Bunny Wailer, also known as
Bunny Livingston (born
Neville O'Riley Livingston, April 10, 1947,
JamaicaJamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length and as much as in width, amounting to 11,100 km
2. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harboring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
), is a singer
songwriterA songwriter is someone who writes the lyrics, as well as the musical composition or melody to songs. One who writes only lyrics is a lyricist, while one who writes only music is a composer.-History and background of songwriters:...
and percussionist and was an original member of
reggaeReggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s.While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady. Reggae is based...
group
The WailersThe Wailers were a ska, rocksteady, and reggae group formed in Kingston, Jamaica in 1963, consisting of Bob Marley, Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, and Cherry Smith....
along with
Bob MarleyRobert Nesta "Bob" Marley was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist for the ska, rocksteady and reggae bands The Wailers and Bob Marley & The Wailers...
and
Peter ToshPeter Tosh, born Winston Hubert McIntosh was a reggae musician who was a core member of The Wailers who then went on to have a successful solo career as well as being a trailblazer for the Rastafari movement....
. He is widely regarded as a musical legend and is considered one of the longtime standard bearers of reggae music. He has been named by
NewsweekNewsweek is an American weekly newsmagazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
as one of the three most important musicians in world music.
Bunny Wailer and Bob Marley were raised in the same household as brothers.
Bunny Wailer, also known as
Bunny Livingston (born
Neville O'Riley Livingston, April 10, 1947,
JamaicaJamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length and as much as in width, amounting to 11,100 km
2. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harboring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
), is a singer
songwriterA songwriter is someone who writes the lyrics, as well as the musical composition or melody to songs. One who writes only lyrics is a lyricist, while one who writes only music is a composer.-History and background of songwriters:...
and percussionist and was an original member of
reggaeReggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s.While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady. Reggae is based...
group
The WailersThe Wailers were a ska, rocksteady, and reggae group formed in Kingston, Jamaica in 1963, consisting of Bob Marley, Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, and Cherry Smith....
along with
Bob MarleyRobert Nesta "Bob" Marley was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist for the ska, rocksteady and reggae bands The Wailers and Bob Marley & The Wailers...
and
Peter ToshPeter Tosh, born Winston Hubert McIntosh was a reggae musician who was a core member of The Wailers who then went on to have a successful solo career as well as being a trailblazer for the Rastafari movement....
. He is widely regarded as a musical legend and is considered one of the longtime standard bearers of reggae music. He has been named by
NewsweekNewsweek is an American weekly newsmagazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
as one of the three most important musicians in world music.
Bunny Wailer and Bob Marley were raised in the same household as brothers. Bunny's father Thaddeus "Toddy" Livingston lived with Bob Marley's mother
Cedella BookerCedella Marley Booker was the Jamaican mother of the reggae musician Bob Marley and a singer and writer.-Biography:...
and had a daughter with her named Pearl Livingston.
As he was by some way the least forceful of the trio, he tended to sing lead vocals less often than Marley and Tosh in the early years, but when Bob Marley left Jamaica in 1966 for Delaware, to be replaced by
Constantine "Vision" WalkerConstantine "Vision" Walker, also known as "Vision" or "Dream" , is a singer songwriter and musician...
, he began to record and sing lead on some of his own compositions, such as "Who Feels It Knows It", "I Stand Predominant" and "Sunday Morning". His music was very influenced by gospel and the soul of
Curtis MayfieldCurtis Lee Mayfield was an American soul, R&B, and funk singer, songwriter, and record producer best known for his anthemic music with The Impressions and composing the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly. From these works and others, he is highly regarded as a pioneer of funk and of...
. In 1967, he recorded "This Train", based on a gospel standard for the first time at Studio One.
As the Wailers moved from producer to producer in the late 1960s he continued to be underused as a writer and lead vocalist, although he sang lead on "Riding High", and on one verse of the Wailers' Impressions-like "Keep On Moving, both produced by Lee Perry. By 1973, each of the three founding Wailers operated their own label, Marley with Tuff Gong, Tosh with H.I.M. Intel Diplo, and Bunny Wailer with Solomonic. He sang lead vocals on "Reincarnated Souls", the B-side of the Wailers first Island single of the new era, and on two tracks on the Wailers last trio LP, "Burnin" , "Pass it On" (which had been cut as a sound-system only dub plate five years earlier) and "Hallelujah Time". By now he was recording singles in his own right, cutting "Bide Up", "Arab Oil Weapon" and "Life Line" for his own label.
Bunny Wailer toured with the Wailers in
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, but soon became reluctant to leave Jamaica. He and Tosh became more marginalized in the group as the Wailers became an international success, and attention was increasingly focused on Marley. Bunny subsequently left the Wailers to pursue a solo career, which continues in the present.
After leaving the Wailers, Bunny became more focused on his spiritual faith. He identified with the
Rastafari movementThe Rastafari movement is a monotheistic, Abrahamic, new religious movement that accepts Haile Selassie I, the former, and final, Emperor of Ethiopia, as the incarnation of God, called Jah or Jah Rastafari....
