World of Jamaican Music

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An illustrated map of the creators of Jamaican music and how they are connected.

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Aston "Family Man" Barrett

Artist. Reggae

Active
1969-2024
Sunrise
November 22, 1946, Kingston, Jamaica
Sunset
February 3, 2024, Miami, Florida

Aston "Family Man" Barrett was the bassist who, with his brother Carlton on drums, built the rhythmic foundation of modern reggae. His bass lines carried melodic and harmonic weight rather than simply marking time, which inverted the conventional division of labor in a band: the bass sang, and the guitars played percussion.

Barrett was born in Kingston and took the nickname "Family Man" as a young man. It referred to his intention to hold a band together rather than, as is often assumed, to his eventual forty-one children. Before music supported him he worked as an electrical welder, a bicycle mechanic, and a blacksmith. His first bass was homemade: plywood nailed together, a curtain rod for a neck, and a single string. He taught himself to play on it.

He described first hearing the Wailers in the mid-1960s at a bar on the west side of Kingston, where a friend put "Simmer Down" on the jukebox and the group played nothing else for the rest of the visit. He was still welding at the time.

Barrett's account of his own playing was as much physical as musical. He called it the earth sound, and traced it to the upright bass of Lloyd Brevett, whose tone he tried to reproduce on an electric instrument. He also maintained that the planet was tuned to E flat, and that playing in that key brought a bassist to the center of the fretboard, where the instrument felt best. He played a Fender Jazz Bass through Acoustic 370 and Ampeg SVT amplifiers, with a custom double fifteen-inch cabinet Ampeg built to his own sketch, and used flatwound strings that Fender assembled for him by selecting four from a five-string set.

From the mid-1960s Aston and Carlton played together, first in the Hippy Boys, a club band that backed Max Romeo, and after 1969 in the Youth Professionals, who became the Rhythm Force. They became fixtures in Kingston studios and, through Lee "Scratch" Perry, met the Wailers. The first track the brothers cut with Marley, Bunny Livingston, Peter Tosh, and the Upsetters was "My Cup."

From that point the Barretts stayed with the Wailers until Marley's sunset and afterward. When Tosh and Livingston left in 1974, Marley asked Barrett what they were to do with only three of them remaining; Barrett's answer, that this was the power of the trinity, is among the more repeated lines in the group's history. Marley and the brothers formalized their arrangement by contract before recording Natty Dread, the first album credited to Bob Marley and the Wailers. Alongside the Wailers he played on Peter Tosh's Legalize It, Bunny Wailer's Blackheart Man, and Burning Spear's Marcus Garvey, and issued his own instrumentals and dubs on his Fam's and Cobra labels.

The New York Times obituary singled out the uniquely melodic bass on the Wailers' biggest hits, among them "Jammin'," "Three Little Birds," and "I Shot the Sheriff," noted that he moved easily between slow, brooding lines and light, playful ones, and described him as the band's arranger and musical director, often its producer as well; Vivien Goldman likened his sound to a fire in the hearth on a cold night. Roger Steffens, giving evidence in Barrett's royalty case in 2006, called him "undoubtedly the leader of the band" and described Marley bringing the rough idea of a song to the band and leaving them, under Barrett's direction, to flesh it out; he did not, the judge noted, endorse the Barretts' claims to authorship.

Robbie Shakespeare learned bass directly from Barrett and repeatedly said so, describing him as the player who started it all and who pushed him to work. Tina Weymouth, who met Barrett backstage at a Wailers show, described a sound that pulled and pushed against the beat while landing squarely on the downbeat. John Lennon, listening to Burnin' in 1980, remarked that the sound could not be got in New York.

After Marley's sunset in 1981 Barrett kept the Wailers band working, touring and preserving the arrangements. His son Aston Barrett Jr., a multi-instrumentalist and producer, joined the band and took over its leadership in 2016 with his father's blessing.

The financial returns never approached the creative contribution. In 2006 Barrett sued Island Records for £60 million in unpaid royalties, arguing through counsel that he and his brother had created the Wailers' sound. The court found that he had surrendered his rights in a 1994 settlement. He lost, faced roughly £2 million in costs, and sold two houses in Jamaica.

