Bunny Wailer, a founding member of Bob Marley and the Wailers and a legendary reggae singer, died on Tuesday; his manager confirmed to the Jamaica Observer. He was 73.
“He died about 8:00 this morning. I’m still right here with him,” his manager, Maxine Stowe, told the Observer from the Medical Associates Hospital in Kingston. The report cited no cause of death, but Wailer had been in poor health since suffering a second stroke last July.
Born Neville Livingston, Wailer was the last living member of the Wailers, which he founded in the early 1960s; along with Marley, who died of cancer in 1981, and Peter Tosh, who was murdered in 1987.
After leaving the group in the early 1970s, he went on to a solo career that included such albums as 1976’s Blackheart Man, and 1981’s Rock ‘n’ Groove. Wailer’s career reached across seven decades.
In 2017, the Jamaican Government awarded Bunny Wailer with the prestigious Order of Merit.
