How to explore Bob Marley’s Jamaica

One good thing about the music, when it hits you, you feel no pain,” sang Bob Marley in “Trenchtown Rock”. At a time when political divides were costing lives in Jamaica’s capital, reggae was salve for the soul.

The unique sound popularised by Bob Marley made the Unesco world heritage list in 2018 and, 75 years after he was born, I had travelled to Jamaica to discover more about the legendary artist. In the intense humidity of a Kingston morning, I was welcomed into Bob’s world in a dusty grid of streets lined with candelabra cacti and colourful murals, where he composed his classics in a government yard.

Now a makeshift museum, the Culture Yard in Trench Town was Bob Marley’s home as a teenager. Standing on the doorstep outside the cramped room where he penned “Three Little Birds”, I peered inside at his single bed, and one of his first guitars. Today a life-size bronze statue of Marley watches over the yard and walls painted with bright murals commemorate his life and lyrics.

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Bob had “made it” by the time he moved up to 56 Hope Road, one of Kingston’s most exclusive addresses, which he bought from his Island Records manager Chris Blackwell. A few eyebrows were raised at a Rastafarian moving into the neighbourhood, but Marley was undeterred. “We bring the Rasta uptown,” he declared. His studio and gardens became a social hub for recording music and playing football.

A key stop on the official Marley Experience trail, the house is preserved as it was the day he died in 1981. Its recording studio and rooms are stuffed with priceless memorabilia including platinum discs, album artwork, his favourite denim jacket and a huge bed embossed with lions from Zion.

Outside the house, I met Marley’s old bandmate Bongo Herman who gave the tour group a quick reggae percussion lesson. He told me Marley was a “quiet family man” who once wrote an apology song for neighbours after the football was kicked over the wall.

It wasn’t the first time Bob crossed social boundaries, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last. Continuing my journey, I stopped in at the Caribbean’s largest recording studio, Tuff Gong, where Marley recorded many of his hits. According to my studio guide Chrissy, Marley was refused entry when he first visited. He had a premonition he would own the studio one day and, sure enough, he did.

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Marley moved the operation down to Tuff Gong from Hope Road to take advantage of its extensive facilities: rehearsal rooms, a huge sound-proofed studio and even its own record-pressing factory. Open for tours, the studio is still in use today, with some of Jamaica’s current reggae stars Koffee and Chronixx recording there regularly. Chrissy introduced me to Cho, who worked on three records with Marley and still lives next door. “Bob was the conductor,” he said. “You have to have someone to balance everyone; someone to mediate the sound.”

A natural limit to the north of Kingston, the hazy Blue Mountains are a temptingly cool retreat from the city heat. After his attempted assassination in 1976 left the still-visible bullet marks in the kitchen of Hope Road, Bob fled to the mountain estate of Strawberry Hill, making it the next natural stop on the Bob Marley trail.

We made a quick detour to the National Stadium where Marley performed the One Love concert and helped broker peace between the political factions in 1978. It was an important moment in Jamaican history, and my guide Cherie told me Trench Town is soon hosting a One Love Jamaica concert to revive the sense of peace and love that Bob promoted back in the 1970s.

Circling the helter-skelter switchbacks of the Blue Mountains past little yellow and blue shacks knitted into the rainforested slopes, we soon reached Strawberry Hill, still owned by Marley’s record manager Chris Blackwell. “He used to spend a lot of time up here,” said general manager Diana Marley, who now runs a hotel on the property and is related to Marley by marriage.

On the lofty green terraces, with glimpses of Kingston, its troubles and the ocean far down below, Marley wrote Natural Mystic during a long sojourn. The classic Caribbean Great House and its tropical manicured grounds now contain guest rooms and a pool, but the grand Gold Room displaying Marley’s gold and platinum discs remains.

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Beyond Strawberry Hill, Chris Blackwell extended his range in Jamaica to buy recording studio and resort Geejam and Ian Fleming’s Goldeneye estate, both in Portland, an area on the north-east coast dubbed ‘the Other Jamaica’.

Jamaica’s shore has been augmented by countless resorts since Marley’s day, but locals say Portland is the island’s last unspoilt parish, offering a glimpse of the authentic Jamaica away from the swanky resorts of Montego Bay and Negril.

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Here at Winnifred Beach, known locally as Rasta Beach, I found a Jamaica I scarcely thought would still exist – the gold, red and green One Love shack sheltering under a huge sea grape tree, hammocks strung between tilting palms and local kids splashing about in the clear shallows. One of the island’s few remaining public beaches, the residents of Fairy Hill fought a four-year legal battle to protect it from private development.

In the vicinity of Port Antonio, we seized the chance to stop at Piggy’s Jerk Centre for marinated and flame-grilled Jerk chicken and festival dumplings, widely purported to be the best on the island.

For my last night immersing in Marley’s Jamaica, I headed up to Skyline Drive and the Sunday Vibing Session at Kingston Dub Club. The now-familiar rhythmic thud of a Jamaican sound system hit me before I was in the gate. But in contrast to the simmering urban Jump-up outside Peter Tosh Museum I had visited on Friday night, the open-air club was rustic with palms, Rasta-coloured lights and a welcoming unpretentious atmosphere.

As I sipped a lemon Red Stripe beer and stared out at Kingston’s twinkling lights, one of Bob’s lesser-known songs “Rainbow Country” came on. Between the long bass vibrations, I heard Marley sing: “Though the road is rocky, it sure feels good to me.” There can be no better route into the roots of this soulful island than retracing his steps.

British Airways flies direct from London Gatwick to Kingston, Jamaica three times per week.

Rooms at Chris Blackwell’s Strawberry Hill Hotel in the Blue Mountains from £259, room-only; strawberryhillhotel.com

The smart four-star R Hotel in Kingston has double or twin rooms from £130, B&B; rhotelja.com

Bob Marley Week runs from 1-6 February 2023 to commemorate the maestro’s birthday, with events planned all over Kingston to celebrate.

Burton Tours offers private tailored day tours to Bob Marley spots in Kingston, the Blue Mountains and beyond from £203. For details go to: facebook.com/burtontoursjamaica.

For more information on visiting Jamaica, go to: visitjamaica.com