Robbie Shakespeare, bass guitarist who with Sly Dunbar formed one of the best-loved rhythm sections in popular music – obituary

Robbie Shakespeare, who has died aged 68, was regarded as the most influential bass player in reggae and its offspring and formed with the drummer Sly Dunbar the rhythm section “Sly and Robbie” which largely developed and popularised around the world the sound of Jamaican music in the post-Bob Marley era.

“Basspeare” and “Drumbar”, as they were sometimes dubbed, met as young musicians when playing at neighbouring clubs in Kingston. Temperamentally they were rather different. Shakespeare had less patience, and in time made sure that he handled their business dealings lest advantage be taken of the easygoing, more slightly built Dunbar.

Yet they had the same influences, including Motown, Stax and country music, and the same dedicated if intuitive approach to their playing (neither could read or write a note). This ensured that there was no hierarchy or jealousy between them, only a mutual admiration that allowed their collaboration to flourish for almost half a century. “The music comes first,” said Shakespeare, “none of us is the leader in this case, we just leave this thing alone.”

The interaction of drums and bass is the sonic framework which underpins popular music. The Riddim Twins, as they were known, subsequently cultivated several strands to their career, but perhaps the most important was their prolific number of collaborations with other Jamaican artistes. In the mid-1970s, for instance, they appeared on best-selling records by Culture (Two Sevens Clash), The Mighty Diamonds (Right Time) and Peter Tosh (Legalize It and Bush Doctor).

In the same milieu, they provided backing for the producer Lee Perry at his studio, worked with the Upsetters, Toots & the Maytals, Burning Spear and Gregory Isaacs. Their rhythms were arguably instrumental in helping Black Uhuru to gain worldwide recognition. Of broader significance was their use of a harder beat than reggae’s customary loping one-drop rhythm, which locally led to the evolution in the 1980s of the brisker dancehall style.

Indeed, Sly & Robbie were early adopters of the possibilities of electronic technology that would change music. At the start of the 1980s they became in effect the house band at Compass Point, the studio in the Bahamas owned by Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records.

Notably, there they worked on a trio of albums with Grace Jones, including Warm Leatherette (1980) and Nightclubbing (1981). On tracks such as Private Life and Pull up to the Bumper, Sly & Robbie fashioned a futuristic beat for the stylised chic of her vocals, creating a sound which not only heralded a new decade in music but which has proved enduringly influential.

Robert Warren Dale Shakespeare was born in Kingston on September 27 1953. His upbringing was not always straightforward but there was music in the family. He was originally drawn to the drums but one day watched Aston “Family Man” Barrett play his bass guitar when he came to record at the house.

Lessons from Barrett set him on his way, and when the older musician joined the Wailers, Shakespeare took his place in the Hippie Boys. Uncredited, he subsequently played on the Wailers’ Catch a Fire LP in 1973.

Following Grace Jones’s success, Sly & Robbie increasingly became in demand to appear on the records of musicians outside of Jamaica. Among these were Joan Armatrading (Walk Under Ladders, 1981), Ian Dury, Carly Simon, Cyndi Lauper, Serge Gainsbourg, and Mick Jagger, on whose solo record She’s the Boss they featured in 1985. Later, this list expanded to include Madonna, Suggs, Paul McCartney and Sinead O’Connor.

Somehow, they also found time to run their own label, Taxi, and to make their own music. In 1987, the LP Rhythm Killers yielded a quirky single, Boops, featuring Bootsy Collins on guitar, which reached No 12 in the UK. More commercial, arguably, if no less on the pulse, was their contribution to Gwen Guthrie’s club smash of the time, Ain’t Nothin’ Going On But the Rent.

By the early 1990s, they had come to the fore as well as producers. They oversaw the records by the duo Chaka Demus & Pliers, including Murder She Wrote and Tease Me (No 3 in the UK), which helped to generate international interest in new forms of Jamaica music such as ragga and dancehall.

Later in the decade, they produced records by No Doubt and had a hit with Simply Red with a cover of Night Nurse. The favourite of Shakespeare’s collaborations, however, came earlier, when he and Dunbar played with Bob Dylan on the Infidels LP (1983).

Robbie Shakespeare was nominated for Grammy awards 13 times and won twice. Last year, he was voted 17th in Rolling Stone’s list of the greatest bass players, but for many years he had suffered from diabetes and he died following kidney surgery.

He is survived by his wife Marian, with whom he had a son.

Robbie Shakespeare, born September 27 1953, died December 8 2021