Bunny Wailer, a founding member of the Wailers and a reggae music giant whose career spanned seven decades, died at the age of 73.
Wailer’s manager, Maxine Stowe, confirmed that Wailer died on Tuesday at Hospital Medical Associates in Kingston, Jamaica (via the Jamaica Observer). No cause of death was reported, but Wailer had been in and out of the hospital since he suffered his second stroke in 2020. A representative of the musician did not immediately respond to Rolling Stonerequest for comment from.
Wailer, born as Neville Livingstone – before adopting his famous nickname, he was also known as Bunny Livingstone – was a member of the original Wailers trio with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh.
Born on April 10, 1947, in the Nine Mile district of St. Ann’s parish in Jamaica, Livingstone was Marley’s friend from a young age; after the death of Marley’s father, Norval, in 1955, Marley’s mother, Cedella, lived with Livingstone’s father, Thaddeus, in Trench Town, making Bunny and Bob almost half brothers.
While Marley and Livingstone were mentored by Joe Higgs, “the Godfather of Reggae”, they met Higgs’ colleague, Peter Tosh; the then trio ventured to Kingston. Soon after, they joined the singer Junior Braithwaite and the backing vocals Beverley Kelso and Cherry Smith. After a series of name changes that included teenagers and the Wailing Wailers, the Wailers teamed up with Coxsone Dodd’s sound system and the Studio One label – which employed songwriters and producers like Lee “Scratch” Perry and Jackie Mittoo – and released the “Simmer Down,” a number one hit in Jamaica.
Braithwaite, Kelso and Smith soon left the Wailers, leaving the core of Marley, Livingstone and Tosh intact; that trio recorded the band’s debut LP, 1965’s The Wailing Wailers, a collection of tracks that the band recorded in the mid sixties. The Wailers then went on a hiatus when Marley married his wife Rita and joined his mother in Wilmington, Delaware; During that time, Livingstone served a one-year sentence for possession of marijuana. However, the three main Wailers came together after Marley’s return to Jamaica.
While Marley and Tosh acted as lead singers and songwriters for the Wailers, Livingstone played an indispensable role in providing harmonies to the trio’s songs. The Wailers teamed up with Perry and his Upsetters in the 1970s Soul Rebels and 1971 Revolution of the Soul; around that time, Livingstone wrote and recorded one of his signature songs, “Dreamland”, a track he revisited when he released his solo LP Blackheart Man in 1976.
A collection of Wailers songs that the trio recorded for producer Leslie Kong’s Beverley label was released as Best of the Wailers in 1971. At that time, largely thanks to the success of reggae artists like Toots and the Maytals and Jimmy Cliff, Jamaican music found an international audience and the Wailers embarked on a UK tour with American reggae singer Johnny Nash .
In 1972, the Wailers signed with producer Chris Blackwell and his Island Records, resulting in their 1973 classic and debut on a major label, Catch a fire. Although the album and its similarly striking follow-up, 1973 Burn’, helped propel Wailers to international fame after the launch of Burn’, Tosh and Wailer left the group while Blackwell tried to narrow his roles and rename the Wailers as Marley’s support group, as well as schedule a tour of the United States that tested Tosh and Wailer’s strict Rastafarian faith. After resigning, Wailer was briefly replaced by Higgs when the Catch a Fire Tour came to America in the spring of 1973. Catch a fire it was later classified as number 126 in Rolling Stonelist of the 500 best albums of Burn’ putting the number 319.
After his departure from the Wailers, Livingstone – now known as Bunny Wailer – started working on his solo album Blackheart Man; while he was creatively in the background in the Wailers, the LP allowed Wailer to establish himself as his own artist, with Wailer writing, producing and singing throughout Blackheart Man, which also featured contributions from the pillars of the band Wailers and legends of reggae like Sly and Robbie and Aston “Family Man” Barrett. The album included songs like “Dreamland” and “Burning Down Observation,” which was inspired by his time in prison.
“The tracks that were made in Blackheart Man were very symbolic and significant for all of this development of reggae music, ”Wailer told Reggaeville in 2017.“ I really consider Blackheart Man to be one of those albums that the universal reggae world must be focused on. “
Blackheart Man marked the beginning of a prolific and fruitful solo career for Wailer, who would win the Grammy for Best Reggae Album three times in the 1990s, in 1991 Time will tell: a tribute to Bob Marley, 1995’s Crucial! Roots Classics, and the stars of 1997 Hall of Fame: a tribute to Bob Marley’s 50th birthday.
Reflecting on his career in 2016, Wailer told Afropop, “Wailers are responsible for the sound of Wailers. Bob, Peter and me: we are totally responsible for the sound of the Wailers and for what the Wailers brought to the world and left as a legacy. “