LAST week’s passing of producer Bunny “Striker” Lee, one of the pillars of Jamaican music, has seen the spotlight cast on this giant in the growth and development of the music, illuminating what has been a sterling career.

The world’s media have been remembering the man and his music in the days following his death at the University Hospital of the West Indies at the age of 79.

Britain’s The Guardian newspaper drew on the words of British broadcaster and reggae afficianado David Rodigan.

“The reggae world has lost another iconic figure. Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee was unquestionably one of the most charismatic and inspirational record producers in Jamaican music, with a phenomenal catalogue of hits. He drove the music forward across the decades and will be sorely missed,” Rodigan was quoted as saying.

According to the newspapaer, Lee’s rhythms helped to move Jamaican music from the ska and rocksteady styles towards the distinctive tempo and bounce of reggae. Do the Reggay by the recently deceased Toots Hibbert may have cemented the genre’s name, but Bangarang, a track Lee recorded with Stranger Cole, is regarded by many as the first reggae song. Lee had a UK Top 10 hit in 1969 with Max Romeo’s raunchy reggae track Wet Dream, which spent 25 weeks on the chart.

Rolling Stone magazine also paid tribute to Lee and drew on a tweet from Trojan Records, which licensed Lee’s Jamaican productions in the United Kingdom

“Jamaican music giant Bunny Lee has, very sadly, passed away,” Trojan Records tweeted. “Bunny was massively influential in shaping Jamaican music, starting as a record plugger in the sixties then as a pioneering producer from the rocksteady era, through to the dancehall years of the eighties.”

The popular music mag also noted that, “Over the course of his decades-long career, Bunny ‘Striker’ Lee worked alongside many of those who moulded the reggae genre. He first served as a ‘record plugger’ — someone who pushed songs on radio stations — for label heads like Duke Reid and Leslie Kong, before entering the studio as an engineer and then producer.

The Evening Standard in London delved into Lee’s journey into the music business, highlighting his work at Duke Reid’s Treasure Isle label, which he joined in 1962, before he began producing and financing records for himself — working with legends including Roy Shirley, Slim Smith, The Uniques and The Sensations.

The newspaper called Lee a pioneer on the UK reggae market, citing his work with Johnny Clarke, Owen Gray and Cornell Campbell.