Drummer who with the bassist Robbie Shakespeare provided the rhythm section for Peter Tosh, Grace Jones and Black Uhuru
Sly Dunbar, who has died aged 73 after a long illness, was one of the most renowned Jamaican drummers, respected internationally for his precision timing and for the inventiveness with which he approached his instrument.
Crafting non-standard reggae rhythms that drew on funk, soul and disco, Dunbar and his bass-playing partner, Robbie Shakespeare, backed nearly every reggae artist of note and collaborated with an array of admirers, including Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Ian Dury, Joan Armatrading, Madonna, the Fugees and Sinéad O’Connor, though many will remember him best for the outstanding hits that brought Grace Jones to stardom.
Dunbar’s powerfully driving beats resulted from a blur of action across the drum kit, harnessing the controlled chaos that contrasted his easy-going nature; a wiry, muscular man who kept garlic to hand to ward off colds while on tour, he was a counterbalance to the mercurial Shakespeare, the immense catalogue they left including many enduring hits.
Born Lowell Dunbar, he was the youngest of three children whose parents both worked at Kingston’s airport. He spent his formative years on Windward Road in east Kingston, and by the age of seven had relocated to Waterhouse, a former sugarcane estate in western Kingston that had become a low-income housing scheme in the aftermath of Hurricane Charlie in 1951.
