Raindrops at Reggae Wednesdays tribute to Sly Dunbar

Some amount of pathetic fallacy was at play when, shortly after D’Kru Band did a heart-stirring tribute to the late Sly Dunbar, the raindrops started trickling down at Reggae Wednesdays last week. Drummer, Junior ‘Bird’ Bailley, who was a student of Sly Dunbar, led the tribute, which he said was”bittersweet”. He shared that from last year he had asked the Jamaica Reggae Industry Association (JaRIA) to allow him to pay tribute to Sly during Reggae Month and they agreed.

“Sly is a man who don’t go out, but he said he would be here for this tribute. Tonight was sad .... there was a melancholiness about it,” Bailley told The Gleaner, while sheltering from the rain.

Part of his off-stage tribute to the man who played on more than 200,000 songs, was an explanation of why he needed to be Sly’s understudy.

“I really enjoy playing Sly’s rhythms and reproducing the stuff that he has on record,” Bailley said. “It still puzzles me how someone comes up with these rhythms. He took the drums from in the background where rocksteady and the early reggae had it and moved the whole drum to the front of the music to be the groove of the music. And, because of this we as drummers are now the foundation of the music. And in a matter of two years he changed the reggae beat from being a one beat to two to four, and then he added things on top of that as well ...rhythms that you wouldn’t normally have, but somehow he made them groove and dance. That is something that puzzled me and that’s why I studied it.”

He recalled that as a young drummer Sly approached him one day at rehearsal and told him the things he was doing wrong and also how to correct them.

“Sly will always tell people that I am the only drummer who can reproduce what he plays ... he likes how I treated his stuff,” Bailley said.

A former musical director for Sean Paul, Bailley now leads D’Kru, which was one of the featured bands when the curtains came down on JaRIA’s Reggae Wednesdays. During the Sly Dunbar tribute, D’Kru played songs such as Greetings, Dreamland, S tepping Outta Babylon, Baltimore, Solidarity, Guess who’s Coming to Dinner, Shine Eye Gal, Love and Hate, and Step Aside Now, with vocalists from the band taking centre stage. Things got real frenzied when Chris McDonald who was on keyboards, stepped up front as vocalist on Bam Bam, and Dem A Bleach. Enjoying the moment together were Thelma Dunbar, Sly’s widow and the ex-wife of the late Robbie Shakespeare, Jelly.

Bailley, whose drum was placed front of stage, was also honoured to play that night for England-based reggae singer, Little Roy, the original singer for songs such as Prophecy and Tribal War.

The show restarted at 10:36 p.m. with band, Heavyweight Rockas, whose drummer stated that “rain did haffi settle the vibes because yuh dun know Uncle Sly powers strong”. They entertained with the class which has defined their performances. Roots Underground brought the curtains down on Reggae Wednesdays for 2026 on a high and a performance from Yung Muta was the icing on the cake.

Chairman of JaRIA, Ewan Simpson, told The Gleaner that Reggae Month was a challenge that he and his team “are proud to have successfully undertaken”.

“Our objectives have always been to showcase the best of reggae’s present past and future. We were able to achieve them in our concerts, as well as our Reggae Open University panels and our master classes. We are grateful for the opportunity to have been able to expand our reach to students and faculty of various educational institutions including The College of Agriculture Science and Education, Sam Sharpe Teachers College, Church Teachers College, and the Caribbean Military Academy,” Simpson said.

The goal, he explained, is also to expand JaRIA’s partnerships globally “to ensure that we have the funding to operate”

yasmine.peru@gleanerjm.com