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Leslie Kong
Leslie Kong (20 December 1933 – 9 August 1971) was a Jamaican reggae producer. Early life Kong was born into a Chinese-Jamaican family. He had a "relatively comfortable upbringing" and attended St. George's College in Kingston. Career Leslie and his two older brothers Cecil and Lloyd ran a restaurant, ice cream parlour and record shop called Beverley's in Orange Street, Kingston. In 1961, he encountered a young Jimmy Cliff outside of his shop singing a song he had written called "Dearest Beverley", in the hopes that the mention of the establishment would convince Kong to record him.Alleyne, Mike (2012) ''The Encyclopedia of Reggae'', Sterling, , p. 146 This encounter led Kong to launch his own record label, Beverley's, and to record Cliff's song, launching Cliff's career in the process. Cliff took on an A&R role for the label, and brought Bob Marley to Kong's attention. In 1962, Kong recorded Marley's first single: "One Cup of Coffee" and " Judge Not", and Jimmy Cli ...
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Kingston, Jamaica
Kingston is the Capital (political), capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long spit (landform), sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and Norman Manley International Airport to the rest of the island. Kingston is the largest English-speaking city south of the United States in the Western Hemisphere. The local government bodies of the parishes of Kingston Parish, Kingston and Saint Andrew Parish, Jamaica, Saint Andrew were amalgamated by the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation Act of 1923, to form the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC). Greater Kingston, or the "Corporate Area" refers to those areas under the KSAC; however, it does not solely refer to Kingston Parish, which only consists of the old downtown and Port Royal. Kingston Parish had a population of 89,057, and St. Andrew Parish had a population of 573,369 in 2011 Kingston is only bordered by Sain ...
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Trojan Records
Trojan Records is a British record label founded by Jamaican Duke Reid, Lee Gopthal and Chris Blackwell in 1968. It specialises in ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub music. The label currently operates under the Sanctuary Records Group. The name ''Trojan'' comes from the Croydon-built Trojan truck that was used as Duke Reid's sound system in Jamaica. The truck had "Duke Reid - The Trojan King of Sounds" painted on the sides, and the music played by Reid became known as the ''Trojan Sound''. The label had almost 30 hit singles in the UK Singles Chart between 1969 and 1976. History Trojan Records was founded in 1968 when Lee Gopthal, who operated the Musicland record retail chain and owned Beat & Commercial Records, pooled his Jamaican music interests with those of Chris Blackwell's Island Records. Until 1975, they were based at a warehouse in Neasden Lane, Willesden, London. Trojan was instrumental in introducing reggae to a global audience and, by 1970, had secured ...
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Gladstone Anderson
Gladstone Anderson (18 June 1934 – 3 December 2015), also known by his nickname "Gladdy", was a Jamaican pianist, keyboard player, and singer, who played a major part in the island's musical history, playing a key role in defining the ska sound and the rocksteady beat, and playing on hundreds of recordings as a session musician, a solo artist, and as leader of Gladdy's All Stars, featuring bassist Jackie Jackson, drummer Winston Grennan, guitarist Hux Brown, and keyboardist Winston Wright. As Harry J All Stars the band had a massive hit in Jamaica and United Kingdom with the instrumental song "The Liquidator" 1969 (and 1980). Anderson's work was consistently popular in the late 70s too, as roots reggae, dub and sound system culture increasingly prioritised more conscious and deeply spiritual concerns. Biography Gladstone Anderson was born in 1934 in Jones Town, and was taught piano at home by his uncle, the keyboardist and bandleader Aubrey Adams.Katz, p.46Campbell, Howa ...
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Jackie Jackson (bassist)
Clifton "Jackie" Jackson (born March 1947) is a Jamaican bass player, who was an important and prolific session musician and bassist on ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub and discomix records throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and was later a member of Toots and the Maytals. Biography Jackson was born in 1947 and grew up in central Kingston. His uncle was a well-known musician, Luther Williams, whose sister Mavis gave Jackson piano lessons. He attended a music school, and started playing bass after seeing Lloyd Brevett play with the Skatalites. He was also influenced by Motown records, particularly the bass playing of James Jamerson. He joined his first band, Ty and the Titans, after the existing bassist left. After two years with the band, he joined the Cavaliers, led by Lester Sterling. When the Skatalites broke up, Jackson was approached by saxophonist Tommy McCook, who was forming a new band, the Supersonics. Jackson joined McCook's band, and remained with them for five year ...
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Toots Hibbert
Frederick Nathaniel "Toots" Hibbert, (8 December 1942 – 11 September 2020) was a Jamaican singer and songwriter who was the lead vocalist for the reggae and ska band Toots and the Maytals. A reggae pioneer, he performed for six decades and helped establish some of the fundamentals of reggae music. Hibbert's 1968 song " Do the Reggay" is widely credited as the genesis of the genre name ''reggae''. His band's album '' True Love'' won a Grammy Award in 2005. Early life Hibbert was born on 8 December 1942 in May Pen, Jamaica, the youngest of his siblings. Hibbert's parents were both strict Seventh-day Adventist preachers so he grew up singing gospel music in a church choir. Both parents died young and, by the age of 11, Hibbert was an orphan who went to live with his brother John in the Trenchtown neighborhood of Kingston. While working at a local barbershop, he met his future bandmates Raleigh Gordon and Jerry Matthias. Career 1960s Hibbert, a multi-instrumentalist, fo ...
