Remembering Bunny Striker Lee

Bunny “Striker” Lee is one of the most influential and prolific producers in reggae history who grew up in the Greenwich Town area of Kingston, where his father was a shoemaker. Lee began his career working as a record plugger for Duke Reid's Treasure Isle label in 1962, later performing the same duties for Leslie Kong^. He then moved on to work with Ken Lack, initially in an administrative role, before taking on engineering duties. He is best known for pioneering the art of the dub, expanding the parameters of studio technology like no Jamaican producer before him. Working along with his engineer, the equally legendary Osbourne “King Tubby” Ruddock, they maximized the creative possibilities of each and every rhythm to generate a seemingly endless series of mixes spread across literally thousands of recordings.

Born in Jamaica on August 23, 1941; Edward O’Sullivan Lee entered the music industry in 1962 through his brother-in-law, the great reggae singer Derrick Morgan, landing a job as a record plugger for Duke Reid's famed Treasure Isle label. By the mid-'60s, Lee was working with Ken Lack’s Caltone label on which he produced his first record in 1967, Lloyd Jackson & the Groovers' "Listen to the Beat." His first significant hit, Roy Shirley's "Music Field," followed later that year on West Indies Record Label (WIRL). after which Lee then set up his own Lee's label. He produced further hits during 1967–68 by Lester Sterling and Stranger Cole “Woman no Want Bangarang.” This record brought together Bunny Lee’s famous band the Aggrovators featuring the Barrett brothers Aston and Carlton. Other hit tunes came from Derrick Morgan's "Hold You Jack," Slim Smith's "My Conversation," “and Pat Kelly's "Little Boy Blue." These songs established Bunny Lee as one of Jamaica's top producers at the time. 

Between 1969 and 1972 Bunny produced classic hits including Slim Smith's “Gypsy Woman” “Let Me Go Girl,” “The Time Has Come,” “Beatitudes,” "Everybody Needs Love". Max Romeo’s "Wet Dream," “Let The Power” , Delroy Wilson’s "Better Must Come", Dennis Alcapone’s “It Must Come” Eric Donaldson's "Cherry Oh Baby", and John Holt's "Stick By Me". Bunny Lee did a lot of work with Scratch Perry, putting out a number of classic experimental work including The Aggrovators “Return of Django,” “For A Few Dollars More” out a lot of seminal work with the concept of dub, a phenomenon that Striker would pursue with passion in later years. That aside, Lee’s work with Scratch brought him into contact with Chris Blackwell and resulted in Lee licensing much of his output to Blackwell and gaining entry into the British reggae market. Lee would visit the UK in 1968/69 under the auspices of Blackwell and his Island Records operations. Blackwell allowed Lee to establish Jackpot Records as an offshoot of Island’s Trojan Records. He also set himself up with the competition the Palmer Brothers (Pama Records) in the early 1970s.

As the decade drew to its close, Lee was among the most successful producers in reggae. By 1971 he was working side by side with engineer King Tubby, who almost singlehandedly invented dub by taking existing master tapes and -- after cutting out vocals, bringing up the bass lines, and adding and subtracting other instruments -- creating new rhythm tracks for sound system DJs to voice over. Later adding delays, fades, and phasing to his sonic arsenal. Glen Adams’ “John Crow Skank” with the application of the electronic organ would forever change the sound of Jamaican music.

 At the time they started their collaboration, Tubby was already renowned throughout the Jamaican music industry but together, the duo produced the finest music of their respective careers. Unlike most of his producer peers, Lee recorded his celebrated studio band the Aggrovators with Tubbys remixing skills firmly in mind, crafting deep, dense rhythms strong enough to survive even the most strenuous studio reworking, and together they unleashed some of the most enduring dub versions ever cut and the dubs such as “Sun is Shining Dub,” “Creation of Dub” In addition to dub sides and instrumentals, Lee would be one of the first producers to realize the potential of reusing the same rhythm tracks time and time again with different singers and deejays partly out of necessity including U-Roy’s “The Love I Bring,” Dennis Alcapone’s “You Don’t Care.” Promoted clashes between I-Roy and Prince Jazzbo kept his audience connected with I-Roy’s “Straight to Jazzbo’s Head” and Jazzbo’s reply “I-Roy Yuh a Bwoy.” Unlike some of the other major producers Lee did not have his own studio and had to make the most of the studio time he paid for.

The latter half of the 1970s saw Lee work with some of Jamaica's top new talent including Cornel Campbell “I Am The Gorgan,” “Dance Down A Greenwich Farm” Linval Thompson “Don’t You Cut Off Yuh Dreadlocks”, Leroy Smart, and Barry Brown, Horace Andy “Just Say Who,” “The Love of A Woman,” “You Are My Angel.”  

At the peak of his career essentially the period from 1969 to 1977 - Lee produced thousands of records, creating a labyrinthine discography of vocal sides, DJ records, and dub versions, each disc seemingly spun off from another. Lee, by his efforts, broke the dominance of Clement Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reid. This era also saw the emergence of the "flying cymbal" sound on Lee's productions, developed by drummer Carlton 'Santa' Davis, with Lee's session band, The Aggrovators.

Among Lee's most influential projects was a 1974 collaboration with singer Johnny Clarke which yielded a series of roots reggae classics including “Creation Rebel,” "None Shall Escape the Judgement" and "Move Out of Babylon." That same year, he also revisited

 Owen Grey’s smash "Bongo Natty," while the 1975 Cornel Campbell hit "The Gorgon" launched a number of like-minded "Gorgon rock" records. At one time or another, Lee also worked with everyone from Jackie Edwards to Alton Ellis  “Play It Cool,” “I’ll Be Waiting,” to Ken Boothe “Moving Away”, and for all of his experimental instincts, he also possessed a commercial flair equal to any of his contemporaries.

By the early '80s, however, Tubby was running his own studio and producing his own records, and although they continued to collaborate on occasion, both the quality and quantity of Lee's recordings began to slide; he later purchased producer Joe Gibbs' former Kingston-area studio, making a few half-hearted attempts at working with digital technology but otherwise easing into retirement as the years passed, his place in reggae history assured. Bunny “Striker” Lee died on October 6, 2020, due to heart failure after struggling for months with kidney disease. He was 79 years old.