Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley

Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley
by Timothy White

Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley
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Book Summary Information

Author: Timothy White
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-05-02
ISBN: 0805080864
Number of pages: 576
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks

Book Reviews of Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley

Book Review: Definitive, Readable, Utterly Breathtaking
Summary: 5 Stars

The journalistic reviews of the original version of this book -- published in 1983 -- say it better than I can. By paraphrase . . . "The best biography of a rock icon ever written" . . . "transcends the rock bio genre and enters into the world of great literature."

Absolutely true.

The author has produced a volume that recognizes that the best of biographies do not merely recite dates, nor narrate a linear storyline; but develop a panoramic narrative that takes into its scope context, history, and society--of the protagonist, certainly, but of those who came before him. White thus lovingly--and this is a profoundly obvious labour of love--situates Marley's life within the rotating dynamics of colonialism, poverty, rock excess, and sublime spirituality. His eye for details verges on the uncanny on every page: passages describing Marley's childhood read like intimate short stories of the author's developing genius. While White's prose does verge on the purple, the exuberance he feels for his subject overrules what might be considered wordy language. Personally, I didn't mind it -- and his flights into Jamaican patois feel wholly authentic in rhythm and rhyme.

But the inertia of this story is Bob Marley's only journey, globally and internally, to bring a spiritual vision to the world, ensconced in a style of music that is guaranteed to make one feel better. White, from extensive interviews as well as acute investigation, has provided what must be the clearest window we'll ever get into Marley's message and mind.

It's truly an extraordinary achievement. I earnestly think this reads better than the majority of prize-winning novels from the last twenty-five years. This work out-literartures the literary types to the extreme. It's an extreme pity this work is shelved as 'rock journalism' and thus somehow of a lesser calibre than 'novels'. It's not. This is an artistic product of the highest level.

Summary of Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley

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, 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


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

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