Guitarist Donald Kinsey, who added a blues feel to the roots-reggae songs of Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, died in his home state of Indiana on February 6, Marley’s birthday.

Lennie Chen, manager of The Wailers band of which Kinsey was a member, confirmed the 70 year-old musician’s death. He died three days after legendary Wailers bassist Aston “Familyman” Barrett passed away in Miami at age 77.

Kinsey was one of two black American guitarists associated with Marley and Tosh. The other was Al Anderson from New Jersey.

Both played on Marley’s 1976 album, Rastaman Vibration, and recorded and toured for several years with Tosh.
Kinsey is best known to many reggae fans for the searing guitar solo on Tosh’s version of Chuck Berry’s Johnny B Goode.

In a 2021 interview with the Jamaica Observer, Kinsey recalled first meeting Marley in 1975 at Island Records’ office in New York. The singer/songwriter was signed to that London-based company.

Marley invited him to Jamaica to play on Rastaman Vibration at Harry J studio in Kingston. Kinsey’s riffs can be heard on songs like Johnny Was, Roots Rock Reggae and Want More.

He said Marley was not afraid to embrace different sounds including the blues.

“Bob really loved the blues. I remember one night after we did a show at The Roxy (in Los Angeles), he invited me to his hotel room and said, ‘Donald, play me some blues, man’. I would sing some traditional kinda blues and that made a connection,” he recalled.

Kinsey was a prodigy who learned the blues from his father, Big Daddy Kinsey, a Chicago bandleader. At 16, he was playing in blues legend Albert King’s band.

In December 1976, Kinsey was rehearsing at Marley’s home in Kingston for the Smile Jamaica Peace Concert when gunmen invaded the premises and shot the star, his wife Rita, manager Don Taylor and another colleague.

Fearing further attacks, Kinsey left the country before the show, joining Tosh’s Word Sound and Power Band shortly after.