WORLD BASSISTS
01 ASTON ‘FAMILY MAN’ BARRETT
Aston Barrett is the key bassist in the emergence of reggae worldwide: His mighty influence towers over the genre. He was born in Kingston, Jamaica on November 22, 1946 and, along with his younger brother, drummer Carlton Barrett, got bitten by the music bug at an early age. The family home was in the same yard as a sax player called Val Bennett, and the ska and rocksteady innovators the Skatalites would come to rehearse there, too.
In his early days, Aston was a budding singer and pianist, singing bass in a harmony group, albeit to little effect. While at his day job as a welder, he constructed a one-string bass guitar from plywood and curtain rods that he’d twang while Carly hammered out rhythms on tins of paint. The Barrett boys broke through when Max Romeo’s backing band, the Hippy Boys, were a no-show at a gig. In they stepped, and so a
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