Jamaica awarded him the Order of Distinction in 2021, by which time ill health had ended his touring. He departed at University Hospital in Miami on February 3, 2024, at seventy-seven, two days after the opening of Jamaica's Reggae Month.

Last updated November 1, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Barrett described his approach: "It's like I am singing baritone. I create a melodic line each time." Quoted in "The 50 Greatest Bassists of All Time," Rolling Stone, July 2, 2020, https://au.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/50-greatest-bassists-of-all-time-13565/aston-family-man-barrett-13589/. Roger Steffens told the High Court in 2006 that "Aston's bass served not just as a rhythmic marker but also carried the melody of the song, in the manner of a lead instrument": Barrett v. Universal-Island Records Ltd., [2006] EWHC 1009 (Ch), May 15, 2006, https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/ch/2006/1009, para. 268.
  2. Murphy writes that Barrett chose the name as a youngster "to signify his intent to keep everyone in the band together": Bill Murphy, interview with Aston "Family Man" Barrett, Bass Player, October 2007, reprinted as "Guitar World: An Interview with Aston 'Family Man' Barrett," The Wailers, accessed October 1, 2026, https://www.thewailers.com/guitar-world-an-interview-with-aston-family-man-barrett/. On the forty-one children (twenty-three daughters and eighteen sons), "Family Man (Musician)," Wikipedia, accessed October 1, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Man_(musician). Katz gives the same explanation of the nickname and the totals Barrett gave the BBC in 2013, twenty-three daughters and eighteen sons: David Katz, "Aston 'Family Man' Barrett Obituary," Guardian, February 4, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/feb/04/aston-family-man-barrett.
  3. Barrett: "Before then I was an electrical welder and a bike mechanic and a blacksmith." Kevin Johnson, "Legend: An Interview with Aston 'Family Man' Barrett," No Treble, June 26, 2014, https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2014/06/26/legend-an-interview-with-aston-family-man-barrett/.
  4. Barrett described it to Johnson as plywood nailed together with "a curtain rod for a neck, and a curtain rod line for a string": Johnson, "Legend." Murphy's account adds a length of two-by-four and an old wooden ashtray for the bridge: Murphy, interview.
  5. Barrett told Johnson that after a friend played "Simmer Down" on the jukebox, "No more other songs played in the bar while we were there": Johnson, "Legend."
  6. Barrett: "I call it the earth sound," and "Lloyd Brevett was one of my favorite bass players from Jamaica, and he played upright bass": Murphy, interview.
  7. Barrett: "I realized the whole planet is tuned to Eb.... When you play in that key, it makes you come to the center of the fretboard": Murphy, interview.
  8. On the Fender Jazz Bass and the Acoustic 370 and Ampeg SVT amplifiers, "Family Man (Musician)," Wikipedia. On the strings, in Barrett's words, and on the custom Ampeg double fifteen-inch cabinet built to "a sketch" he drew, as described by his son, Johnson, "Legend." Murphy quotes Barrett recalling Acoustic amplifiers with two eighteen-inch and two four-by-fifteen cabinets: Murphy, interview.
  9. Max Romeo recalled forming the Hippy Boys: Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 105. The High Court judgment in Barrett's 2006 royalty case records that the Barretts "and others" formed the Hippy Boys in 1967: Barrett v. Universal-Island Records, para. 18. Bradley lists the Soul Mates and the Hippy Boys among Joe Gibbs's acts: Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 226. Katz says Barrett joined the Hippy Boys "in the mid-1960s," backing Max Romeo in Kingston clubs, and that after the Upsetters' British tour of 1969 he formed the Youth Professionals, who later became Rhythm Force: Katz, "Barrett Obituary."
  10. On the Hippy Boys becoming Perry's Upsetters, Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 128, 137. Barrett's own evidence in 2006, as the court summarized it, was that Alva Lewis introduced him to Marley, who had heard the band on the radio, and that they met "in an alleyway in Kingston": Barrett v. Universal-Island Records, para. 18.
