Bob Marley Museum

So as you know we went to the Bob Marley Museum yesterday, we decided to walk there and take in some sights on Kingston instead of zooming past them in a taxi. On our way we stopped in at a few car hire places to enquire about renting a car for our trip to Port Royal tomorrow, we were unsuccessfully as they were either too expensive or had no cars! Incidentally since then we have found a place and will be picking to up tomorrow. We also walked past Devon House which I will write about in a separate post.

The outside of Bobs Museum

We arrived and got in the Q to get tickets for the tour, there were only 2 people ahead of us so we ended up in a small group of four. We also bumped into two South African hanging out with the enemy, Australia! We were told we were not allowed to take any photographic or recording equipment inside to to various trademarked and copyrighted items we would see.

The outside of Marley's house and Recording Studio

We started our tour on the outside and were introduced to Bobs old Land Rover that he purchased "out the box" in 1975.

Bob also had a new '75 BMW there were not many in Jamaica at the time and everyone thought BMW stood for Bob Marley and the Wailers!! The first room we visited was around the back of the house and is called the "Shot Room" this is where Bob Marley had an assassination attempt on his life. Gunmen approached the house from the back through the bush (there was no back neighbour in those days) and opened fire with automatic weapons, Bobs manager wash shot several times in the pelvic area, his wife had a bullet graze her head and it was said that it was her dreads that saved her and caused the bullet to miss! Bob was hit in the elbow and went on to play a live show 2 days later with the bullet still in his arm. I'm sure he smoked enough to cloud the pain! The room still has holes in the walls from the bullets.
After the Shot Room we went into what is now the Awards room that is full of Silver, Gold, Platinum and even Diamond selling record awards! The rest of the tour included his bedroom, kitchen, lobby (with framed clothing, concert tickets, back stage passes and awards) a study, a research library (that is open to the public though appointment) and guest rooms which are now wall to wall in newspaper clippings of Bobs life, one article had photos of a concert in Italy during the 80's with over 100 000 people in attendance! We could not go into Bobs old recording studio because it is now a new recording studio used by his three sons and they are the only ones with keys!
After the house we went out back to what they call The Factory, this is where all his records used to be pressed, they did not say but I'm sure this was before he had Platinum selling albums and was only printing a few hundred! The room is now full of photos documenting his life, his original Gibson electric guitar and his old studio Sound Desk. The tour also included a 20min documentary film of is life highlights. All in all it was very interesting and informative, after the tour we walked around and took Pics.

Bob Marley sitting in his favourite part of the garden under a tree.

James sitting in Bob Marley's favourite part of the garden under the tree.

Richard sitting in Bob Marley's favourite part of the garden under the tree!

James and a statue of Bob Marley, the portrat of the three woman is of his back up singers.

Richard and the statue of Bob Marley

James and a Rasta that was painting murals

How flattering!

or not!!!! (Richard insisted I put this one in!)

Street Art and James