World of Jamaican Music

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

Remembering Derrick Harriott (1939-2026), rocksteady singer and producer. Read his story →

Carlton Barrett

Artist. Reggae

Active
1969-1987
Sunrise
December 17, 1950, Kingston, Jamaica
Sunset
April 17, 1987, Kingston, Jamaica (life taken)

Carlton "Carly" Barrett was the drummer for Bob Marley and the Wailers and, with his brother Aston on bass, half of the Wailers' rhythm section. The one drop, in which the bass drum and snare land together on the third beat while the hi-hat carries a broken, syncopated figure, is his signature more than anyone else's.

He was born in Kingston to Wilford and Viola Barrett and worked as a welder as a teenager. He tried guitar first, then built a kit from paint cans found in the street. Lloyd Knibb of the Skatalites was his model.

From the mid-1960s he and Aston played together, first in the Hippy Boys, a group that included Max Romeo on vocals and a rotating cast including Glen Adams and Alva Lewis, and after 1969 in the Youth Professionals, later the Rhythm Force. They released two albums for Lloyd Charmers and became one of the busiest bands in Kingston. Working as the rhythm section of Lee Perry's Upsetters, they cut the instrumental hits "Clint Eastwood," "Night Doctor," "Cold Sweat," and "Live Injection," and it was through Perry that they met the Wailers.

The 1969 and 1970 Wailers singles, "My Cup," "Duppy Conqueror," "Soul Rebel," and "Small Axe," are where the mature style first appears. The one drop is generally credited as an invention to Winston Grennan; what Barrett did was make it the default. He and Aston stayed with Marley after Tosh and Livingston left in 1973, and Carlton played on every Wailers album from Catch a Fire through Uprising. He took songwriting credits on "Talkin' Blues" and "Them Belly Full," and is credited with Allan Cole for the music of "War," which sets Haile Selassie's 1963 address to the United Nations.

The sound came partly from the setup. One survey of reggae's greatest drummers points to "the dry tuning of his drumset, his very tight high-pitched snare, and timbale use," and to the "complex triplet hi-hat variations" heard on "Running Away"; it calls his style "wildly dynamic, focusing on the discipline of the groove with slight variations." That broken triplet hi-hat was widely copied, by Stewart Copeland of the Police among others.

He recorded outside the Wailers as well, on Bunny Wailer's Blackheart Man, Augustus Pablo's King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown, and Peter Tosh's Legalize It and Equal Rights.

On the evening of April 17, 1987, his life was taken by a gunman, who shot him twice in the head as he crossed the yard of his house at 12 Bridgemount Park Avenue in Kingston. He was thirty-six. His widow Albertine Barrett, a taxi driver named Glenroy Carter, and a third man, Junior Neil, were charged. In October 1991 all three were convicted of conspiracy to murder and sentenced to seven years. The convictions were overturned by the Jamaican Court of Appeal, and at a retrial in 1994 the jury acquitted all three after deliberating for twenty-five minutes. The killing remains unsolved.

One writer says his style became a template for reggae drummers around the world. "If you hear me playing a Carlie Barrett riff," Santa Davis has said, "then that's just me paying respect."

