Cedella Booker
| Cedella Marley Booker | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Sidilla Editha Malcolm |
| Born |
July 23, 1926 Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica |
| Died | April 8, 2008 (aged 81) Miami, Florida, United States |
| Genres | Reggae, ska, soul, gospel |
| Occupation(s) | Singerson–gwriter, author |
| Instruments | Vocals |
| Associated acts | Bob Marley |
Sidilla Editha "Cedella" Booker (née Malcolm and previously Marley) (July 23, 1926 – April 8, 2008) was the mother of Jamaican reggae musician Bob Marley and a singer and writer.
Booker was born Sidilla Editha Malcolm in Rhoden Hall, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica, daughter of Albertha Whilby and Omeriah Malcolm, a farmer, a "bush doctor", and one of the most respected residents of Nine Mile. Her paternal grandfather was Robert "Uncle Day" Malcolm, who descended from the Coromantee (or Akan) slaves shipped to Jamaica from the African Gold Coast, today known as Ghana, in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. At 18, Cedella Malcolm married Norval Sinclair Marley, a white Jamaican of English and rumored Syrian Jewish descent, whose father's family came from England; the family of his mother, Ellen Marley (née Broomfield), came from the Levant. She became pregnant with his son, Robert Nesta (whose second given name "Nesta" means "wise messenger"). Norval Marley was an officer as well as the plantation overseer. His family applied constant pressure however, and although he provided financial support for them, the Captain seldom saw his wife and son. Bob was ten years old when Norval died of a heart attack in 1955 at age 70. Cedella and Bob then moved to Trenchtown, a slum neighborhood in Kingston. 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, Claudette 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.
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