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Monkey Man (Toots & The Maytals Song)
"Monkey Man" is a 1969 song by the ska and reggae group Toots & the Maytals which reached number 47 on the UK Singles Chart. The song is about a girl choosing another man over Toots. Toots & the Maytals re-recorded the song on '' True Love'' with third wave ska band No Doubt. Other versions The song has been frequently covered by other artists, most famously by British ska group the Specials and British singer Amy Winehouse. Versions by British reggae MC General Levy and American ska punk band Reel Big Fish charted on the UK Singles Chart, in 1993 and 2003 respectively. Japanese experimental rock band Melt-Banana, South-London ska group the Dualers and Argentinian band Los Pericos also covered the song. In 2009, Australian singer Kylie Minogue and the Wiggles recorded a version of the song to raise funds for UNICEF UNICEF ( ), originally the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, officially United Nations Children's Fund since 1953, is an agency of the U ...
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54-46 That's My Number
"54-46 (That's My Number)" is a song by Fred "Toots" Hibbert. Recorded by Toots and the Maytals, the song was originally released on the Beverley's label in Jamaica and the Pyramid label in the UK. A follow-up version released a year later, "54-46 Was My Number", was one of the first reggae songs to receive widespread popularity outside Jamaica, and is seen as being one of the defining songs of the genre. It has been anthologised repeatedly and the titles of several reggae anthologies include "54-46" in their title. The lyrics describe Toots' time in prison after being arrested for possession of marijuana. The song features a similar riddim to "Train to Skaville" by Toots and the Maytals' contemporaries the Ethiopians. In popular culture The song appears in the sci-fi film ''Repo Men'' and in the series '' Narcos: Mexico''. The song is also used as the soundtrack to the opening titles of 2006 Shane Meadows directed movie This is England. On November 29, 2016, Major Lazer ...
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Rivers Of Babylon
"Rivers of Babylon" is a Rastafari movement, Rastafari song written and recorded by Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton of the Jamaican reggae group the Melodians in 1970. The lyrics are adapted from the texts of Psalms Psalm 19, 19 and Psalm 137, 137 in the Tanakh, Hebrew Bible. The Melodians' original version of the song appeared on the soundtrack album for the 1972 movie ''The Harder They Come'', which made it internationally known. The song was re-popularized in Europe by the 1978 Boney M. cover version, which was awarded a Music recording sales certification, platinum disc and is one of the top-ten, all-time best-selling singles in the UK. The B-side of the single, "Brown Girl in the Ring (song), Brown Girl in the Ring", also became a hit. Background Biblical psalms The song is based on the Bible, Biblical Psalm 137:1–4, a hymn expressing the lamentations of the Babylonian captivity, Jewish people in exile following the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BC: Previousl ...
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The Melodians
The Melodians are a rocksteady band formed in the Greenwich Town area of Kingston, Jamaica, in 1963, by Tony Brevett (born 1949, nephew of The Skatalites bassist, Lloyd Brevett), Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton.Tony Brevett's Unheralded Greatness
, '''', 10 November 2013. Retrieved 10 November 2013
Renford Cogle assisted with and arranging material. ...
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The Pioneers (band)
The Pioneers are a Jamaican reggae, soul and rocksteady vocal trio, whose main period of success was in the 1960s. The trio has had different line-ups, and still occasionally performs. Career Founding and early years: 1962-67 The Pioneers were formed in 1962 by brothers Sydney and Derrick Crooks, and their friend Winston Hewitt. Their early recordings "Good Nanny" and "I'll Never Come Running Back to You" were self-produced at the Treasure Isle studio in Kingston, Jamaica, using money lent to the Crooks brothers by their mother and appeared on Ken Lack's Caltone label.Katz, David (2003) ''Solid Foundation: an Oral History of Reggae'', Bloomsbury, , p. 101, 102, 106, 129, 130Katz, David (2000) ''People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee "Scratch" Perry'', Payback Press, , pp. 56, 57. Several other singles followed, none of them hits, before Hewitt emigrated to Canada in 1966. Hewitt was replaced for around a year by the former Heptones Glen Adams. The Pioneers' early singles wer ...
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The Wailers (1963-1974 Band)
Bob Marley and the Wailers (previously known as the Wailers and prior to that the Wailing Rudeboys, the Wailing Wailers and the Teenagers) were a Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae band. The founding members, in 1963, were Bob Marley (Robert Nesta Marley), Peter Tosh (Winston Hubert McIntosh), and Bunny Wailer (Neville Livingston). During 1970 and 1971, Wailer, Marley and Tosh worked with renowned reggae producers Leslie Kong and Lee "Scratch" Perry. Before signing to Island Records in 1972, the band released four albums. Two additional albums were produced before Tosh and Wailer departed from the band in 1974, citing dissatisfaction with their treatment by the label and ideological disagreements. Marley continued with a new lineup, which included the I-Threes, and went on to release seven more albums. Marley died from cancer in 1981, at which point the group disbanded. The Wailers were a groundbreaking ska and reggae group, noted for songs such as "Simmer Down", "Trenchtow ...
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