’s my sister!’” Though many, including the aunt who raised her, advised Rita to divorce Bob, she was steadfast in her decision to remain married to him. “Even though I was in so much pain, I said no, he’s still my husband and I don’t want to lose my husband,” Rita writes. “I knew he loved the kids as much as I did, but that he was distracted because of all the pressures, there was just too much mix-up. I felt I had to take the lead, and that we had to try to be friends because we were parents now, we were connected forever, we were family.”
Through it all, Rita kept her dignity intact, and despite her husband’s continued philandering, she maintained a cordial relationship with him and even attended Zimbabwe’s independence celebration in 1980, a high point in Bob’s life before he succumbed to cancer the following year. Rita was at his side. “I was still singing to him at that last moment, a little before noon, as his eyes closed and the doctor said, ‘It’s over,’” Rita writes. “I stopped singing and started screaming, ‘Don’t give it up to the Devil, Bob! Give it up to Jah, don’t give Satan any power to mingle with your spirit! Don’t give up, Bob, don’t stop, go straight to your father in Zion high!’” Rita notes that Bob’s passing was a tremendous blow to her and claims that despite their problems, he was her strength, her man, her first heart. “Even now, if people say to me, ‘When Bob died...’ and I say ‘Bob didn’t die,’ they look at me like ‘What?’” Rita says. “But I have that feeling in me, that he didn’t die. He’s somewhere, I’ll see him sometime.”
In the years that followed her husband’s death, Rita Marley became a force in her own right – the Bob Marley Foundation’s spokesperson, a performer in her own reggae group, the I-Three’s, and manager of her children’s group, the new generation of Marleys called the Melody Makers. Currently, she resides in Ghana, and though she still tours, she doesn’t do it for long periods of time, due to her desire to spend time with her 38 grandchildren. “When I do travel, it’s often with some of the old crew from the days of being on the road with Bob,” Rita says. “It feels good to work with some of the members of the Wailers. I think that’s important, as people say, sometimes it’s best to stick with the evil you know! And as Bob sings, ‘In this great future, we can’t forget the past.’”
Poignant, compelling, and uncommonly candid, NO WOMAN NO CRY illuminates triumph over hardship and heartbreak. Throughout its pages, Rita Marley is transformed from a shy, impoverished girl into a strong, determined woman who pays powerful respect to the life experiences that shaped her.
About the Authors: Rita Marley performs with the reggae group the I-Three’s; manages her children’s group, the Melody Makers, and helps run the Bob Marley Foundation. She performs all over the world and makes her home in Jamaica and Ghana.
Hettie Jones is a poet and prose writer, author of How I Became Hettie Jones, a memoir of the beat scene and her former marriage to LeRoi Jones (now Amiri Baraka), which was a New York Times Notable Book of 1990. She has written numerous books for children and young adults, and has taught writing at NYU, Hunter College, Parsons, the 92nd Street Y, and many other colleges.
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