A self-taught musician with an inborn ability for musical arrangement and an exceptional sense of timing, Aston “Family Man” Barrett, who has died aged 77, played an integral role in the international acceptance of reggae as the bassist and bandleader of Bob Marley and the Wailers.
As a member of the studio band the Upsetters, Barrett produced meaty and melodious basslines that featured on the pivotal recordings the Wailers made for the producer Lee “Scratch” Perry in 1970-71. His younger brother, Carlton Barrett, played drums.
When the Wailers broke away from Perry to form their Tuff Gong label, Marley persuaded the Barretts to leave the Upsetters and retained them as the Wailers’ rhythm section, keeping them intact when the group subsequently signed to Island Records in 1972. Made bandleader and musical arranger in 1974 during the recording of the Natty Dread album, Barrett and his bass provided the driving anchor of Marley’s famous anthems, lending gravitas to No Woman, No Cry, from that album; a sense of urgency to Exodus and playful fun to Jamming (both 1977); and conjuring mournful regret on So Much Trouble in the World (1979).
The group underwent many changes during the Island years, but Barrett was a constant, stabilising force, his consummate command of his instrument and skilful onstage interplay the backbone of the group’s electrifying performances, while Marley delivered his lyrics in a trance-like state.
An important part of the emerging dub subgenre of the mid-1970s, Barrett also mentored younger musicians such as the keyboardist Tyrone Downie and bassist Robbie Shakespeare.
Being too poor to afford the real thing, Barrett made his first bass from a curtain rod. He joined the club act the Hippy Boys in the mid-1960s, backing the singer Max Romeo at various Kingston dives, which led the producer Bunny Lee to bring Barrett to the studio in 1968, yielding Slim Smith’s hit adaptation of Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth (retitled Watch This Sound).
Barrett said that he adopted the nickname “Family Man” because he saw his fellow musicians as family and took a prominent role arranging the work they made together; it did not come from his having had many children – 23 daughters and 18 sons were the totals he gave the BBC in 2013.
The Barrett brothers subsequently played on reggae songs that reached the UK top ten in late 1969, including Max Romeo’s ribald Wet Dream and the organ instrumental The Liquidator. They toured the UK with the Upsetters that November, following the chart success of the instrumental Return of Django, despite not having played on the record itself.
On his return to Jamaica, Barrett cut one-off organ instrumentals for producers such as Lee, Karl “JJ” Johnson, and Lloyd Patterson, before forming the Youth Professionals, resident at a downtown striptease club, which Downie joined while still at school.
The group backed Carl Dawkins’ popular Walk a Little Prouder and a few singles featuring deejay Charlie Ace before morphing into Rhythm Force, playing on Augustus Pablo’s early single Skanking Easy and 45s by the Ethiopians, Cornel Campbell, and Horace Andy.
Barrett then played on Yabby You’s popular debut recording Conquering Lion and follow-up single Love Thy Neighbour, and co-produced work that Winston Jarrett and the Righteous Flames recorded for Brent Clarke, the former road manager for Johnny Nash who introduced Bob Marley and the Wailers to Chris Blackwell; subsequent session work for Keith Hudson would feature on Pick a Dub (1974), an influential early dub album, issued by Clarke in the UK.
During a time in which Barrett was part of Lee’s in-house band the Aggrovators, he was also releasing self-produced work on the Fam’s and Cobra labels, the singles Distant Drums, Eastern Memphis and Cobra Style evidencing a distinctive approach to instrumental music and dub B-sides, Rita Marley’s sentimental Woman in Love also bearing his stylistic hallmarks.
Alongside his duties in Bob Marley and the Wailers, Barrett played on Peter Tosh’s Legalize It and Bunny Wailer’s Blackheart Man (both 1976), as well as Burning Spear’s landmark releases Marcus Garvey (1975), Dry and Heavy (1977) and Social Living (1978), and Pablo’s East of the River Nile (also 1978), though his session work slowed once the Wailers’ touring schedule intensified.
Life with the Wailers had extreme highs and lows: present at the infamous 1976 rehearsal for the Smile Jamaica concert that was infiltrated by gunmen, Barrett emerged unscathed, escaping the serious injuries suffered by Bob and Rita, and manager Don Taylor; in 1980, Barrett was delighted to make his first pilgrimage to Africa to perform at the Zimbabwe independence celebrations, although subsequent gigs in Gabon were marred by financial irregularities attributed to Taylor.
The fourth of five children born to Wilford Barrett, a blacksmith, and Viola (nee Marshall), Aston was raised in a large tenement yard on Beeston Street in downtown Kingston, where the saxophonist Val Bennett also lived.
During an itinerant childhood that saw the family briefly at addresses in the Hannah Town and Franklyn Town districts, Barrett attended St Aloysius boys’ school, but after the family settled in Rollington Town, Barrett’s grades slipped when he began attending Vauxhall school. He was sent to the Cobbla Camp run by the Jamaica Youth Corps in the mountains of rural Manchester, where Barrett joined an informal singing group.
In the aftermath of Bob Marley’s death in 1981, Barrett continued recording with Burning Spear, worked closely with Rita for a time, and produced a various artists album titled Juvenile Delinquent (1981), on which he played most of the instruments.
He and Carlton played on the influential Jerusalem album, released by Ivorian reggae star Alpha Blondy in 1986. However, the following year Carlton was murdered.
Barrett regularly toured and performed with the Wailers Band into the 90s and sporadically thereafter. In 2006, he sued Universal-Island and members of the Marley family for £60m in unpaid royalties but lost the case, leaving him with hefty legal bills. Based in Miami in later years, he was awarded the Order of Distinction by the Jamaican government in 2021.
• Aston “Family Man” Barrett, musician and producer, born 22 November 1946; died 3 February 2024
• This article was amended on 5 February 2024. Aston Barrett said that the nickname “Family Man” came out of the leading role he took in groups rather than the number of children he had.
