Sly Dunbar was one half of the greatest reggae rhythm section in history, alongside the late and equally great Robbie Shakespeare.

I can’t think of any other rhythm section so inseparable that they are known universally by both their names – Sly & Robbie. Nor, with the exception of Ringo, can I think of any others who needed no surname for everyone to know exactly who they were.

Sly and Robbie were not just a rhythm section: they laid the foundations of Jamaican music and invented the militant “rockers” style of reggae not so much single-handedly as quadruple-handedly. 

Four years ago we – and he – lost Robbie Shakespeare, the bass guitarist of the duo, and now we’ve lost Sly Dunbar, the drummer. Inseparable in life; together again in death.

A list of their credits would take too long to type because they played on literally thousands of tunes. Likewise, a single song to define their sound together would be almost impossible because you could choose almost any reggae record and they’d be the ones laying down the backbone.

They played on the very first reggae song I ever heard at the age of 13 – Double Barrel by Dave & Ansel Collins – which I can still clearly remember hearing on a transistor radio when I was at boarding school. It was also the first song Sly ever recorded, just five years older than me at the age of 18. 

That tune, and its follow-up Monkey Spanner, proved to be my gateway drug into reggae – and I’m still addicted all these years later. 

Sly & Robbie started out in The Revolutionaries as the house band at Channel One Studios in Kingston, where so many great records were recorded in the ’70s and into the ’80s.

They played with many of the biggest names of reggae – Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, The Mighty Diamonds and Black Uhuru – and some of the biggest names in rock, touring with The Rolling Stones and recording with Ian Dury Joe Cocker, Grace Jones, No Doubt and Bob Dylan.

Here he is, alongside the ever-present Robbie – and Mark Knopfler and Mick Taylor on guitar – playing on Dylan’s magnificent song Jokerman, the opening number from his 1984 album Infidels.