Last updated November 4, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Wikipedia credits him with "popularising the one drop rhythm" and with "a highly syncopated, broken triplet pattern on the hi-hat": "Carlton Barrett," Wikipedia, accessed October 1, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlton_Barrett. Bradley describes the one drop, a single kick-drum strike on the third beat, as already a studio term in the rocksteady era: Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 165. Roger Steffens told the High Court in 2006 of "Carlton's pioneering 'one drop' drumming, utilizing the roots sound of Rastafarian ritualistic drum patterns, the music's 'heartbeat'": Barrett v. Universal-Island Records Ltd. and Others, [2006] EWHC 1009 (Ch), May 15, 2006, https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/ch/2006/1009, para. 268.
  2. Katz names the brothers' parents as Wilford Barrett, a blacksmith, and Viola (née Marshall), and says the family lived in a tenement yard on Beeston Street in downtown Kingston: David Katz, "Aston 'Family Man' Barrett Obituary," Guardian, February 4, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/feb/04/aston-family-man-barrett. On the paint-can drums and Knibb, "Carlton Barrett," Wikipedia, which gives the parents as Wilfred and Violet.
  3. Max Romeo recalled forming the Hippy Boys with "Family Man and his brother Carlton Barrett," Alva Lewis, and Glen Adams: Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 105. Katz puts the Hippy Boys in the mid-1960s and the Youth Professionals and Rhythm Force after the Upsetters' British tour of 1969: Katz, "Barrett Obituary." Wikipedia also gives the Soul Mates: "Carlton Barrett," Wikipedia.
  4. On "Night Doctor" and "Live Injection," Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 87; on the Hippy Boys as Perry's Upsetters, 128.
  5. Bradley places the Wailers "with Scratch in 1969": Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 402; Barrow and Dalton put it between August 1970 and April 1971: Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 138. On "My Cup," "Duppy Conqueror," and "Small Axe," 130. Katz writes that Winston Grennan "developed for rock steady the one-drop rhythm," and that Grennan tutored other drummers, among them Carlton Barrett: David Katz, "Winston Grennan," Guardian, November 8, 2000, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/nov/08/guardianobituaries.
  6. On the Barretts as the core of the Wailers' band from Catch a Fire on, Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 137; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 326.
  7. On the credit to Allan "Skill" Cole and Carlton Barrett, "War (Bob Marley Song)," Wikipedia, accessed October 1, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_(Bob_Marley_song). In the 2006 case the brothers claimed "Talkin' Blues," "Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)," and "Revolution" for Carlton with Legon Coghil, and "War" for Carlton with Allan Cole. The original Natty Dread sleeve gave "Talkin' Blues" and "Them Belly Full" as "Copyright Control," and the credits came later, on the album's CD reissue and on Live!; the judge, finding that Marley "did deliberately give writing credits to people who had no part in the composition" of songs, did not uphold the claims: Barrett v. Universal-Island Records, paras. 34, 289, 291, 335.
  8. Kieran Meadows, "Toppa Top 10: Reggae's Ten Greatest Drummers," LargeUp, April 29, 2014, https://largeup.com/2014/04/29/toppa-top-10-reggaes-greatest-drummers/9.
  9. Howard Campbell, "Sly Dunbar and Carlton Barrett among 100 Most Influential Drummers," Jamaica Observer, February 21, 2015, https://jamaicaobserver.com/2015/02/21/sly-dunbar-and-carlton-barrett-among-100-most-influential-drummers.
  10. Wikipedia notes his recordings with Bunny Wailer, Augustus Pablo, and Peter Tosh: "Carlton Barrett," Wikipedia.
  11. Hibbert gives the time as about 9:30 p.m. and the place as his gate at 12 Bridgemount Park Avenue, Kingston 8: Sybil E. Hibbert, "'Cheating' Wife Freed of Murder of Musician Carlton Barrett," Jamaica Observer, March 8, 2013, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2013/03/08/cheating-wife-freed-of-murder-of-musician-carlton-barrett/.
  12. On Albertine Barrett, Glenroy Carter, and Junior "Bang" Neil, Hibbert, "'Cheating' Wife Freed."
  13. Hibbert reports the seven-year sentences of October 18, 1991, the successful appeal, and the 1994 retrial before Justice Bingham, at which the jury returned not-guilty verdicts after twenty-five minutes: Hibbert, "'Cheating' Wife Freed."
  14. Hibbert, "'Cheating' Wife Freed."
  15. Dubmatix, "Carlton 'Carly' Barrett: A Reggae Drumming Legend," Bass Culture Music Magazine, March 20, 2025, https://bassculture.substack.com/p/carlton-carly-barrett-a-reggae-drumming.
  16. Angus Taylor, "Carlton 'Santa' Davis on 'Flying Cymbals,' King Tubby and Reggae's Evolution," FACT, April 2, 2016, https://factmag.com/2016/04/02/santa-davis-flying-cymbals-reggae-drummer-interview.

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