  11. Barrett: "the first track we do with the Wailers ... was called My Cup": Murphy, interview. Barrow and Dalton date the Wailers' time with Perry to "less than a year between August 1970 and April 1971" and note that "Duppy Conqueror" was "only the second track the group cut with Scratch at Randy's": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 138, 130. Bradley, by contrast, dates the Wailers' immersion "with Scratch" to 1969: Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 402. The 2006 judgment has the Barretts joining the Wailers "in about 1970": Barrett v. Universal-Island Records, para. 18.
  12. Bradley notes that by the Black Ark years the brothers "were now full-time members of the Wailers' band": Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 326.
  13. Barrett: "Bob said to me, 'What are we gonna do now? There's only three of us left.' And I said, 'That's the power of the trinity.'" Murphy, interview. Barrow and Dalton write that the original trio "had done their last work together by the end of 1973": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 138.
  14. Murphy, relaying Barrett's account, writes that in 1974 Marley and the brothers "solidified their working relationship in the form of a contract before heading again into the studio": Murphy, interview. The 2006 judgment, however, places the Natty Dread sessions in mid-1974 and the written agreement on October 15 or 16, 1974: Barrett v. Universal-Island Records, paras. 27, 29. On Natty Dread as the first album after Tosh and Livingston left, Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 416. Katz says he was "made bandleader and musical arranger in 1974 during the recording of the Natty Dread album,": Katz, "Barrett Obituary."
  15. Katz, "Barrett Obituary," which also names Burning Spear's Dry and Heavy and Social Living and Augustus Pablo's East of the River Nile among his sessions.
  16. "Aston Barrett, 77, Bass-Playing Force with Bob Marley and Wailers, Dies," New York Times, February 2024, reprinted in Boston Globe, February 9, 2024, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/02/08/metro/aston-barrett-77-bass-playing-force-with-bob-marley-wailers-dies.
  17. Barrett v. Universal-Island Records, paras. 268-69.
  18. Shakespeare told Murphy, "That's who I get my teaching from," and Barrett recalled giving him his first Hofner bass: Murphy, interview. In 2009 Shakespeare called Barrett "a master for me" and recalled him rousing him with "Ay, get up, get up": quoted in Emma Lewis, "'The Bass Is the Backbone': Aston 'Family Man' Barrett, Bass Player for Jamaica's Iconic 'Wailers' Band, Passes Away at 77," Global Voices, February 5, 2024, https://globalvoices.org/2024/02/05/the-bass-is-the-backbone-aston-family-man-barrett-bass-player-for-jamaicas-iconic-wailers-band-passes-away-at-77/. Katz names Shakespeare and Tyrone Downie as younger musicians Barrett mentored: Katz, "Barrett Obituary."
  19. Lennon's words are given as "You couldn't get that sound in New York. No way!" in Albert Goldman, The Lives of John Lennon (1988), 644, as cited in "Family Man (Musician)," Wikipedia.
  20. Lewis writes that Aston Barrett Jr. "took over as drummer and leader of the post-Marley Wailers band in 2016": Lewis, "'The Bass Is the Backbone.'"
  21. Barrett sought £60 million: Danielle Chelosky, "Bob Marley & the Wailers Bassist Aston 'Family Man' Barrett Dead at 77," Stereogum, February 3, 2024, https://stereogum.com/2250192/bob-marley-the-wailers-bassist-aston-family-man-barrett-dead-at-77/news. His counsel told the court that "Aston Barrett and his brother literally created the sound of The Wailers": "Bob Marley Bassist Loses Royalties Claim," NME, May 15, 2006, https://www.nme.com/news/music/bob-marley-32-1357876. The judge held that "all the claims that Mr Aston Barrett brings in his personal capacity have been compromised by the settlement agreement" of 1994 and dismissed the claim: Barrett v. Universal-Island Records, paras. 161, 401. On the costs and the sale of two homes, "Family Man (Musician)," Wikipedia.
  22. On the Order of Distinction (Commander class) in 2021, "'Iconic Musician' Aston 'Family Man' Barrett Dies at 77," Jamaica Gleaner, February 3, 2024, http://past.jamaica-gleaner.com/article/entertainment/20240203/iconic-musician-aston-family-man-barrett-dies-77. Lewis notes that he retired in 2019: Lewis, "'The Bass Is the Backbone.'"
  23. The Gleaner names the hospital as the University of Miami Hospital: "'Iconic Musician' Aston 'Family Man' Barrett Dies at 77." On Reggae Month, Lewis, "'The Bass Is the Backbone.'"

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