We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sharon Marley. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sharon below.

Sharon, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

I have been fortunate enough to always have/do what I love as a job. My first job was as a secretary at an Adult Education school. It involved a lot of filing and scheduling, and it prepared me for all the other jobs and projects that were to come my way. These included recording and touring with my group Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers, operating my own school/training institution (Total Care Learning Center TCLC), studied and adopted a new teaching method (Montessori), operated my brothers’ first Record Label (Ghetto Youth United), operated The Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers fan club, producing and editing music videos for various artistes. I am also a director at The Rita Marley Foundation (RMF) which took me to Ghana West Africa where we made a proper road to get into the village of Konkonuru, brought in electricity and water, started a farm, a clinic for Elders and built and modeled a school for children 3 – 6 years old.
Through the RMF, my school TCLC and with the approval of the Government, I introduced The Montessori Method, trained teachers and modeled and furnished several Kindergarten schools throughout Jamaica. They then went on to adjust their early childhood curriculum to make it more child friendly. This has all been over a 30-year span.
With all this under my belt, my most meaningful job/project was working as the Curator at The Bob Marley Museum 1986 -1998. This was very fulfilling because it took me on an odyssey, a myriad of emotions, a true journey of learning and growing. It was soon after Bob passed away. We had just signed our first International record deal and were busy in the studio and touring. By this time. I was married and very pregnant with my second born so I stayed at home while the group went on tour. This is when Mom approached me and said I need you to manage the Museum, I was 22 years old and Mom was going all out to create this grand venture which I think was her way of grieving. I couldn’t say no because we all were still grieving. Mom knows I had completed my studies in Business Administration, that was it, that’s all she needed, so I had to learn on the job about who/what is a Curator. It was right up my street, I expanded my knowledge, my appreciation for art, for archiving, for literature, for music, for public speaking, for hosting. My confidence was tested while hosting International Dignitaries, participating in social welfare, my historical and general knowledge had expanded and so much more. The hardest part for me was maintaining my composure when sharing my intimate memories of Bob with the tour guides who would conduct the tours. Walking through the Museum on a daily to make sure everything was in place, his bedroom, his clothes, his utensils in the kitchen, his music over the speakers, seeing the holes in the wall made by the bullets in the room where he was shot, the melancholy was real, and it strengthened my bond with my mother and my siblings. We all shared this feeling, the devasting loss, the determination to carry on his work, we all missed him and it was my job to maintain and share his memory with hundreds of people every day. What an honor.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was not only born in Trench Town, the Jamaican Mecca for creatives, but I was also born in a musical family. My grandfather Leroy Anderson, affectionately called Papa Roy, was a renowned saxophonist across the island and abroad. He who would later play the solo on our first song “Children Playing in the Street” which was written by Bob. My mom, Rita was his first daughter, he named her Alpharita Constantia as a tribute to her Cuban roots. He played with the older generation like The Skatalites and Roland Alphonso. My grand aunt Viola Anderson (Aunty), was Papa Roy’s sister, she sang ‘alto’, his brother Cleveland sang baritone, they would always be requested to sing at functions.
My mother, Rita, won her first award at a singing competition when she was only 10 years old. She was so small she had to stand on a box to reach tie microphone. She sang “The Lord’s Prayer”, which aunty taught her. Music was always played in our little wooden house at 18a Greenwich Park Rd. in Trench Town. I especially remember Saturdays was cleaning day and I would go about my chores listening to Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Stevie Wonder, Patti Labelle, Diana Ross and the Supremes. By this time my parents were busy making music, I couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 years old. My mother had a singing group called the Soulettes, they were quite popular and have several songs you can still find on Youtube. Aunty would make their outfits and my sister Cedella and I would use the left over material to wrap around our bodies and sing in the mirror. Our favorite song to sing was their remake of Frederick Knight’s “I’ve Been Lonely for so Long” .
I didn’t know my parents were real working singers until I was about 11. I knew they always went away for a long stretch of time and would send us letters in the mail and when they returned, we would rummage through mom’s suitcases for toys. We still lived a very humble life in Trench Town and Aunty would take care of us when our parents travelled. It wasn’t until we moved to Bull Bay that we really started to get into music. We started doing piano classes, voice lessons and dance classes. We also spent a lot of time at 56 Hope Rd. where Bob was always rehearsing with his band The Wailers and playing football. After the assassination attempt on my parents’ life, our lifestyle changed. We weren’t allowed to have friends or go to parties for our safety, I think we took to music as a form of entertaining ourselves. To date we have earned 3 grammy awards as a group and my brothers Ziggy and Steve have each earned several grammy awards on their own. I have sung background vocals with Lauryn Hill, Ben Harper, Queen Latifah and Rita Marley to name a few.
I think that what sets me apart is that I have a special sound or so I have been told. I have not sung professionally for over 20 yrs until 4 years I did a remake of my mother’s song “Just One More Morning” to celebrate her birthday and pretty much haven’t left the studio since. I really love to sing, I prefer to reserve my sound for working with my family because our sound is so unique, we were known as the Jamaican Jackson 5 and we weren’t afraid to bring the crossover sound to reggae music. A lot of people accused us of selling out reggae, we were young, free, energetic and inspirational. We naturally expanded our sound and style of Reggae and the world loved it. A lot of Bob Marley fans became our fans and we still have our own die-hard fans who every day ask for a Melody Makers reunion. I’m super proud of the work we did as a group and the work we continue to do individually.
Over the past 4 years I’ve started to work on my first solo album. I have been releasing my music on my Gong Gyal Entertainment label. The first record was STEPPAH with me and Big Youth. and most recently my new single FIREBIRD. Make sure to check out my videos on you tube including “Butterly In The Sky” all produced by my firstborn Donisha Prendergast. For me the Gong Gyal brand is a female version of Tuff Gong, A strong, determined, confident, talented, fearless, independent woman who strives to build and uplift her community while maintaining her core values. I’ve been putting on a few events under the Gong Gyal Entertainment banner to raise funds and bring focus to several areas including Early childhood Education, Mental Health, Autism, Young Mothers and The Rita Marley Girls Center.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My mother is a strong driving force in my life. Cementing her Legacy is my life’s mission right now. My vision is to create The Rita Marley Girls Center in Trench Town where my mother grew up, to cement her footprints. A training center for young women with my mother as the role model. Young black girls in Trench Town are often discouraged and led to live a life of poverty for varying reasons. I would like this center to help these young women turn their lives around
by offering training in subject areas that they can end up operating as businesses and give back to their community. We announced it last year for her 78th birthday. I see it as a major tribute with a 3yr projection plan. We have started fundraisers, the first was a photo exhibit of original photographs of my mother and her parents, brothers and sisters titled “The Garden that Rita Grew”. This exhibit also came with me on my recent performance on the Maxwell Hang Suite Cruise and it will be installed in the Miami Dade public library in July. You can learn more about this project on the Rita Marley Foundation website. Come and support whatever way you can, support doesn’t always have to be monetarily.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

