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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Apr 4, 2014 |
| Roots with quality… |
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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Mar 17, 2014 |
| One of the brightest stars in the dancehall firmament Busy Signal gained his stage name as a young man because he was always too busy to answer his cell ’phone. Little has changed… he has been in constant demand ever since and his ‘phone is now constantly engaged with worldwide offers of work. |
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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Dec 26, 2013 |
| Errol Thompson, also known as Errol T or simply ET, was the most gifted and distinctive recording engineer in the history of Jamaican music. His contribution to the sound of reggae can never be overstated… |
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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Dec 5, 2013 |
| A forthright and totally committed member of the Bobo Ashanti order and no stranger to controversy Sizzla’s outspoken stance has continued unabated over seventy albums and countless seven inch singles… |
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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Added: Oct 10, 2013 |
| Max Romeo’s unerring ability to convey not only the manifest tribulations of Jamaican life but also some of its more amusing aspects with equal fervour and conviction have ensured his position as one of the most popular and versatile singers and songwriters of his generation. |
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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Sep 27, 2013 |
| Prince Tony’s TR International productions, probably more than the work of many other producers, popularised the art of Jamaican deejays, Big Youth and U Roy in particular, and brought them to world wide prominence in the second half of the seventies… |
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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Added: Aug 16, 2013 |
| The story of Tamoki Wambesi Dove is, in effect, Roy Cousins’ story and his struggle for survival and artistic freedom in a viciously competitive world. The history of The Royals, with the group’s ever-changing line up of harmony singers, is inseparable from the close-knit community of Kingston 11 where the power and strength of singing was one of the few legitimate ways out of the ghetto. |
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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Added: Jul 30, 2013 |
| Derrick/David ‘Scotty’ Scott was not only one of the music’s most expressive and soulful singers but also one of the first artists to popularise the art of the deejay when he broke big in 1970… and by breaking big we mean massive. |
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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Added: Jun 26, 2013 |
| The history of Jamaican music is usually told, naturally enough, through the stories of the music’s biggest stars but a whole host of less well known names also played a vital role in the development of the music; the guitar work of Alva ‘Reggie’ Lewis was an essential component in the nascent sound of reggae. |
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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Added: Jan 17, 2013 |
| “Tafari was and still is a true example of how music should be made and sold on record. It’s probably the only label in the world that upholds its principles throughout all of its business. The message is in the music.” Dave Hendley. |
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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Oct 1, 2012 |
| The “music maker from Jamaica” is one of a select number of Jamaican deejays who possessed not only the talent to make great records themselves but also had the generosity and ability to inspire and organise other artists to make great records too… |
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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Aug 23, 2012 |
| ‘Living Legend’ is a much overused and abused description. However, no-one could argue that Ewart ‘U Roy’ Beckford is a living legend. The Rightful Ruler, the ‘Deejay Daddy’, deserves every accolade that comes his way. |
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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Added: Jul 11, 2012 |
| One of the great unsung heroes of Jamaican music Ossie Hibbert not only played piano and keyboards on countless hit records but also wrote, produced, arranged and engineered countless more. |
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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Mar 8, 2012 |
| A very talented singer and songwriter who enjoyed considerable success in the sixties with The Techniques and then as a solo artist in the seventies |
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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Added: Feb 16, 2012 |
| A naturally gifted singer with a fine soulful falsetto Pat Kelly is also a highly accomplished recording engineer… |
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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Aug 11, 2011 |
| With over one hundred seven inch singles, seventy twelve inch ‘disco mixes’ and fifteen albums to his credit Trinity was not only one of the most popular but also one of the most prolific deejays in the second half of the seventies. |
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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Jul 20, 2011 |
| As the eighties began Scientist, born Hopeton Overton Browne, breathed new life into a genre that many commentators had written off as being past its best… |
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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: May 2, 2011 |
| One of the most distinctive deejays of the seventies who, in the following two decades, carved out a similarly successful second career as a record producer. |
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Text by Harry Hawks
Date Updated: Apr 20, 2011 |
| Jamaica’s most articulate and intelligent deejay whose records, ranging from caustic social commentary to humorous observations, set new standards in the deejay school. |
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Text by Jeremy Collingwood
Date Updated: Mar 9, 2011 |
| Famed in Jamaica as the artist who took Rasta music into the mainstream with his ‘Beat Down Babylon’ track and in the roots scene as an intense performer of militant and devotional songs. The scope of Byles success was limited by his human frailties, not any lack of musical gifts. |
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