Bob in Hall of Fame in 1994

Flashback: Bob's Rock Hall Induction

Jamaica - Today, for Bob Marley fans all over the world, the number 13 is not one of bad luck but one of celebration. On Jan. 19, 1994, almost 13 years after Marley's untimely death, the reggae music legend was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That well-deserved event occurred exactly 13 years ago today. By Doug Miller / BobMarley.com

Marley, who has been immortalized in the Hall in its permanent museum in Cleveland, Ohio, was honored at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York that night, brightening the traditional locale for the annual induction dinner with his music and his memory.

On the evening of the induction, the ballroom was filled with rock history--stellar talents whose work also warranted a place in the Rock Hall Class of '94, as well as Bob's family and friends who had come to pay tribute.

According to rock historian Warren Zanes, who is also the Hall's Vice President of Education, Marley's place in the Hall has always been celebrated."He has achieved international icon status," Zanes said. "He's sold an unbelievable number of records, he affected the mainstream of rock and roll deeply, and I think one of the biggest contributions that people acknowledge when they come to the Hall is that Marley brought Jamaican music here."

Zanes also pointed out how Marley's courage in speaking out against dissidence in Jamaica set an example for others in his field. "Because of the post-colonial situation in Jamaica, which is, of course, an awful situation with a lot of poverty and racial strife, because that was so much in his music, he showed what music could look like when it was deeply engaged with social and political meaning," he explained.

That concept wasn't lost at Marley's induction, given by a thoughtful and prolific musician and humanitarian in his own right, U2 lead singer Bono.

Speaking before an audience that included Bob's widow, Rita, his sons Ziggy, Ky-mani and Julian, his mother, Cedella Marley Booker, Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, various members of Bob's band, the Wailers, and Judy Mowatt and Marcia Griffith, the women who sang alongside Rita as the I-Threes, Bono was poetic and appropriately mystical and personal.

Highlights included his comparison of his own Irish heritage and the struggles in that country to what Marley meant to Jamaica."I know claiming Bob Marley as Irish might be a little difficult," Bono said. "We are both islands, we are both colonies. We share a fondness for procrastination. Don't put off until tomorrow what you can put off until the next day, unless, of course, it's freedom."

Bono added that Marley "didn't walk down the middle," but "raced to the edges, embracing all extremes and creating a oneness -- his oneness of love."

Bono also recalled a trip that he and his wife, Ali, took to Ethiopia, where "everywhere we went, we saw Bob Marley's face... Royal, wise," Bono said. "Solomon and the Queen of Sheba on every street corner, there he was, dressed to hustle God. ... 'Let my people go,' an ancient plea. ... Prayers catching fire in Mozambique, Nigeria, the Lebanon, Alabama, Detroit, New York, Notting Hill, Belfast ... Dr. King in dreads."

Zanes reflected on the palpable connection between inductee and the inductor."Bono was the perfect person to do it for Bob...Bono wouldn't be Bono as we know it if there hadn't been a Bob Marley before him," he said. "We've seen that it's tough to marry music and the message. Not everybody does it equally well. Sometimes people bring politics to their music and the audience turns it off.But Bob Marley and Bono shared that rare gift to get people even more entrenched in it. And it wasn't because of a moment they were in, it was because of the individuals they were and are."

Rita Marley oversaw the induction's proceedings and confirmed happily that if Bob had been alive to see this historic evening, he would "nod his head in consent."

"I remember when we were back in Trenchtown and we wondered if we would ever be able to get an award, a Grammy," she continued. "We'd laugh and say we were crazy, we'd never get there. But we did."

In addition to Bob, the night was full of reverence for the huge names of rock being inducted with Marley in the first Hall enshrinement ceremony since the groundbreaking of the state-of-the-art Cleveland facility months earlier. They were John Lennon, the Grateful Dead, Elton John, The Band, Rod Stewart, Willie Dixon, the Animals, Duane Eddy and Johnnie Otis.

And it wouldn't be an induction ceremony without some general celebrity star power. Some of the A-listers in the house included Paul McCartney, who inducted Lennon; Yoko and Sean Lennon; Bruce Springsteen; Eric Clapton; Chuck Berry; Axl Rose; Etta James, Mariah Carey and Bruce Hornsby. Robert DeNiro, Martin Scorsese, Whoopi Goldberg, Naomi Campbell, the late John F. Kennedy Jr. and RuPaul also were in attendance.

In yet another Rock Hall tradition, the evening was capped off with an all-star jam session of the music of the inductees, and the 1994 edition featured Dixon's "Wang Dang Doodle," Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven," the Beatles' "Come Together," and The Band doing their classic "The Weight."

But for Marley fans, the high point of the night was the version of Bob's seminal hit "One Love," with Rita, Ziggy, Bono and others trading verses, smiles, the heavy groove and the glorious memories of a legend and Hall of Famer.