, as did the other Wailers. He has also written much of his own material as well as re-recording a number of cuts from the Wailers catalogue. Bunny Wailer has recorded primarily in the roots style, in keeping with his often political and spiritual messages. The album
Blackheart ManBlackheart Man is the first solo album by Bunny Wailer, originally released on 8 September 1976, in Jamaica on Solomonic Records and internationally on Island Records...
is a good example of his roots reggae style, while "Sings the Wailers" successfully reworks many of The Wailers songs with the backing of top Jamaican musicians, Sly and Robbie. He experimented with disco on his album 'Hook Line & Sinker'. He has also had success recording in the typically apolitical, more
popPop music is a music genre that developed from the mid-1950s as a softer alternative to rock 'n' roll and later to rock music. It has a focus on commercial recording, often orientated towards a youth market, usually through the medium of relatively short and simple love songs...
dancehallDancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that developed in the late 1970s, initially as a more sparse and less political and religious variant of reggae than the roots style that had dominated much of the 1970s....
style. He has outlived his contemporaries in a culture where death by violence is commonplace.
Bunny Wailer was both the quietest and most spiritually creative of the Wailers. However, he also had a dancehall/Rockers edge that was best exemplified by the album "Bunny Wailer Sings the Wailers" in which he re-interprets some of the Wailers material as a solo Roots singer backed by a solid Sly & Robbie based Roots reggae grouping. The album was produced Bunny Wailer, recorded at Harry J studies. Some of these tracks are re-worked classic Wailers tracks (e.g. Dreamland - first recorded in 1970 with Lee 'Scratch" Perry and released as a 7" in 1971 with a U-Roy version on the B -Side). Another classic is Dancing Shoes, first recorded in the early 1960s as a driving Ska/Soul classic with Bunny Wailer as lead vocal.
Bunny Wailer has won the
Grammy Award for Best Reggae AlbumThe Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album has been awarded since 1985. From 1985 to 1991 the award was called the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Recording....
in
1990This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1990.-Events:
*January 21 - MTV's Unplugged premieres on cable television with musical pie, Squeeze...
,
1994
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1994.-January–February:*January 29 - The Supremes' Mary Wilson is injured when her Jeep hits a freeway median and flips over just outside of Los Angeles, California, USA...
and
1996
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1996.-January:* January - At the trial of two American teenagers, Nicholaus McDonald and Brian Bassett, for the murder of Bassett's parents and young brother, defense lawyers attempt to lay the blame for the murders on the...
.
Today, Bunny resides in Kingston and on a farm located in the interior of Jamaica (Saint Thomas), according to Bob Marley's official website. Bunny Wailer and
Beverley KelsoBeverley Kelso is a Jamaican singer. She was a backing vocalist, and one of the founding members of The Wailers . According to Bob Marley's official website both she and Bunny Wailer are the only surviving members of the original Wailers....
are the only surviving members of the original Wailers.
Albums
- Blackheart Man
Blackheart Man is the first solo album by Bunny Wailer, originally released on 8 September 1976, in Jamaica on Solomonic Records and internationally on Island Records...
(1976) IslandIsland Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in England for many years, but is now owned by Universal Music Group and is operated in the United States through The Island Def Jam Music Group and in the UK through Island Records Group...
/Solomonic
- Protest (1977) Island/Solomonic
- Struggle (1978) Solomonic
- Dubd'sco vol.1 (1978) Solomonic
- In I Father's House (1979) Solomonic
- Dubd'sco vol.2 (1981) Solomonic
- Rock 'n' Groove (1981) Solomonic
- Sings the Wailers (1981) Island/Solomonic
- Tribute (1981) Solomonic
- Hook Line & Sinker (1982) Solomonic
- Roots Radics Rockers Reggae (1983) Shanachie
Shanachie Records was founded in 1976 by Richard Nevins and Dan Collins. According to Harvey Pekar , it is one of the largest independent record labels in the world, and is currently distributed by E1 Music. Starting as speciality fiddle music label they released work by Celtic groups such as...
- Marketplace (1985) Solomonic
- Live! (1986) Solomonic
- Rootsman Skanking (1987) Shanachie
- Liberation
Liberation is a critically acclaimed reggae album by Bunny Wailer, released in 1989 . Wailer was one third of The Wailers, with Peter Tosh and Bob Marley...
(1988) Shanachie
- Time Will Tell: A Tribute to Bob Marley (1990) Shanachie
- Gumption (1990) Shanachie
- The Never Ending Wailers (1991)
- Dance Massive (1992)
- Just Be Nice (1993) RAS
RAS Records, also known as Real Authentic Sound, is a reggae record label.-History:RAS Records was founded in 1979 by Doctor Dread. In his travels to Jamaica he created a network within the reggae artist community there. By the early to mid 1980s RAS had signed artists such as Black Uhuru, Inner...
- Hall of Fame: A Tribute to Bob Marley (1996) RAS
- Communication (2000) Solomonic/Tuff Gong
- Rule Dance Hall (2002) Shanachie
- World Peace (2003) Solomonic
Compilations
- Retrospective (1995) Shanachie
- Winning Combinations: Bunny Wailer & Dennis Brown (2002) Universal Special Products (with Dennis Brown
Dennis Emmanuel Brown was a Jamaican reggae singer. During his prolific career, which began in the late 1960s when he was aged eleven, he recorded more than 75 albums and was one of the major stars of lovers rock, a sub-genre of reggae...
)
- Crucial Roots Classics (2005) RAS
- The Wailers Legacy (2006) Solomonic (Bunny Wailer & The Wailers)
Appearances on DVD compilations
- A Reggae Session (1988) Sony BMG, features "Roots, Radics, Rockers and Reggae" and "Rise and Shine"
External links