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U-Roy
Ewart Beckford OD (21 September 1942 – 17 February 2021), known by the stage name U-Roy, was a Jamaican vocalist and pioneer of toasting.Jo-Ann GreeneU-Roy Biography, AllMusic. Retrieved 11 April 2013. U-Roy was known for a melodic style of toasting applied with a highly developed sense of timing. Early life Ewart Beckford was born in Jones Town, Saint Andrew Parish, Kingston, Jamaica, on 21 September 1942. He was raised within a religious and musical family; his mother was an organist for the choir at a local Seventh-day Adventist church.Taylor, AngusU-Roy Interview, United Reggae, 20 December 2012. Retrieved 7 April 2013. The sobriquet U-Roy originated from a younger member of his family who found it difficult to pronounce his first name. Beckford attended Denham Town High School in Kingston. As a young man Beckford listened to the music of Louis Prima, James Brown, Ruth Brown, Fats Domino, Rufus Thomas, Smiley Lewis and was especially influenced by the vocal phrasi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wake The Town
"Wake the Town" is a reggae song recorded by Jamaican toaster U-Roy in 1970. It was U-Roy's first big hit and one of the songs that established U-Roy as the grandfather of the modern deejay phenomenon. It also helped create dancehall style in Jamaica. The recording that led to the single was initiated when John Holt attended a sound system party, and heard U-Roy deejay. Holt convinced U-Roy and producer Duke Reid to hook up, and have U-Roy talk-over some of Reid's Treasure Island rocksteady classics. U-Roy recorded "Wake the Town" (and another hit, "Rule the Nation"), using his talk-over style, from start to finish without any restarts. "Wake the Town" quickly went to number one on Jamaica's pop music charts, along with "Rule the Nation" at number two, and many other deejays began to adopt his style. These two songs, along with "Wear You to the Ball", established U-Roy as a dancehall star and helped create the deejay sound. Dennis Alcapone said of the song, "When U-Roy come with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toasting (Jamaican Music)
Toasting (rap in other parts of the Anglo Caribbean) or deejaying is the act of Speech, talking, usually in a monotone melody, over a rhythm or Beat (music), beat by a Disc jockey#reggae, deejay. It can either be improvised or pre-written. Toasting developed in Jamaica, before it took up that name and being part of the sound system era, a similar sound of it is found in mento and now can be heard over musical styles including ska, reggae, dancehall, dub music, dub, Grime music, grime, Hip hop music, hip hop, Soca music, soca and bouyon music. The combination of singing and toasting is known as singjaying. In the late 1950s in Jamaica, one of the first Selector, also being a promoter optimized of using a mic and to entertain an audience while playing records was Count Matchuki. He conceived the idea for being comically entertaining from listening to commercial ads and disc jockeys on American radio stations etc. He would create and come up with comical phrases also doing African ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Holt (singer)
John Kenneth Holt OD (11 July 1947 – 19 October 2014) was a Jamaican reggae singer who first found fame as a member of The Paragons, before establishing himself as a solo artist. Early life Holt was born in the Greenwich Farm area of Kingston in 1947.Thompson, Dave (2002), ''Reggae & Caribbean Music'', Backbeat Books, , pp. 117–120. His mother Amy was a nurse.Ustanny, Avia (2004),You Inspired Me", ''Jamaica Gleaner'', 7 November 2004. Retrieved 25 October 2014. By the age of 12, he was a regular entrant in talent contests run at Jamaican theatres by Vere Johns, winning 28 contests, some broadcast live on Radio Jamaica.Larkin, Colin (1998), ''The Virgin Encyclopedia of Reggae'', Virgin Books, .Black, Roy (2014)Holt: One Of The Most Enduring Jamaican Singers, ''Jamaica Gleaner'', 23 October 2014. Retrieved 23 October 2014. Career and recognition He recorded his first single in 1963 with "Forever I'll Stay"/"I Cried a Tear" for record producer Leslie Kong, and also recorde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duke Reid
Arthur "Duke" Reid CD (21 July 1915 – 1 January 1975) was a Jamaican record producer, DJ and record label owner. He ran one of the most popular sound systems of the 1950s called Reid's Sound System, whilst Duke himself was known as The Trojan, possibly named after the British-made trucks used to transport the equipment. In the 1960s, Reid founded the record label Treasure Isle (named after his liquor store), which produced ska and rocksteady music. He was still active in the early 1970s, working with toaster U-Roy. He died in early 1975 after having suffered from a severe illness for the last year. Biography Reid was born in Portland, Jamaica. After serving ten years as a Jamaican police officer, Reid left the force to help his wife Lucille run the family business, The Treasure Isle Grocery and Liquor Store at 33 Bond Street in Kingston. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rocksteady
Rocksteady is a music genre that originated in Jamaica around 1966. A successor of ska and a precursor to reggae, rocksteady was the dominant style of music in Jamaica for nearly two years, performed by many of the artists who helped establish reggae, including harmony groups such as the Techniques, the Paragons, the Heptones and the Gaylads; soulful singers such as Alton Ellis, