Bunny Wailer was quite a character. During a stellar career filled with three Grammy winning albums, one seminal iconic album, ‘Blackheart Man’, a timeless Billboard hit, ‘Electric Boogie’, he still found time to feud with Rita Marley and rapper Snoop Dogg in his later years.
Known for his Rastafarian faith and principles practised by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, ‘Jah B’ was also an astute businessman who retained control of his masters and publishing all throughout his life so his legacy as the ‘Last Wailer’ could endure.
The legendary iconic singer died at the Medical Associates Hospital in Kingston on March 2. He was 73. Up until that time, Bunny Wailer was the lone front-line surviving member of the iconic group, Wailers, and has long been a stand-out figure on both local and international reggae stages.
Born in 1947, ‘Jah B’ was a singer, songwriter and percussionist, who, along with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, were members of the Wailers.
In this February 6, 2005 file photo, Bunny Wailer performs at the One Love concert to celebrate Bob Marley’s 60th birthday, in Kingston, Jamaica. (AP Photo/Collin Reid, File)
A three-time Grammy award winner, he is considered one of the long-time standard-bearers of reggae music.
In 2017, he was conferred with the Order of Merit (OM), the fourth-highest honour in Jamaica, for his contribution to popular music.
Here are 10 things about Jah B you may have not known.
1. Bunny was only 14 years old when he wrote his first song ‘Pass It On’.
2. At the tender age of four, he started playing the revival drums at his father’s church to start off the services.
3. Bunny loved rhythm and blues as he was a very avid dancer and, like a lot of Kingston-born youths, was a fan of the big bands that were eventually taken over by the sound systems.
4. This flair for the theatre is a characteristic that often showed up in the duality of his stage wear during performances, which he often started off with traditional robes and Rastafari-themed clothes before going into the dancehall ‘rudebwoy’ style of tying up his pants legs, sharp two-toned shoes and stylized suits most often than not made by his partner, Jean Watt, for whom his museum has a whole room dedicated to.
5. He also knew and sang country and western songs like ‘Seven Lonely Days’, especially when he lived in the rural community of Nine Miles in St Ann, serenading the residents from his verandah.
6. Bunny loved the colours brown and gold and was highly sensitive to the colour red and or in combination with white, which he thought as negative energy.
7. Bunny was baptized in the Ethiopian Orthodox faith and was accordingly named Fisha Zion
8. Bunny is a part of a blended family with Bob Marley, with whom he shares a sister, Pearl Livingston. He is also the uncle of Andrew Tosh, Peter’s son. His brother Carl Livingston had a very integral relationship with Bob Marley that extended into them living and working together in Delaware with him getting Bob his job at the company Chrysler. The song incorporating the lyrics “working on the night shift” was crafted during those times.
9. Bunny Wailer loved cooking, particularly fish and vegetables.
10. Bunny has 10 sisters, two brothers and 13 children.
