Reggae legend Sly Dunbar dead at 73
Iconic reggae drummer and producer Sly Dunbar, who played a pivotal role in shaping the genre, has died aged 73.
The news was confirmed on January 26th, after Dunbar’s wife Thelma told the Jamaican newspaper The Gleaner that she had found him unresponsive in bed that morning. These reports were subsequently corroborated by his agent and publicist, according to BBC News.
“I went to wake him up and he wasn’t responding, I called the doctor and that was the news,” Thelma said, adding, “Yesterday was a good day for him.” Although a specific cause of death has not been revealed, it has been reported that Dunbar was suffering from illness for a long time.
Dunbar was known as one of the most celebrated drummers within the reggae canon, having played with any number of music legends from Bob Marley to The Rolling Stones.
However, he reached the highest level of acclaim within the duo Sly and Robbie, who as a production team branched across the sonic sphere and worked with a variety of reggae and non-reggae acts on their biggest hits, from Grace Jones to Bob Dylan.
With his counterpart Robbie Shakespeare by his side, the pair towered to prolific heights within the reggae scene, both helping to harness a new generation of talent in the ranks of the genre from the 1970s onwards, as well as helping to modernise it as time went on.
This was a major part of the reason why Sly and Robbie were able to reach the mainstream heart of the industry, after their work with Jones in 1981 on her album Nightclubbing helped them expand their roster of artists and the visions of reggae, which incorporated a more electronic edge under their guidance.
It gained the pair a total of 13 Grammy nominations, as well as two wins overall in the course of the decades they worked together.
At one time, Shakespeare, who passed away in 2021, estimated that the pair had had a hand in more than 200,000 recordings over the span of their careers, helping to hone the crafts of artists from Shaggy to Sinéad O’Connor either as producers or session musicians.
Among those paying tribute was UB40’s Ali Campbell, who said: “Words cannot describe how heartbroken I am to hear of the passing of my friend and legend.”
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