10 of Sly Dunbar’s greatest songs – from reggae classics to Grace Jones and Bob Dylan | Reggae

Dave and Ansel Collins – Double Barrel (1970)

It’s not Sly Dunbar’s most exciting performance as a drummer – although his playing is right in the pocket: hear the lightness of his touch on the cymbals and the tightness of his occasional strums – but as the recording begins, the encore of the early 70s reggae classic Teen, a song that went to number one in the UK and sold 300,000 copies despite the BBC not wanting to play it, is quite the best. A great way to open your account.

The Great Diamond – Good Time (1976)

The Mighty Diamonds’ debut album Right Time effectively made Sly and Robbie’s name, helping to popularize the new “rock” beat in reggae. It’s all great, but if you want to see how much Dunbar’s playing impacts the sound, head straight to the title track. The beat he plays is complex, a world away from the “one drop” beat that dominated reggae: so complex, in fact, that Dunbar claimed that other drummers initially refused to believe he actually played it, assuming some kind of studio trickery. He added: “Then everyone started trying this method, and it quickly became established.”

Junior Morphin – Cops and Robbers (1976)

Sly’s voice without Robbie – the bass here is played by veteran reggae artist Boris Gardiner, unfortunately best known in the UK for his somewhat hackneyed 1986 No. 1 hit I Wanna Wake Up With You. With surprisingly tight fills, Dunbar’s drumming provides a solid foundation beneath Morphine’s eerie, subtle vocals and a backing track that seems to shimmer with echo. Dunbar also said he played drums on Bob Marley’s “Punky Reggae Party,” a song inspired by the Clash’s cover of Police and Thieves.

Culture – Clash of the Sevens (1977)

Sly played drums on Culture’s Two Sevens Clash, undoubtedly one of the greatest roots reggae albums of all time. It’s filled with amazing songs – I’m Alone in the Wilderness, Black Starliner Must Come, Calling Rasta Far I – but greatest of all is the title track, which foretells an apocalyptic event on July 7, 1977 “when the injustices of the past will be avenged” according to the sleeve notes, and is sung with complete belief that the world was about to turn. It wasn’t, but the sheer force of the culture’s creed—its beautiful harmonies interrupted by singer Joseph Hill’s shouts and taunts—can still hold you back.

Grace Jones – Pull Up the Bumper (1981)

You can honestly take your pick of any of the songs Sly and Robie recorded with Grace Jones as part of the Compass Point Studios house band – from their surprisingly funky reinvention of Normal’s Warm Leatherette to the wonderfully powerful Nipple to the Bottle – but let’s pick the most popular. The genius of Pull Up to the Bumper’s music is the way it exists in a space bordered by dub, disco, electropop and post-punk, but that’s ultimately entirely its own: it doesn’t sound like anything else. Sly’s drumming is also superb, from the bursts of military trap that open the track to the absurdly dank groove it conjures, which marries a hint of reggae with a constant dancefloor pulse.

Bob Dylan – Jokerman (1983)

As emcees, Sly and Robbie are incredibly adaptable, so their musical discography is nothing if not eclectic – accommodating everyone from Bunny Wailer to Britney Spears. But despite this, there is something quite unexpected about their time as Bob Dylan’s rhythm section (apparently, they were recruited at Dylan’s own suggestion). On the opening track of 1983’s Infidels, they gently combined biblical imagery with Jamaican soul: it’s so beautifully done, with a light touch, that it sounds organic and natural, unlike the clumsy bursts of reggae made by so many 70s and 80s rockers.

Gwen Guthrie – The Lock (1985)

Sly and Robbie produced Gwen Guthrie’s early albums – and Dunbar programmed the drums on Guthrie’s hit, Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ on But the Rent – but the Padlock EP, featuring Larry Levan remixes from her Portrait album, is the real gem among her Compass Point All Stars-assisted discography. Its title track is absolutely brilliant: it was a great song to begin with, and Levan’s mix clearly bears the influence of dub, stripping the music back, drenching everything in reverb and foregrounding Dunbar’s unflashy, but very funky, drumming, a decision that seems to be reflected on the sleeve, where Sly’s name appears. above That singer.

Foxy and Ruby – Excuse Me (Here to Go) (1987)

Sly and Robbie’s biggest hit in the UK as artists was absolutely brilliant and utterly irresistible: featuring Shinehead’s wonderfully laconic rapping, it wasn’t hip-hop, although with its interpolations of both Rossini’s Barber of Seville and Ennio Morricone’s theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, it certainly sounded at least a little adjacent to the heavy collage samples of Double Dee and Steinski. And the rumbling funk of the rhythm track is great.

Chaka Demos and his Pincers – Bam Bam/Murder, She Wrote (1992)

Sly and Robbie were everywhere on Tease Me, the album that briefly turned dancehall duo Chaka Demus and Pliers into major stars: largely co-produced and written by Shakespeare and Dunbar, it produced five top 20 UK singles. It was a concerted push for crossover pop success, but that didn’t stop experimentation: both a cover of Hibbert Hibbert’s reggae standard “Bam Bam” and “Murder She Wrote” use a verse featuring Sly alone — no bass at all, just a beat carrying the audible influence of an Indian tabla — which later appeared on countless reggae tracks in 1992.