THE funeral service for musician Bertram ‘Ranchie’ McLean takes place tomorrow at the Seventh-Day Adventist church in Washington Gardens, starting at 1:00 pm.

McLean, a member of the Revolutionaries band of Channel One fame, died November 14 at the Kingston Public Hospital. He was 66-years-old.

The diminutive McLean started as a guitarist in the late 1960s with the Skin, Flesh and Bones band, playing on hits like Al Brown’s Here I Am Baby. He became a bass player at Channel One, appearing on the studio’s first hit song, It’s a Shame by Delroy Wilson in 1972.

Sly Dunbar grew up with McLean in the Olympic Gardens area of Kingston, and was the drummer for Skin, Flesh and Bones and the Revolutionaries. He described his former colleague as “a good all-round musician”.

“Everybody know Ranchie as a guitar player so his feel as a bass man was different,” said Dunbar. He added that while McLean excelled as a bassist, he remained an excellent guitarist, playing on hits like Black Uhuru’s Youths of Eglington.

But it is for his bass playing that McLean is best remembered. He played on countless hit songs including I Need a Roof, Africa and Right Time by the Mighty Diamonds; Dreamland (Marcia Griffiths); Ballistic Affair (Leroy Smart), and Things and Time by the Wailing Souls.

He is survived by a widow, eight children and several grandchildren.