It began with two teenage brothers in search of rhythm, circa 1961, in Kingston, Jamaica.
Carly Barrett wanted to be a drummer, so he found a collection of discarded and variously sized paint cans and set them up like a drum kit. Aston Barrett wanted to play bass, so he hammered a piece of plywood onto a 2 x 4 and strung a single string – pulled from a curtain rod – along the length of the wood. He used an ashtray to form a bridge for the string.
Thus situated, they began to play music. By the end of the decade, everybody in Kingston town knew the Barrett brothers. They were the rhythm section for their own band, called The Hippy Boys, and later for an influential band called The Upsetters formed by the legendary Lee “Scratch” Perry.
But in 1971, a young singer named Bob Marley came calling. He’d formed his own band, The Wailers, and he liked what he heard from the Barrett brothers. Aston Barrett – better known as Family Man in Jamaica – recalled that first meeting in an interview with Phillip Farber of Marleysite.com.
“He was trying to get all his favorite musicians to vibe with him, so I was called upon,” Barrett said. “He heard some of my production, what I did, and asked ‘Who played this music?’ They say, ‘The man they call Family Man.’ He sent out someone to search for me. I went there and see the man and the man say, ‘You they call Family Man?’ I say, ‘Yeah.’ So he say, ‘Is it really you play all of those sounds on bass? You got to be the right man, then.’”
The Barretts would tour with Marley until his untimely death in 1981. In 1987, Carly Barrett would die at the age of 37 when he was murdered outside his home in Kingston.
Family Man is still wailing. Barrett, 64, is the only original member keeping The Wailers legacy alive. Barrett, who appears with the current iteration of The Wailers at Brixton this Tuesday, is one of the true originators of the sound that we now call reggae music. He was the arranger and de facto band leader on Marley’s most beloved songs. But his true musical legacy may simply be creating some of the fattest bass lines that had ever been thumped on record prior to the arrival of the “one drop” style of reggae music he and his brother helped usher along.
Barrett, in a remarkable interview earlier this year with music historian and blogger Jas Obrecht (jasobrecht.com), noted that prior to reggae’s arrival on American shores, popular music was rarely built around the elemental core of bass and drum.
“Because the drum, it is the heartbeat, and the bass, it is the backbone,” Barrett said. “So if the drummer is not right, the music is gonna have a bad heart. And if the bass is not right, the music is gonna have a bad back, so it would be crippled. So that’s what the new concept in music was when they have the big talk in Los Angeles, you know – that’s not only the musical capital of the United States, but the world. That was in ’73, ’74. And guess what was the big argument all about? The new concept in music in all this – the drum and the bass! Because America music, they used to hide it. You’d have violins and voices and ching-ching-ching and a horn section, and the drums was way back. So we says, no. Reggae music, it is the heartbeat of the people. It is the universal language what carry the message of roots, culture, and reality. So you have to feel that [imitates rhythm section] ping, puff, too-too-too-too, you know, dub section.”
Family Man has earned his name – he has 42 children and 30 grandchildren – as well as his place in music history. He was an essential part of the sound for which Marley is so devotedly remembered.
“They say we are ‘two-chord musicians…” he told Obrecht. “And I say, ‘Yes! I agree. But which two chords? With what tempo? And what riff?’ That what make it so special. And Bob used the same words I. ‘Is me, mon. Me not prettified singer.’ I said to Bob, ‘I know that. You’re not a prettified singer. You are the greatest expressionist who express lyrics within melody and music. No one does it like you did it.’”
The same could be said for Family Man – no one does it quite as he has done it. And he has no plans to stop.
“I’m the captain of the ship [The Wailers]. I keep it and I sail it,” he said. “I won’t let it go down like the Titanic!”
The Wailers play Brixton on the Redondo Beach pier Aug 9 at 8 p.m. For tickets see www.brixtonsouthbay.com.
