Carlton Barrett

"Carly Barrett", as he liked to be called, was born in Jamaica in 1950, the son of Wilfred and Violet Barrett. As a teenager he built his first set of drums out of some empty paint tins, and had initially been influenced by Lloyd Knibb, the great drummer from the Skatalites. He and his brother Aston were raised in Kingston and absorbed the emerging ska sound. Working as a welder he first tried building a guitar and playing. He realised guitar wasn't his thing and picked up the drums.

In the late 1960s Carlton started playing sessions with his brother Aston, the pair calling themselves the Soul Mates or the Rhythm Force, before settling on The Hippy Boys, a line-up that featured Max Romeo on vocals. Leroy Brown, Delano Stewart, Glen Adams and Alva Lewis also played in the band's fluctuating line-up.

The Hippy Boys became one of Kingston's busiest session bands; fittingly their first recording was "Watch This Sound", backing the late Slim Smith. They also released a couple of albums for Lloyd Charmers, Reggae with the Hippy Boys and Reggae Is Tight. As well as playing on many sessions for Bunny Lee and Sonia Pottinger, the Barrett brothers also played on two 1969 UK chart hits, "Liquidator" for Harry J, and "Return of Django" for Lee "Scratch" Perry, with whom they had now taken root.

For Perry, they took the name The Upsetters, and knocked out a long run of instrumentals, including "Clint Eastwood", "Cold Sweat", "Night Doctor", and "Live Injection". It was while with Perry that the Barrett brothers first teamed up with The Wailers, then a vocal trio consisting of Bob, Peter and Bunny. After recording many now classic numbers, Carly and Aston decided to team up with The Wailers on a permanent basis.

The Barrett brothers recorded several singles with the Wailers in 1969-70: "My Cup", "Duppy Conqueror", "Soul Rebel", and "Small Axe". Most of these songs appeared on two Perry-produced Wailers albums: Soul Rebels and Soul Revolution, and formed the early foundation of the one drop sound.

Though original Wailers Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston left the group in 1973, Carlton and Aston remained with Bob Marley and went on to record Natty Dread in 1974. Carlton has songwriting credits for two of Natty Dread's songs: "Talkin' Blues" and "Them Belly Full".

Carlton remained with the Wailers in the studio and on tour until Bob Marley's death in 1981. His signature style can be heard on every recording the Wailers produced since 1969, with the exception of the 1970 "Soul Shakedown Party" sessions produced by Leslie Kong.

On 17 April 1987, just as Carlton arrived at his Kingston home and walked across his yard, a gunman stepped up behind him and shot him twice in the head. He was dead on arrival at a Kingston hospital at age 36.

Shortly after his murder, Carlton's wife, Albertine, her lover, a taxi driver named Glenroy Carter, and another man, Junior Neil, were arrested and charged with his killing. Albertine and Carter escaped the murder charge, and were instead convicted and sentenced to 7 years for conspiracy. After just one year in prison, they were released in December 1992 on a legal technicality.

Throughout his tenure with the Wailers and other projects, Carlton used a standard five-piece drum set consisting of a bass drum, two tom-toms (mounted on the bass drum), a floor tom-tom, and a snare drum.

Each tom-tom had only one drumhead, which gave the drums a dry sound that was ideal for the close-miked environment of the recording studio. However, it was Carlton's snare drum which was perhaps the biggest part of his signature sound. For much of the Wailer's early career, Carlton, like the othe band members were often relying on either studio supplied or rented gear, so the kits he played on varied though he came to favor Ludwig drums, and his snare was the popular Supraphonic model, which is made of "ludalloy", an aluminium alloy. The metal construction of the drum, in combination with the extremely high head tension that Carlton preferred, produced a loud, cutting "crack" sound that was a very prominent element of the Wailers' recordings. Carlton almost always left the snare wires of the drum disengaged, making the drum sound very similar to a timbale. Later in the late '70s Barrett was also known to use Yamaha drums when they began to be the favored brand circulating amongst many musicians.

It is unknown exactly what make and model of cymbals were used on Carlton's drum set, although it is very likely that they were made by the Avedis Zildjian Company in the United States and imported into Jamaica; certainly in many of the later photos and videos of the band the Zildjian logo was noticeably present on his cymbals. Carlton used only a pair of hi-hat cymbals usually 14" in size, (relatively light in weight, thought to perhaps be Zildjian's new beat models which were there most popular type), at times with a cloth placed between the two cymbals. He also usually used at least two crash cymbals (most likely of medium weight), sometimes more, that were any combination of 14", 16", 17" and 18" sizes. However, due the nature of Carlton's style, in which the snare drum, bass drum, and hi-hat cymbals were the primary timekeeping instruments, he did not use a ride cymbal though some photos do show him with smaller, splash-type effect cymbals.

He also used a cowbell for live performances, evident in Bob Marley & The Wailers album Live!.

• Carlton Barrett Website