Bunny Wailer, the last surviving member of the Wailers, the Jamaican trio that helped establish and popularize reggae music – its other founders were Bob Marley and Peter Tosh – died Tuesday at a hospital in Kingston, Jamaica. He was 73 years old.
His death was confirmed by Maxine Stowe, his manager, who did not declare a cause.
Formed in 1963, when their members were still teenagers, the Wailers were among the biggest stars in ska, the upbeat Jamaican style that was inspired by American R&B. In early hits like “Simmer Down” and “Rude Boy”, the three young men – who at the time wore suits and had short hair – sang in soft harmony, adding some social comments with their onomatopoeic “doo-be doo -be doo- bas. “
“The Wailers were the Beatles of Jamaica,” said Randall Grass of Shanachie Records, an American label that worked extensively with Bunny Wailer in the 1980s and 90s, in a telephone interview.
In the early 1970s, Wailers – now in loose clothing and dreadlocks – became one of the main groups of a new, slower and musky Jamaican sound: reggae. The 1973 album “Catch a Fire”, with songs like “Concrete Jungle” and “Slave Driver”, is one of the canonical releases of the so-called roots reggae, with a production style adjacent to rock and socially conscious lyrics.
Marley and Tosh were the main songwriters and lead vocalists in the group. But Bunny, who also played percussion instruments, was a critical part of his style of harmony. Among the fans, at least, the three men took on roles of characters like reggae superheroes.
“Peter Tosh was the real militant, so Bob was the poetic revolutionary humanist,” said Vivien Goldman, author of “The Book of Exodus: The Creation and Meaning of Bob Marley and the Album of the Wailers of the Century” (2006). “Bunny was considered the spiritual mystic.”
Born Neville Livingston, he adopted the name Bunny when he joined the group; he was credited as Bunny Livingston or Livingstone before deciding for Bunny Wailer in the 1970s.
The Wailers traveled across Britain and began to gain international acclaim, but by 1973 the original trio had parted ways. Marley, on his way to global stardom, began to perform under the command of Bob Marley and the Wailers. Bunny did not like to tour and, as a follower of the Rastafarian faith, he felt uncomfortable performing in bars, seeing them as inappropriate places for the group’s spiritual message.
Neville Livingston was born in Kingston on April 10, 1947 and grew up in the village of Nine Mile in St. Ann Parish, on the north coast of Jamaica. He and Marley met as children there, and for a time Marley’s mother, Cedella, lived with Neville’s father, Thaddeus, in the Trench Town section of Kingston.
The two friends met Peter Tosh – whose real name was Winston McIntosh – through Joe Higgs, from Jamaican pop duo Higgs and Wilson. In the beginning, the Wailers also included Junior Braithwaite and Beverly Kelso, and they recorded with major producers of the time, such as Coxsone Dodd, Leslie Kong and Lee (Scratch) Perry.
After leaving the Wailers, Bunny continued to make music, including his first solo album, “Blackheart Man”, in 1976; he produced it himself, wrote most of the songs and released it on his own label, Solomonic. But while Marley and Tosh traveled extensively, Bunny remained mostly in Jamaica, where he built a powerful mystique.
He debuted in New York in 1986 at Madison Square Garden, with opening bands and support groups, such as the vocal ensemble Psalms, which he chose to represent Jamaican musical history. Three years later, when he performed at the Radio City Music Hall, Jon Pareles of The New York Times described the show as “like a gospel service with a reggae beat”, with Bunny dressed in a robe decorated with the silhouette of Africa, a Star of David, the Lion of Judah and marijuana leaves.
Bob Marley died of cancer in 1981. Peter Tosh was shot dead in 1987.
According to Ms. Stowe, Bunny Wailer’s survivors include 13 children, 10 sisters, three brothers and grandchildren. Ms. Stowe said that Jean Watt, her partner for more than 50 years, had dementia and had been missing since May.
Bunny won the Grammy for best reggae album three times. Two of those albums were tributes to Marley.
He received the Jamaica Order of Merit in 2017. Peter Phillips, Jamaica’s parliamentary minister, said his death “ends the most vibrant period of Jamaica’s musical experience” and called him “a good and conscientious Jamaican brother”.