Tribute from Westbury Music
In mourning the death of Jamaican record producer Edward O’sullivan Lee [aka ‘Bunny’, or ‘Striker’], we are also witnessing the end of an era, in which strong pioneering characters - flamboyant entrepreneurs and sound system owners - produced a unique music that spread from Jamaica to the whole world.
Bunny Lee was arguably the last of that generation – he had been born in Greenwich Town on August 23rd, 1941 and attended school in that area. As a teenager, he lived through the birth of Jamaican sound systems and had detailed knowledge about that period. He also was a dancer, and amateur singer – his specialty being songs in the style of Mario Lanza. By the mid-1960s, he was working as a song plugger for Arthur ‘Duke’ Reid’, and other producers, and by 1966 he was ready to take his first steps in producing, cutting rock steady sides with Lloyd and the Groovers, Max Romeo and Roy Shirley. He enjoyed considerable success with singer Keith ‘Slim’ Smith, and big hits like ‘Bangarang’ by Lester Sterling and Wilburn ‘Stranger’ Cole. By the late 1960s, he was at the forefront of a new generation of record producers which included Clancy Eccles, Lee Perry and Winston Riley, responsible for bringing the new reggae rhythm to the market, even though at that point he didn’t even own a studio.
He was responsible for furthering the career of the great dub engineer King Tubby, taking him to hear the sound systems operated by such as Ruddy’s Supreme and Stereo in Spanish Town – thus Tubby discovered the possibilities of the ‘version’. He later brokered a deal for King Tubby to obtain the obsolete 4-track mixing desk from Dynamic Studio, which enabled King Tubby to start mixing dubs, with Bunny as his main supplier of rhythms. Over the ensuing years he assembled a stable of artists, which included at one time or another John Holt, Delroy Wilson, Jackie Edwards, Horace Andy, Cornell Campbell, Max Romeo, and Johnny Clarke, Alongside these singers he nurtured the careers of a whole host of deejays – U-brown, Dillinger, Tappa Zukie, Trinity, Jah Stitch and Doctor Alimantado among them, and produced many dub albums from 1974, mixed by Phillip Smart, King Tubby, Prince Jammy and Scientist among others.
He was also responsible for bringing bassist Robbie Shakespeare and drummer Sly Dunbar together as a rhythm team.
He was very successful in this period, with distribution deals with Count Shelly in London, Brad Osbourne’s Clocktower label in New York, and Monica’s Records in Toronto.
Always an astute business man, his records were issued on a plethora of labels, but by the end of the 1980s, his momentum was flagging. Reissue deals with Trojan, and most importantly, Blood & Fire Records of Manchester UK, ensured that he began to receive well-merited recognition and respect for his massive contribution to Jamaican musical culture.
In person, Bunny Lee was kind and generous, always ready to offer a helping hand to newer producers to get into the business – he was a man who was able to fix things, with a large network of contacts, high and low. In person, he was always affable and often hilariously funny, as a raconteur or as an accurate commentator on the music business, a fascinating conversationalist. He was a wordy man, with interests outside music he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of 1950s Hollywood films – westerns, crime mysteries and swashbucklers alike.
Along with producers like Clement ‘Coxson’ Dodd, Duke Reid and Leslie Kong, he was a giant of Jamaican music. We at Westbury Music are honoured to have known and worked with him for many years, handling his extensive publishing catalogue. We will never forget him – he was a legend whose like we won’t see again.