Bob Marley Timeline

• 1945
Nesta Robert Marley is born on February 6th in the small village of Nine Miles in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica to 18-year old Cedella Booker. His father Norval Sinclair Marley, a white Jamaican had married his mother at the beginning of her pregnancy, and left town the next day.
• 1949
Enrolls at the Stepney All Age School in Nine Miles and around this time he begins reading the palms of villagers and telling their fortunes. His father Norval soon returns and takes him to live with the wealthy Marley family in Kingston. After almost a year, Cedella learns that he is not living with his father's family, but with a sickly woman, Mrs. Grey, where he is providing care and assistance for the ailing woman.
Cedella brings her son back home to Stepney and he continues his schooling at the Stepney All Age School where he befriends Neville "Bunny" Livingston, the son of his mother's boyfriend. Soon after he declares he is finished with palm reading and is now singing.
• 1957
He moves to the Trench Town ghetto in Kingston to join his mother who had been working and living there during the week and commuting back to Stepney on weekends. He enrolls at Ebenezer, a private school and maintains his friendship with Bunny Livingston who was now living nearby. Together they make homemade guitars from sticks and cans and practice songs that Cedella teaches them, sometimes writing their own.
• 1959
Leaves school at 14 years old and at the advice of his mother apprentices at a welder's shop. Struggling to survive, like many Trench Town residents, he would often take meals at a "kitchen" where his friend Vincent "Tartar" Ford was selling small local dishes. Marley later credits the lyrics and the subsequent royalties for "No Woman, No Cry" to Vincent, acknowledging that he would have gone hungry many times if not for the aid of his friend.
• 1961
After a painful welding accident where a piece of metal flies into his eye, Marley gives up welding and focuses on music, joining with friends Bunny Livingston, and Peter Tosh (McIntosh). They call themselves "The Teenagers" and Marley is now being called Bob.
• 1962
Records the ska singles "Judge Not (Unless You Judge Yourself)", "Terror", and "One Cup of Coffee" at a small studio under the pseudonym Bobby Martell with producer Leslie Kong on his Beverley label.
• 1963
Daughter Imani Carole is born to Marley and his girlfriend Cheryl Murray on May 22nd.
Forms a group with Bunny Livingston (later known as Bunny Wailer), Peter McIntosh (later known as Peter Tosh), Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso and Cherry Smith calling themselves "The Teenagers" and later changing their name to "The Wailing Rudeboys" then to "The Wailing Wailers" before settling on simply "The Wailers". Their first single "Simmer Down" becomes a #1 hit on Jamaica's JBC Radio chart. The group dress is matching Motown-esque suits and sport close-cropped haircuts.