While 50,000 fans couldn't be wrong about Elvis Presley, millions around the globe venerate a man who lifted the world's poor with his music and broke their hearts when he died.
Since his death from a brain tumor at age 36 in May 1981, Marley has experienced the kind of popularity few artists enjoy while alive. And somewhere along the way he transcended mere popularity to near deification.
And it's not exaggeration or hyperbole to say such things about Robert Nesta Marley. Nor is it surprising to see a flurry of Marley-related events this year, including the life-achievement Grammy, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and a PBS documentary.
"No one has reached his standard. We realize now how unique he was," says Roger Steffens, former host of Los Angeles' KCRW/FM's "Reggae Beat" program and owner of a Marley-centered reggae memorabilia exhibit that opened recently at the Queen Mary in Long Beach, Calif. Steffens was also a friend.
"Are you going to have another Elvis? Another John Lennon? Another Bob Dylan? Forget about it. But in some ways, Marley was a more universal artist than they.
"He was simple in his eloquence. Imagine translating `Subterranean Homesick Blues' into Erdu. You can do that with `No Woman, No Cry.' The songs are so simple they're timeless. They relate to human struggle, pain and redemption."
The honors abound: His greatest-hits compilation, "Legend," has become the second-highest-selling catalog album in Billboard chart history at more than 10 million copies and at one point spent 44 weeks at No. 1.

The rest of his albums continue to have solid sales.
Time magazine voted "Exodus" its No. 1 album of the century, and The New York Times placed a 1977 London performance of Marley as the only video in its year 2000 time capsule.
In 3000, it may appear like the Dead Sea scrolls.
"He was the best at what he did and a lot of the fans today never saw him (perform) live," says Eric Kohler, co-editor of the 6-year-old reggae fanzine Reggae Nucleus. "So there's that mystery about him and his music still holds that power."
But despite all his success in life or death, even the biggest fans have to wonder if all the superlatives are accurate and whether relative sainthood is a worthy legacy.
"He wasn't a saint and he would be the first person on Earth to tell you he wasn't a saint," Steffens says. "We know Marley through his work. I never saw anyone work harder or be more disciplined in my life than Marley.
"Yet what we know of the great things about his life are true. He was personally responsible for the direct support of 6,000 people," Steffens says of Marley's long-running habit of helping the poor, many of whom he literally met on the street.
"Can you imagine Elton John, Madonna or Michael Jackson keeping 6,000 people alive?"
During his life, he was a controversial figure in his country, Jamaica.

He was beloved and revered by the country's lower classes, from which he came, and despised by the ruling class for revolutionary sentiment in his songs.
It nearly got him killed in 1978, when an assassin's bullet missed his heart by inches.
"The message of the music was frightening to them. He was referred to as `the wild man' by the press," says Jamaican-born DJ Junior Francis. The impact of Marley's death on his country, which Francis says was "very profound," can only be compared in the United States to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The Parliament sat in recess for 10 days and Marley was given a state funeral.
Steffens says reggae music changed abruptly afterward. But Marley's albums still account for at least 50 percent of all reggae sales worldwide and the Jamaican government now celebrates his birthday, Feb. 6, as a national holiday.
A resurgence in roots reggae, spurred in part by his son Ziggy, has once again boosted the status of Bob Marley, who Kohler says most reggae artists still credit as a major influence.
"He makes you want to dance, smile and fight," Steffens adds. "We need figures like Bob to give us hope for the future."

By SHAWN PRICE - The Orange County Register Date: 04/09/01 22:15