The Jamaican record producer Bunny Lee, who has died aged 79, was an integral force in the development of reggae, both in his native Jamaica and in Britain. A gregarious, flamboyant personality who had widespread industry contacts and a cavalier approach to business, he had an innate feel for a hit that gave him an edge over many of his contemporaries, yielding consistent success.
Lee began producing serious hits in Jamaica in the late 1960s with songs such as the Uniques’ Let Me Go Girl and My Conversation, and, later, Pat Kelly’s How Long, Slim Smith’s Everybody Needs Love and Roland Alphonso’s 1000 Tons of Megaton. As the 60s began to fade out, his introduction of an organ shuffle on Stranger Cole and Lester Sterling’s Bangarang helped define the newly emerging reggae sound, and the song Regay Time, with his brother Don on vocals, was one of the first to reference reggae by name.
Lee travelled to London in 1968 at the invitation of the Island Records founder, Chris Blackwell, who released a compilation called Leaping With Mr Lee. Establishing a base in Forest Gate, east London, Lee then licensed material to the new Trojan Records imprint, including for the popular album Absolutely the Uniques, as well as for the rival Pama label, gaining maximum exposure for his productions in Britain. Max Romeo’s suggestive Wet Dream became a sensation in 1969, spending 26 weeks in the British charts despite a BBC ban, peaking at No 10.
In this early phase Lee worked closely with veteran performers such as Owen Gray, Jackie Edwards, Laurel Aitken and Lee’s brother in law, Derrick Morgan, sharing many recording sessions with Lee “Scratch” Perry, including for Mr Chatterbox, a one-off that was cut with Bob Marley and the Wailers. He also employed Peter Tosh as a session musician for instrumentals such as Crimson Pirate, Moon Duck and Selassie Serenade.
He scored some of his most lasting hits in the early 70s, including John Holt’s rendition of Shep and the Limelites’ Stick By Me, which enjoyed an extended run in the Jamaican charts. Delroy Wilson’s stinging social commentary Better Must Come was adopted by the opposition People’s National party in Jamaica as a campaign song in 1972, and although Lee tried to follow an apolitical stance, nevertheless he was later the victim of politically motivated violence, sustaining a bullet wound to one hand in an attack sparked by the censorious overtones of Bill Gentles’ satirical song Take the Rod from Our Backs, which he had produced.
In the same era Lee revolutionised Jamaican music by helping the sound engineer King Tubby to obtain an obsolete mixing desk for sonic experimentation; thereafter Tubby’s makeshift studio became the primary site of the new art of dub reggae, which remixed original tracks into strange new formations. Tubby’s groundbreaking albums Dub from the Roots and The Roots of Dub reworked many of Lee’s rhythm tracks to dramatic effect, helping the dub album format to find a ready audience in Britain.
Lee also excelled at the proto-rap deejay style, scoring hits with U Roy, Dennis Alcapone, Jah Stitch and Dr Alimantado, while his introduction of the influential “flying cymbal” drumming style, based on an open-and-closed hi-hat pattern, dominated the reggae scene in 1974-75.
Achieving a seemingly endless string of hits in the roots reggae heyday by artists such as Johnny Clarke, Cornell Campbell and Horace Andy, he also helped the bass player Robbie Shakespeare rise to prominence as a member of his Aggrovators house band and mentored producers such as Niney the Observer, Prince Jammy, Yabby You and Ossie Thomas.
In the late 70s and early 80s Lee cut an impressive series of albums with the keyboardist Jackie Mittoo, introduced the dancehall artists Barry Brown, Don Carlos and King Kong to the world, and went on to record Beenie Man’s first album, The Invincible, when the artist was only 10 years old.
Of mixed African, Irish and Chinese heritage, he was born in Kingston, Jamaica, the first of 10 children (though four of his siblings died in infancy), and raised in the impoverished district of Greenwich Town (popularly known as Greenwich Farm). His father, Edward, was a shoemaker and his mother, Ruby (nee McGraw), a housewife. Lee shared a bed with two brothers and walked barefoot to Greenwich Town primary school, later attending Denham Town primary in the company of many aspiring singers.
After studying electrical engineering at Kingston Technical high school and gaining practical experience at a local firm, Teletronics, he began working in the parts department at United Motors and then at Kingston Industrial Garage. But popular music was a longstanding fascination. A keen dancer, he became a record plugger in the early 1960s, helping promoters such as Duke Reid, Clement Dodd, Leslie Kong and Prince Buster to gain airplay for their ska records on a weekly radio programme called Teenage Dance Party.
Lee was so busy boosting Desmond Dekker’s single Unity in country districts in 1967 that he was fired from his day job at the garage. This prompted him to make his first foray into record production, scoring a hit with Roy Shirley’s rather surreal song Music Field after having been granted free studio time by Reid. After a brief period at West Indies Records it was then that he started doing his most important work.
Although by the 80s his output began to slow, a reissue programme by the Blood and Fire label later introduced his work to a new audience, and further reissues by companies such as Jamaican Recordings, VP, Pressure Sounds and Soul Jazz maintained demand for his work.
He was awarded the Order of Distinction by the Jamaican government in 2008 for his services to the music industry. Both an authorised biography, Reggae Going International: The Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee Story (2012), by Noel Hawkes and Jah Floyd, and Diggory Kenrick’s documentary film, I Am the Gorgon (2013), revealed an undeniably tough, no-nonsense persona with an overriding passion for music.
Lee’s first marriage, to Marva, ended in divorce. He is survived by his second wife, Annette Wong-Lee, and is thought to have had 35 children.
