Editor’s note: Ziggy Marley won his seventh Grammy Award on Sunday, Feb. 12, for Best Reggae Album, “Ziggy Marley.” Three of the Grammys were for Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers.
There’s a natural mystic blowing through the air.
Bob Marley, who would have celebrated his 72nd birthday today, transcends not just music but life itself. The reggae artist died in 1981 but he continues to be in the hearts, minds and ears of people throughout the world.
Marley is omnipresent on social media invented long after his death. The Bob Marley Facebook Page has more than 70 million friends, his Twitter nearly 1.5 million followers and today YouTube is streaming live an all-day series of events from the Bob Marley Museum in Kingston, Jamaica.
Later this year to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the release of “Exodus,” the album will be re-released along with Ziggy Marley’s own arrangement of the iconic record. Ziggy, the eldest son of Bob and Rita Marley, broke the news about the album during an interview about his new cookbook with Reggae Festival Guide and Tahoe Onstage.
“Right now, I’m working on my father’s album, ‘Exodus,’ ” he said. “I am mixing it over because this is the 40th year of the celebration of the release of the album.”
Bob Marley’s ninth studio album,“Exodus,” was released June 3, 1977. Marley recorded it while he was living in England after he was grazed by a bullet in a December 1976 assassination attempt in Jamaica.
“We’re going to have a re-release of the original version of the album and then we’re going to release my version of it, which I’m mixing right now in the studio,” Ziggy Marley said. “That should be out in June.”
“I’m going do a small tour and I will be promoting that ‘Exodus’ album. I have some ideas about what we will be doing but I think I would probably highlight that album specifically on my next tour.”
On Jan. 1, Ziggy Marley released a single, “I Am A Human.” LINK
“Ziggy Marley and Family Cookbook” has 54 recipes traditional Jamaican food and italfood of Rastafari culture. Ziggy Marley goes in-depth about the cookbook in an article in the upcoming digital edition of the Reggae Festival Guide.
To go to the live stream of “Bob Marley’s 72nd Earthstrong!” in Kingston, click the LINK
Ziggy Marley said he might play this summer at Lake Tahoe, but not necessarily onstage.
“Tahoe?” he said. “Maybe for vacation. I don’t know.”
The news of the re-release of “Exodus” came the same week The Guardian reported that 13 reel-to-reel, analogue master tapes of live performances in London were discovered during a restoration of a dilapidated hotel where Bob Marley and the Wailers stayed during their European tours in the mid-1970s. LINK
-Tim Parsons
