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| Renford "Rennie" McLean | |
|---|---|
| Name | Renford "Rennie" McLean |
| Birth date | 1946 |
| Birth place | Kingston, Jamaica |
| Occupation | Guitarist, composer, session musician |
| Instruments | Guitar |
| Years active | 1960s–2000s |
| Associated acts | The Upsetters, Lee "Scratch" Perry, The Wailers, Toots and the Maytals, Jimmy Cliff |
Renford "Rennie" McLean Renford "Rennie" McLean was a Jamaican guitarist and composer known for his work across ska, rocksteady, reggae, and dub. He played pivotal roles as a session musician and arranger for landmark artists and studios in Kingston, Jamaica, contributing to seminal recordings alongside producers, bands, and engineers who defined postwar Caribbean popular music. McLean's career spanned collaborations with leading figures and ensembles of the Jamaican music scene and international tours that linked him to labels, studios, and festivals across the Caribbean, North America, and Europe.
McLean was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1946 into a family connected to local church choirs and community bands; his upbringing intersected with neighborhoods near Waterhouse, Trench Town, and the West Kingston cultural milieu. He received early musical exposure at parish events and youth clubs influenced by visiting sound systems such as Tom the Great Sebastian and Coxsone Dodd's Studio One, where teenagers encountered records by Prince Buster, The Skatalites, and Derrick Morgan. McLean studied guitar under local instructors who had links to studio musicians associated with Studio One and Treasure Isle, and he absorbed techniques prevalent among peers from ensembles like Byron Lee and the Dragonaires and The Slickers.
McLean emerged as a professional guitarist during the mid-1960s ska boom, touring and recording with bands that served both domestic dances and international package tours that included artists from The Beatles-era influences to Caribbean stars. He became associated with production houses in Kingston such as Upsetter Records, Black Ark Studio, and Studio One, contributing to sessions that covered the transitions from ska to rocksteady and reggae. McLean's credits encompass live appearances at venues like Carib Theatre and festivals including the Festival Song Contest circuit and overseas showcases in cities like London, New York City, and Toronto.
As a session guitarist McLean worked alongside producers and musicians including Lee "Scratch" Perry, Coxsone Dodd, Duke Reid, Bunny Lee, and engineers from Federal Studios. He recorded backing tracks for vocalists and ensembles such as The Wailers, Toots and the Maytals, Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Ken Boothe, John Holt, Marcia Griffiths, and Desmond Dekker. McLean also played on instrumental sessions with members of The Skatalites, Tommy McCook, Roland Alphonso, and rhythm sections like Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare when they were active in studio work. His session résumé extended to collaborations with visiting producers and international artists who sought authentic Jamaican rhythm, including partnerships that connected Jamaican studios with labels such as Trojan Records, Island Records, and Virgin Records.
McLean contributed guitar lines and arrangements to recordings credited to notable titles and albums produced at Black Ark Studio and Studio One, appearing on singles and LPs associated with the golden age of Jamaican popular music. He played on tracks that featured on compilations and anthologies issued by Greensleeves Records and Heartbeat Records, and his playing is heard on influential singles released during the late 1960s and 1970s alongside hits by The Pioneers, The Paragons, and The Heptones. McLean's work on dub-influenced sessions with Lee "Scratch" Perry contributed to early experiments heard on records connected with Scientist and King Tubby mixes, where his guitar was adapted for echo, reverb, and drop-out treatments. Specific recordings that cite his participation appear across discographies of Jimmy Cliff and Toots Hibbert.
McLean's approach blended the punchy upstroke rhythms of ska with the sparse, melodic phrasing of rocksteady and the space-oriented motifs of dub, aligning his technique with contemporaries such as Hux Brown and Errol "Tarzan" Nelson. He favored chord voicings and single-note lines that complemented bass patterns from players associated with Studio One and later reggae grooves developed by rhythm innovators like Aston "Family Man" Barrett. His work influenced younger Jamaican guitarists and session players who apprenticed in Kingston studios and sound systems, and his stylistic fingerprints appear in the playing of musicians who later worked with labels like VP Records and Blood and Fire Records.
While Jamaican session musicians of McLean's generation often received limited mainstream awards, his contributions were recognized within industry circles, retrospective compilations, and liner-note histories produced by labels such as Rhino Records and Island Records. McLean received honoring mentions in documentaries and oral histories about reggae culture and appeared in festival programs where heritage musicians were celebrated alongside inductees of halls and archives dedicated to Caribbean music. Academic and curatorial projects at institutions like the National Gallery of Jamaica and the Institute of Jamaica have cited his role in shaping classic recordings preserved in museum and archive collections.
McLean lived much of his life in Kingston while periodically touring and working abroad, maintaining friendships with fellow musicians, producers, and sound-system operators. He mentored younger players and participated in reunion shows that commemorated the eras of ska, rocksteady, and early reggae, connecting his generation to revival movements in Britain, Japan, and France. McLean's legacy endures in reissues, anthologies, and scholarly accounts that document the collaborative studio culture of mid-20th-century Jamaican music, securing his place among the instrumentalists whose contributions underpinned recordings by Bob Marley and the Wailers, Toots and the Maytals, and other icons of Caribbean popular music.
Category:Jamaican guitarists Category:Reggae musicians Category:People from Kingston, Jamaica