BY HOWARD CAMPBELL

Observer writer

The Grammy Awards are scheduled for January 26 at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. Five nominees (Beres Hammond, Ziggy Marley, Sizzla, Snoop Lion and Sly and Robbie) are up for Best Reggae Album. Leading up to the big event, the Jamaica Observer presents a daily reflection on the reggae category. Today, we look at Sly and Robbie’s Friends.

SLY Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare were still rated reggae’s top musicians when their Friends album was nominated for a Best Reggae Album Grammy Award in 1999.

The famed drum-and-bass duo had been making hit songs since the early 1970s and enjoyed a renaissance in the 1990s, working with a number of contemporary artistes from Jamaica, the United States and Europe.

Though they produced Black Uhuru’s Anthem, which won the first reggae Grammy Award in 1985, Friends gave them their first victory as artistes. The album, which had collaborations with Mick Hucknall, Maxi Priest and Ali Campbell of British band UB40, beat Beenie Man’s Many Moods of Moses, Inna Heights (Buju Banton), Psychedelic Souls (Wailing Souls) and Ska Father by Toots and the Maytals.

Friends produced a sizeable hit in Hucknall’s version of the 1982 Gregory Isaacs song, Night Nurse. The Simply Red singer’s take made the British pop chart and revived interest in the Cool Ruler’s career.

Priest, born in England to Jamaican parents, covered John Holt’s Only a Smile while Campbell put his spin on the Dobbie Dobson classic, Seems To Me I’m Losing. Friends also contained Sly and Robbie’s dancehall take on the Mission Impossible theme, a big hit for them in 1998.

Many Moods of Moses was considered front-runner for the 1999 Grammy. It sold over 250,000 units on the strength of the rocking Who Am I, Beenie Man’s biggest-selling song.

Inna Heights was Banton’s first album since his epic ‘Til Shiloh in 1995. Psychedelic Souls and Ska Father were unknown in mainstream reggae circles.

For Dunbar and Shakespeare, Friends’ Grammy win capped remarkable careers. Dunbar played drums on Double Barrel, the 1971 hit by Dave Barker and Ansell Collins. Shakespeare’s first big hit was working the bass on The Wailers’ 1973 song Concrete Jungle.

They played on some of the biggest hits of the 1970s at the Channel One studio, and were members of Peter Tosh’s Word, Sound and Power band. In the 1980s, the ‘Riddim Twins’ anchored successful albums by Black Uhuru and Grace Jones and collaborated with a diverse cast of artistes including Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan and rapper KRS-One.

They continued to work with high-profile acts a decade later, hitting it big in the late 1990s with the Mission Impossible beat.

Sly and Robbie and the Jam Masters have been nominated for a 2014 Best Reggae Album Grammy Award for their Reggae Connection set.