Robbie Shakespeare, who has died aged 68 following kidney surgery, was the best known and most highly regarded bass player in Jamaica for a span of more than three decades from the late 1970s onwards.
After they branched out to provide the rhythm section for several Grace Jones albums, their influence began to stretch well beyond reggae, and in the later part of his career Shakespeare was much in demand as a player and producer with big names in the music business, including Mick Jagger, Yoko Ono, Sinéad O’Connor and Bob Dylan.
Dunbar was a resident musician at the nearby Tit for Tat venue, and whenever either of them had a break, they would slip over to the other club to watch what was going on.
“Musically we’d have to set up a special channel to God to ask him why what we play always comes out right.” For his part Dunbar noted that “from the first time we played together we clicked musically.
Dunbar, the more laidback of the two, often applied a brake on Shakespeare’s demanding, forceful personality, while Shakespeare helped the two of them to stand up to any music business murkiness.
“It feels like a bond, even more than a marriage,” said Dunbar in 1997.
Perhaps the quintessential Sly and Robbie sound was delivered with Black Uhuru, with whom they played from 1979 to 1986, including on the album Sinsemilla , the title track of which showcases the pair in all their glory.
Shakespeare’s switch into working with musicians outside reggae had begun as early as 1980, when he and Dunbar were drafted in to play on Jones’s album Warm Leatherette.
He was involved with three Dylan albums in the mid-80s , with Jagger’s 1985 album She’s the Boss, Ono’s Starpeace in the same year, Jackson Browne’s World in Motion in 1989, and two albums by O’Connor in the 2000s.
Sly and Robbie also released six albums of their own between 1985 and 2014, and their musical and personal friendship endured to the end.