Kate Simon: Rebel Music - Bob Marley & Roots Reggae

A review of a gorgeous photo book by Kate Simon. Bob Marley and other superstars of reggae with accompanying oral history.

Rebel Music - Bob Marley & Roots Reggae

Photographs by Kate Simon

Genesis

Originally released in 2004, this reissued collection of photos with commentary is both a gorgeous coffee table book, and a valuable resource. Kate Simon photographed everyone who was anyone throughout the 1970s, rock, punk, reggae, you name it. But there was a special bond between her and Bob Marley. You can feel it in the photos. Many of her works went on to be album covers, or to become the poster prints all over the walls of student flats across generations.

But the book Rebel Music Bob Marley & Roots Reggae is about more than just Marley, it’s about the culture he came from and fed back into; it’s about a whole world of music that sat out on its own until discovery. And then had the most enormous impact on popular music - unrivalled until the mainstream acceptance of hip-hop.

The unique combination of a photo-journalism assignment and oral history gives this book the edge. It is both informative and stunning to look at, and look through. It contains the secrets, the emotional truth, to back up the official histories with their facts and figures and statistics.

Marley’s music, and the reggae that he took from and then took to the world, is rightly celebrated here. And the introduction by Patti Smith and afterword by Keith Richards help to both provide context and show the impetus of the reggae influence. It was everywhere across punk and pop and rock’n’roll.

As Lenny Kravitz says, in a new foreword for this edition, “He is why the world knows more about reggae, Jamaica, and Rastafarianism”. It is, then, very much, the inside look at the “uniquely complex man and brilliant iconic artist, who forever changed the world”.

This book is a constant source of pleasure, from the images to the text and the relationship between them. Make it the Christmas or birthday gift for the music fan in your life.