Vincent Ford(1940-2008)

Vincent "Tata" Ford grew up in the tough Trenchtown ghetto of Kingston, Jamaica where a near neighbor was Bob Marley, five years his junior. The two became friends, and it was Ford who mentored the young Marley and kept him from getting into serious trouble. It was in Ford's apartment that the song "No Woman, No Cry" (1974) was written. Although Ford always contended that he wrote the lyrics and Marley the music (and Ford collected the royalties up until his death), others feel that Marley had written both the lyrics and the music and gave Ford partial credit in order to help finance a soup kitchen for the poor that Ford operated, as well as supplying Ford with needed income. As a long sufferer from hypertension and diabetes, in later years Ford had both his legs amputated and he spent his last years wheelchair bound. He left a wife and two children.