Reggae icon Bunny Wailer dies at 73
‘Stages’ ‘BACK A YARD’
Arts has, therefore, announced
“Restart Stages,” a sweeping
initiative that will create
10 outdoor performance and
rehearsal spaces — an outdoor
performing arts center—
as well as other outdoor civic
venues to help kickstart the
performing arts sector and
contribute to the revival of
New York City.
The center said the project
is made possible by the generous
support of the Lincoln
Center Board of Directors and
the Stavros Niarchos Foundation
(SNF) as part of the SNFLincoln
Center Agora Initiative,
a collaboration that reimagines
and reactivates public
space for a new era.
As one of New York City’s
leading arts institutions and
an anchor of its cultural and
public life, Lincoln Center said
it is embarking on this effort
as “a symbol of its commitment
Caribbean L 32 ife, MARCH 5-11, 2021
to the city, and to an
equitable revitalization which
elevates all New Yorkers.”
Lincoln Center said “Restart
Stages” is a major, public-facing
component of its broader
effort to provide resources in
this moment not just to Lincoln
Center’s resident companies
but to the performing
arts community as a whole
— helping get artists back to
work and supporting institutions
from Brooklyn to the
Bronx to engage their communities
in the elevating power of
the arts.
Designed with expert advice
from medical and public
health professionals, Lincoln
Center said “Restart Stages”
will create “a safe, welcoming,
accessible, and dynamic environment
for arts and community
organizations from
across New York City, including
Lincoln Center resident
companies.”
cal fountain, singing hit
after hit for close to an
hour,” Shuzzr said.
With phones capturing
the magical
moments on stage, fans
swayed to Alkaline’s
beat, it said.
Delivering tracks
such as “City”, “Formula”,
“Move Mountain”,
“Block & Delete” and
“One More Time”, Shuzzr
said “fans frenzied
into a fever pitch, first
as background vocalists
then as lead singers for
the performance, as over
1000 in attendance were
treated to constant replays of
his musical hits.
“While performing his latest
single, screams, hollers
and salutes permeated the
air, with an almost overzealous
set of fans daring to pull
him closer to cure their thirst
for the 27-year-old artist,” it
added.
The listening time on the
“Back a Yard” Spotify playlist
is about 2 hrs., 51 min.,
Shuzzr said.
Continued from Page 31
The fountain at Lincoln Center. Jon Ortner
Continued from Page 31
Alkaline featured on Spotify’s
“Back A Yard.”
By Nelson A. King
Jamaican reggae icon Bunny
Wailer, a founding member of the
Wailers and a reggae music giant
whose career spanned seven
decades, died on Tuesday at the
Medical Associates Hospital in
Kingston, Jamaica, his manager,
Maxine Stowe, confirmed. He
was 73.
No cause of death was given,
but Wailer had been in and out
of the hospital since suffering his
second stroke in 2020, according
to RollingStone.
Bunny Wailer’s death was
reported initially by Jamaica’s
Observer newspaper, “which said
that he had been unwell since
enduring a second stroke in July
2020,” reported the US National
Public Radio (NPR).
It was confirmed by Olivia
Grange, Jamaica’s minister of
culture, gender, entertainment
and sport.
“I announce with deepest sadness
the passing of the patriarch,
brother, friend and Jamaican
music icon, the great Bunny
Wailer,” Grange said. “We mourn
the passing of this outstanding
singer, songwriter and percussionist,
and celebrate his life and
many accomplishments.
“We remain grateful for the
role that Bunny Wailer played in
the development and popularity
of reggae music across the
world,” she added.
RollingStone said that Wailer,
born Neville Livingstone
— before adopting his famous
moniker, he was also known
as Bunny Livingstone — was a
member of the original Wailers
trio with Bob Marley and Peter
Tosh.
Born April 10, 1947, in the
Nine Mile district of Jamaica’s
St. Ann Parish, Livingstone was
a friend of Marley from a young
age, RollingStone said.
Following the death of Marley’s
father, Norval, in 1955, RollingStone
said Marley’s mother,
Cedella, lived with Livingstone’s
father, Thaddeus, in Trench
Town, making Bunny and Bob
near-stepbrothers.
“While Marley and Livingstone
were being mentored by
Joe Higgs, ‘the Godfather of Reggae,’
they met Higgs’ fellow student
Peter Tosh; the then-trio
ventured to Kingston,” said RollingStone,
adding that, soon after,
they were joined by singer Junior
Braithwaite and backup vocalists
Beverley Kelso and Cherry
Smith.
Following a string of name
changes that included the Teenagers
and the Wailing Wailers,
the Wailers aligned with Coxsone
Dodd’s sound system and Studio
One label — which employed
songwriters and producers like
Lee “Scratch” Perry and Jackie
Mittoo — and released the Marley
penned “Simmer Down,” a
number One hit in Jamaica, RollingStone
said.
It said Braithwaite, Kelso and
Smith soon departed the Wailers,
leaving the nucleus of Marley,
Livingstone, and Tosh intact.
That trio recorded the band’s
debut LP, 1965’s the Wailing
Wailers, a collection of tracks the
band recorded during the mid-
60s, RollingStone said.
It said the Wailers then went
on hiatus as Marley married his
wife Rita and joined his mother
in Wilmington, Delaware.
During this period, Bunny
Wailer served a year-long sentence
for marijuana possession,
RollingStone said.
However, it said the three
principal Wailers reunited on
Marley’s return to Jamaica.
“While Marley and Tosh
served as the Wailers’ primary
singers and songwriters, Livingstone
(Bunny Wailer) played an
indispensable role in providing
harmonies to the trio’s songs,”
RollingStone said.
It said the Wailers next teamed
with Perry and his Upsetters for
1970’s Soul Rebels and 1971’s
Soul Revolution.
Around that time, Bunny
Wailer wrote and recorded one
of his signature songs, “Dreamland,”
a track he revisited when
he released his solo LP Blackheart
Man in 1976, RollingStone
said.
Even as the Wailers rose to
international success, touring
England and the US, “Wailer was
also recording singles in his own
right, and had formed his own
record label, as had Marley and
Tosh,” NPR said.
By 1974, it said both Wailer
and Tosh had departed from
the Wailers, “in part because the
music industry seemed intently
focused on making Marley a solo
star.”
Wailer’s subsequent hits
included the songs “Cool Runnings”
and “Ballroom Floor,” as
well as his 1976 album, Blackheart
Man, NPR said.
It said Wailer won three Grammys
in the early 1990s; in 2017,
he was awarded Jamaica’s Order
of Merit, one of his country’s
highest honors.
In a 2016 interview in New
York — during his first US tour
in more than two decades —
Wailer told NPR that he hoped to
“just keep on singing ska, rocksteady
and reggae music.
In this Aug. 28, 2014 fi le photo, legalization advocate and
reggae legend Bunny Wailer smokes a pipe stuffed with
marijuana during a “reasoning” session in a yard in Kingston,
Jamaica. Wailer, a reggae luminary who was the last
surviving original member of the legendary group The Wailers,
died on Tuesday, March 2, 2021, in his native Jamaica,
according to his manager. He was 73. (Associated Press/
David McFadden, File)