THE swanky resorts of Sandals and the tough inner-city community of Jacques Road in east Kingston are poles apart. However, they are inextricably linked through the infectious bass lines of Robbie Shakespeare.

Shakespeare, who Rolling Stone Magazine placed at number 17 on its ’50 Greatest Bassists of All Time’ list in 2020, learnt his way around the strings on an acoustic Edmond guitar once owned by hotelier and Sandals founder Gordon “Butch” Stewart.

“It was a slim box guitar; it wasn’t an electric guitar,” recalled graphic artist/singer/producer Leroy “Artist” Brown.

He was one of the scores of musicians attending a thanksgiving service for the legendary bassist at Webster Memorial Church in Half-Way-Tree, St Andrew, on Monday.

In the 1970s, Brown did graphic work for Stewart, a fledgling businessman who had just started Appliance Traders Limited (ATL).

“I did all the sign work for Butch when he started business — everything — from the wall to the cars to the truck, everything. When I guh fi the money at his house the Friday evening, Butch said: ‘Mr Artist, I don’t have any money this week, enuh,” he recalled. “So mi see the guitar and said: ‘Butch, lend mi dat guitar deh nuh?’ And he said: ‘Yuh can borrow it, yes man.’ That was the last time Butch see it.”

Brown said he took the guitar to Shakespeare’s east Kingston home as he was a close friend of the family.

“I met Robbie in the late ’60s because of his brother Lloyd Shakespeare; we were in a harmony group called The Emotions. Max Romeo was di one who introduced me to The Emotions. That’s where I met Lloyd Shakespeare, Robbie Shakespeare, and di rest of di Shakespeares,” he said.

“So I bring this guitar to Jacques Road and put it on the table, Robbie was the first one who grab it up and say: ‘Artist, mi have a guitar now.’ Mi say, ‘Yeah man, you have a guitar.’ Him learn to play from it. “Familyman” show him some things, me show him some things.”

Familyman refers Aston Barrett, whose bass lines were pillars for the music of Bob Marley and The Wailers.

The Emotions never became a household name, but Shakespeare did. Along with drummer Sly Dunbar, he played on some of reggae’s biggest songs, including Revolution, Have You Ever, and Sitting and Watching (Dennis Brown), Buckingham Palace (Peter Tosh), Soon Forward (Gregory Isaacs), The Tamlins’ Baltimore, and General Penitentiary (Black Uhuru).

Robbie Shakespeare, 68, died at his Florida home on December 8, 2021 of kidney complications.

Sly and Robbie won a Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album in 1999 for Friends.

Butch Stewart went on to create a hotel, appliance, and automotive empire. He died on January 4, 2021.

Brown, who migrated to Canada in the early 1970s, did not do badly either. He won the Juno Award for Best Reggae Recording with Rent A Tile in 2004; the Juno is Canada’s equivalent of the Grammy Awards.

Brown said he last saw Stewart at an Air Jamaica function in 2004.

“While wi hug up and were taking pictures, Butch turned to me and said: ‘Mr Artist, where’s my guitar?’ I said: ‘Butch, yuh really remember di guitar?’ We both laughed about it. I told him I left the guitar with Robbie,” Brown chuckled.

“In fact, me an’ Robbie did plan fi present a guitar to Butch, but it just never happen,” he added.