Cedella Booker

Cedella Marley Booker (July 23, 1926 cite news |first=David W|last=Dunlap|title=Cedella Marley Booker: Keeper of the Marley flame |url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/cedella-marley-booker-keeper-of-the-marley-flame-807775.html|work= The Independent |publisher= |date=2008-04-11 |accessdate=2008-04-10] – April 8 2008) was the Jamaican mother of the reggae musician Bob Marley and a singer and writer.

Booker was born Cedella Malcolm in Rhoden Hall, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica; to Omeriah Malcolm, a prominent magistrate and landowner, and Alberta Whilby. At 18, Malcolm married Norval Sinclair Marley, a white Jamaican of Welsh ancestry, when she became pregnant with his son. Norval Marley was a Marine officer and captain as well as the plantation overseer. He provided little financial support for his wife and child, and seldom saw them as he was often away on trips. Bob was ten years old when Norval died of a heart attack in 1955 at age 60. Cedella and Bob then moved to Kingston, Trenchtown, a slum neighborhood. This was the only place Booker could afford to live at the time, being a young woman moving from the country to the big city on her own.

While living in Trenchtown, Booker gave birth to a daughter, Pearl, with Taddeus Livingston, the father of Bunny Livingston – aka Bunny Wailer – who formed the original Wailers trio with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh in 1963.

Cedella then married Edward Booker, an American civil servant, and resided first in Delaware, where she gave birth to two more sons, Richard and Anthony, with Booker. Anthony was shot dead by a Miami police officer; Richard Booker also survives her. After Edward Booker's death in 1976, Cedella moved to Miami, Florida, where she was present at the deathbed of her famous son who died from cancer at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in 1981. Booker lived in Miami for the remainder of her life.

Called "the keeper of the flame," Booker grew voluminous dreadlocks, adopted Rohan Marley, his son by Janet Hunt, and occasionally performed live with Marley's children, Ky-Mani, Ziggy, Stephen, Damian and Julian Marley. Later, she released the music albums "Awake Zion" and "Smilin' Island of Song." Cedella Booker participated in the festivities in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia commemorating Marley's 60th birthday in 2005. She also wrote two Marley biographies.

Cedella Marley Booker died at the age of 81 in Miami, Florida on April 8, 2008.

The Malcolm house where her parents originally lived was torn down and replaced by the new Bob Marley Foundation building.

Works authored

Booker wrote two books on the subject of her son, Bob Marley.
* "Bob Marley: An Intimate Portrait by His Mother", which was published in 1997 by Penguin Books Ltd (UK), ISBN 978-0140258141
* "Bob Marley, My Son", which was published in 2003 by Taylor Trade Publishing, ISBN 978-0878332984

References

External links

* [http://www.rasta-man-vibration.com/Cedella-Booker.html The story of Cedella Booker and Bob Marley]
* [http://hem.passagen.se/ielbo/wail/wailerft.htm Wailers Discography- Family Tree ]
* [http://www.jahworks.org/music/features/mother_b.htm Cedella Marley Booker at the Reggae Kentucky Splash]
* [http://www.classical-reggae-interviews.org/cb-4.htm Cedella Marley about her son Bob Marley ]