Sly and Robbie: 11 Songs You Didn’t Know They Played On

A couple of years after the British industrial group the Normal recorded the beat-heavy synth-pop curiosity “Warm Leatherette,” Grace Jones humanized it with rock and disco instrumentation — and some especially funky drum and bass courtesy of Sly and Robbie. The album also features Jones, Dunbar, and Shakespeare putting their spins on Pretenders, Roxy Music, and Tom Petty songs. And don’t miss the incredible dub-reggae version of Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control” they recorded around the same time. Sly and Robbie also performed on Jones’ bestselling albums Nightclubbing (1981) and Living My Life (1982).

Sly and Robbie were well established as reggae’s most rock-solid rhythm section when Serge Gainsbourg, the French singer-songwriter known for louche, envelope-pushing pop songs, became enamored with the genre. He traveled to Kingston in early 1979 to record Aux Armes Et Cætera, an LP that featured both Dunbar and Shakespeare, as well as Rita Marley, a member of the I Threes, and musicians who’d played with Lee Perry and Burning Spear. His second reggae album, Mauvaises Nouvelles Des Étoiles (1981), featured the same lineup and the excellent deep cut “Bana Basadi Balalo,” which shows off Dunbar’s range, from a military marching snare to a polyphony of reggae percussion that makes Gainsbourg’s mumbling feel somehow groovy.

Lord Upminster, proud post-punk weirdo Ian Dury’s second shot at a major-label album, made good use of his major-label budget with appearances from Talking Heads’ Tina Weymouth, the Wailers’ Tyrone Downie, and, of course, Sly and Robbie. Recorded in the Bahamas, the rhythm section helped Dury relax his typically stiff arrangements (even on the controversy-courting single, “Spasticus Autisticus”), and they even recorded a Dunbar composition, “Girls (Watching),” with robotic vocals and a funky rhythm.

The title track of Herbie Hancock’s grand foray into electro-funk is a swinging rendition of Curtis Mayfield’s 1973 hit, stretched out to eight minutes. The song is one of two on the album to feature Sly Dunbar, and since it follows “Rockit,” Hancock’s hit hip-hop instrumental, it feels all the more human, thanks to the type of groove only Dunbar could play.

Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler, who co-produced Dylan’s acclaimed Infidels LP, credited the legendary songwriter with recruiting Sly and Robbie for the 1983 sessions. The reason why is clear when you listen to “Jokerman,” a rare Dylan reggae song that feels both of its time and outside of it. The rhythm section plays perfectly behind the beat, with Dunbar’s snare piercing Dylan’s cosmic poetry. They also perfectly complemented more straightforward rock like the album’s “Sweetheart Like You” and Dylanologists’ beloved outtake “Blind Willie McTell,” unreleased officially until 2021. Sly and Robbie’s recordings also featured on Dylan’s 1985 album, Empire Burlesque.

When Mick Jagger finally decided to attempt a solo career with She’s the Boss, more than two decades after cofounding the Rolling Stones, he knew he needed an unimpeachable group of musicians to back him up. Lead single “Just Another Night” featured Jeff Beck on guitar, Bill Laswell on synth, and Sly and Robbie on drums and bass. The rhythm section gave the song a perfectly danceable beat while retaining a hard edge, which is just what Jagger needed to secure a Number One hit with the song on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart, a feat he almost replicated with the harder-rocking “Lucky in Love.”

Only hardcore Madonna fans know the original version of “Supernatural,” a mid-tempo pop song about having sex (of course) with a ghost (wait, what?), since it was released as the B side to “Cherish” in 1989. A funkier and easier-to-dance-to remix of the track, which featured Sly and Robbie’s production and percussion, got a wider audience on the AIDS benefit compilation Red Hot + Dance in 1992. It’s still pretty weird, but it grooves better.

The maxi single for the Fugees’ first big hit featured Sly and Robbie’s dubby and sparse remix of the track. Each member’s voice is more prominent, giving Lauryn Hill’s rendition of Teena Marie’s “Ooo La La La” a haunting feel over the minimal, throbbing bass and echoing piano. Featuring an early appearance by a pre-fame Akon, this reggae-leaning “Fu-Gee-La” reflects the spirit of the hip-hop version’s music video, which the trio shot in Jamaica as a nod to the Jimmy Cliff movie The Harder They Come.

To help them stay connected with the ska and reggae that originally inspired them (and to get some cred to support the title Rock Steady), No Doubt asked Sly and Robbie to produce two tracks on their 2001 album. Those two songs, “Hey Baby” and “Underneath It All,” also turned out to be the band’s all-time highest-charting singles. In addition to producing, Shakespeare even played some “additional melodic bass” on “Underneath It All,” a song that also featured a toast by the era’s Queen of Dancehall, Lady Saw.

Thirteen years after Sinéad O’Connor all but martyred herself by singing Bob Marley’s “War” a cappella on Saturday Night Live to draw attention to abuse within the Catholic church — and, yeah, ripping up a photo of the pope — she recorded the song as the closing track for her 2005 reggae album, Throw Down Your Arms. Working with many of the same musicians who played on Serge Gainsbourg’s reggae albums, including Sly and Robbie, O’Connor recorded a deferential rendition that benefits from the gravity of Dunbar and Shakespeare’s heavy beats.

Where Britney Spears’ Blackout single was an electro-pop middle finger to the tabloid industry, built around fuzzy synths and gasping sex sounds, Sly and Robbie’s remix dials back the coldness of the original track and fills it in with pizzicato strings, jiggling percussion, dancefloor horns and Cherine Anderson’s toasting. If the Blackout version was meant to set a boundary, Sly and Robbie found a way to make it feel like a party while still standing up for Spears’ independence.