an appreciation by John Brice

Sly Dunbar’s music career is an astonishing journey through many classic records with his rhythms changing the very sound and shape of music. John Brice worked with the legend and wrote this appreciation for him after his passing this week.

No musicologist, archivist or connoisseur in the world will ever be able to fully archive or list every record Sly Dunbar played drums on. Even Sly, a music obsessive himself with an incredible memory, couldn’t have done it.

There were simply too many.

Sly was born in Kingston, Jamaica in May 1952. As a young boy he listened to soul and Motown records on the radio and played along tapping on boxes and cans.
He was just fifteen when he played drums on the Dave & Ansell Collins UK no.1 hit Double Barrel. The when he joined ranks with bassist Robbie Shakespeare they went on to play with.. just to name a few.. Peter Tosh, Black Uhuru, Lee Perry, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Grace Jones, Herbie Hancock, No Doubt, and Serge Gainsbourg..

As regards the latter, the story goes that when Serge arrived in Jamaica with his producer/arranger Philippe Lerichomme, Sly and Robbie thought Philippe was the artist and Gainsbourg was the manager, as he was wearing a suit.

There was some friction at first due to language barriers but on realising this was the man responsible, ‘Je T’Aime.. Moi Non Plus’ the mood changed. The album sold 600,000 in France alone.

Sly & Robbie’s contribution to music is almost unfathomable. It’s estimated they played on over 200,000 tracks. Robbie always insisted it was probably double that if you include tracks they produced.

If you consider the sheer numbers plus the diversity of genres and sixty years worth of output, you could safely say everybody has a Sly & Robbie record in their collection. They probably just don’t know it.

In 1996, I started working at East West Records in A&R. After a few weeks, I was called in to the head’s office and given a mission.

Simply Red were signed there and flying high with their recent no.1 record ‘Fairground’

Mick Hucknall had been to Jamaica and recorded a version of Gregory Isaacs’ classic Night Nurse with Sly & Robbie. I was to go to Jamaica, spend a few days with them, bring back the 2’’ master tape, get some mixes done and make sure it was a hit. That was how it worked then.  Now of course master files are sent with a click and arrive in less than a second. But where’s the joy in that? Joy is spending five days hanging out in Jamaica with the greatest rhythm section in the world and watching them at work.

I went to Bob Marley’s grave and met Bunny Wailer and his wife on the way there; they just happened to be standing at the side of the road at a coconut stall.

I spent another day with Congo Ashanti Roy from the legendary vocal trio The Congos sitting by the river, eating fried fish and drinking cold beers.

Everywhere I went, music filled the air and a lovely friendship was built with Sly and Robbie. I spent a week with them when they came over to London to do Top of the Pops.
My girlfriend at the time was Sinéad O’Connor, so I took them to her house in Westbourne Grove for tea. They ended up later making an album and doing a tour with her.

The last time I saw them was 2019, when they were over here doing a string of shows at Ronnie Scott’s with Norwegian jazz trumpet player Nils Petter.
They did two shows a night over three nights, and I went to all of them.
Although the set list was the same for each show, every time it was delightfully different.
Sly would just suddenly stop, grinning over at Robbie to his right.
Robbie, unfazed, would break out a smile himself and just keep doing his thing.
That was how they communicated, even joked with each other, through the music.

One night at dinner, I remember saying to Sly ‘I never asked you what it was like working with Bob Dylan, how was it?’  He said he was nervous… it was BOB DYLAN… but he was soon put at ease, Bob apparently dug their playing on Grace Jones’ Nightclubbing album, as did producer Mark Knopfler, and they were just asked to do their thing.The album was Infidels, from 1983. Listen to their hypnotic pulsating playing on Jokerman, Sly’s snare just behind the beat.

The Ronnie Scott’s shows were 2019, Robbie died in 2021 and yesterday Sly joined him. He’d been working on some bass rhythms of Robbie’s.  I like to think they’re rounding it off now and adding it to their unsurpassed catalogue.

The first photo is of the author on the steps of Robbie’s house in Jamaica in 1996

The second is at the Night Nurse video shoot in King’s Cross in 1997