After 30 years of living in a tour bus, performing 5 /6 times per week, different hotel every day. This is what it takes to have a success ful music career. I needed to drop anchor. It was really hard on my family. Me and my children basically grew up on stage lol, Our parents lifestyle called for hard work and they would always tell us they would prefer to be farmers so we grew up loving music naturally but went to school to learn options. There always has to be an option.
I naturally love children, they gravitate to me so in my studies I did child psychology and early childhood management, nutrition, even thought about midwifery, yoga and veterinary. These were some of my other interests , so the pivot had to be geared to one of these. I think my deep dive into Child Psychology brough me to the Montessori Method and so this would become my second career. While in the back of the tour bus, driving miles a day, I got my Montessori Teacher certification. I opened my school in 1994 to train nannies and provide nanny service across the island and internationally. Added an early childcare setting and introduced the Montessori Method as the second Montessori setting in Jamaica certified to do so.
From here I myself adopted the method in my home in various areas. Curently I do lectures, teacher training, observations and recommendations and class room design for the Montessori Method at schools in my area. So over the past 10=20 years I have done a lot of Speaking, still using my voice differently. Now Im back singing, making an album and thinking about writing a book.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sharonmarley.com
• Instagram: iamsharonmarley
• Facebook: iamsharonmarley
• Youtube: sharon marley
• Soundcloud: sharon matley
• Other: threads
  Iamsharonmarley

Image Credits

Images sent

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