Jamaican reggae pioneer Bunny Wailer — the last surviving original member of the iconic group best known as Bob Marley and the Wailers — died Tuesday in Jamaica at age 73.
Wailer died at a hospital in Jamaica's St. Andrew parish from complications from a stroke he suffered over the summer.
Crooning classic songs like Bob Marley and the Wailers put reggae on the world's musical map in 1973 with their breakthrough album "Catch a Fire." But the group had formed, originally as just the Wailers, a decade earlier.
The original trio included iconic front man Marley, who died in 1981; Peter Tosh, who died in 1987; and Wailer, whose real name was Neville Livingston.
Wailer, Marley and Tosh were products of Trench Town, the working-class district of Jamaica’s capital, Kingston, which was the birthplace of reggae and a focus of the Rastafarian culture the mellow but soulful musical style has long been associated with.
Wailer, also known as Jah-B, left the group in 1974 for a successful solo career that featured hits like “Dreamland.” In the 1990s he won three Best Reggae Album Grammy Awards — and in this century he was one of Jamaica’s most important cultural ambassadors. In 2017 he received the country's Order of Merit, one of its highest honors.