Sly Dunbar, the reggae legend who played with everyone from Bob Marley to the Rolling Stones, has died at the age of 73.

One of the genre’s most respected drummers, he played on songs such as Bob Marley’s Punky Reggae Party and the Dave and Ansel Collins classic “Double Barrel.”

But he was best known as one half of Sly and Robbie, the production team that produced groundbreaking hits for everyone from Peter Tosh and Black Uhuru to non-reggae artists such as Bob Dylan, Grace Jones and Ian Dury.

Dunbar’s death was first reported by his wife, Thelma, who told Jamaican newspaper The Gleaner that she found him unresponsive on Monday morning. The musician’s agent and publicist confirmed the news to the BBC.

Born Lowell Fillmore Dunbar in Kingston, Jamaica, he began performing in a tin can after seeing Lloyd Knibbs and the Skatalites on television.

“I saw it. [Knibbs] “He’s the hardest worker in the band, so I was playing with him and thought, ‘I want to be a drummer,'” he said in a 1997 interview.

“He’s my idol! In a way, I’m self-taught, but I watched other drummers play and got a lot of help from them.”

As a teenager, Dunbar met bassist Robbie Shakespeare, forming the Revolutions’ rhythm section and becoming a regular session musician at the famous Channel One Recording Studio.

Their sound was different from Bob Marley’s melodious music, with an emphasis on beats, including their pioneering “rockers” rhythms, which introduced more syncopation and energy into their music.

They spent the 1970s working with major reggae artists such as Gregory Isaacs, Dennis Brown and Barrington Levy, as well as touring the United States with Peter Tosh.

Legend has it that the two were living on bread and water at the time, hoping to save enough money to start their own production company.

Taxi Records was officially founded in 1980 and fostered a new generation of Jamaican artists such as Shaggy, Shabba Ranks, Skip Marley, Beenie Man, and Red Dragon.

Around the same time, they provided the thunderous beats for Grace Jones’ 1981 hit album Nightclubbing, which opened the door for them to work with some of rock and pop’s greatest artists, from Dylan and Joe Cocker to singers like Marianne Faithful, Madonna and Sinead O’Connor.

Domestically, they gained acclaim for updating the sound of reggae by incorporating more electronic instruments and textures.

They then developed an upbeat, melodic interpretation of dancehall with the duo Chaka Demas & Pryors, scoring hits in the early 1990s with songs like “Tease Me” and “Murder She Wrote.”

At one point, Shakespeare (who died in 2021) estimated that he and Dunbar had participated in more than 200,000 recordings, either for themselves or as producers for backing musicians and other artists.

“When you buy a reggae record, 90 percent of the time the drummer is Sly Dunbar,” producer Brian Eno said at the New Music New York Festival in 1979.

“You get the impression that Sly Dunbar is tied to a seat in a studio somewhere in Jamaica, but his drum tracks are actually so interesting that they get used over and over again.”

Dunbar’s wife said she found him unresponsive in bed around 7 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 26.

“I went to wake him up and he wasn’t responding so I called the doctor and it was on the news,” she said.

The exact cause of death has not been revealed, but Dunbar had reportedly been ill for some time.

“Yesterday was a very good day for him,” Thelma told The Jamaica Gleaner.

“He came to visit his friends and we all had a great time. He ate well yesterday…sometimes he’s not interested in food. I knew he was sick…but I didn’t know he was this sick.”

Among those paying tribute was British DJ David Rodigan, who called Dunbar a “true icon” and “one of the greatest drummers of all time”.