Nearly 25 years later, the instrumental would serve as the foundation for Buju Banton’s hit “Driver,” off the dancehall star’s 2006 LP Too Bad. Released in the early Eighties on Sly and Robbie’s own Jamaican label Taxi, “Unmetered Taxi” boasts one of the duo’s catchiest riddims although initially credited to only Dunbar, Shakespeare lays down the single’s bouncy, funky bass line. Jones’ Nightclubbing - featuring lavishly funky hit “Pull Up to the Bumper” - was a stone classic that helped make Shakespeare and the Compass Point All-Stars among the most in-demand players in the world. Shakespeare’s first great leap beyond roots reggae was with Jamaican-born model turned Afro-punk disco diva Grace Jones, who he and Dunbar joined forces with as the engine of the house band at Chris Blackwell’s Compass Point Studio in the Bahamas. Grace Jones, “Pull Up to the Bumper” (1981) It was later remade with food metaphors as “Pass the Dutchie” by Musical Youth, an international smash that can’t touch the original, which boasts a strutting bass line that will give you a contact high straight out the gate. This irresistible anthem to bong-sharing, complete with percussive exhaling, was banned from Jamaican national radio, but it became an island hit anyway. The Mighty Diamonds, “Pass the Kouchie” (1981)
This surprising cover of the Randy Newman song, a series of snapshots about hard times in a dying city, echoes Nina Simone’s reggae-fied 1978 cover, and chugs along on a loping Sly and Robbie rhythm that opens up into a spacious, horn-riddled dub. Here Tosh takes full ownership, giving Shakespeare and Dunbar room to build the awesome groove cathedrals that became their trademark. (Shakespeare’s bass mentor, in fact, was the Wailers’ “Family Man” Barrett.) This song, which Tosh had already sung with the Wailers, is a variation on “Sinnerman,” the spiritual that Nina Simone turned into a civil-rights warrior cry. Peter Tosh, “Downpressor Man” (1977)Īfter the Wailers splintered, Peter Tosh teamed up with Sly and Robbie, creating a band whose power rivaled the one he left. Shakespeare, who died yesterday at the age of 68, played on hundreds of recordings. His playing was so deeply grounded, its pulse felt biological, and so irresistible he became not just the go-to man for reggae musicians, but for anyone interested in seismic grooves, from Dylan and Mick Jagger to No Doubt and Simply Red. There were great reggae bassists before him, and after, but more than any other instrumentalist, Robbie Shakespeare, in tandem with his drum partner and co-producer Sly Dunbar, defined the bass-centric approach of the genre’s modern era, from the roots-rocker sound of the Seventies to the digi-dub dancehall of the Eighties, Nineties, and beyond.
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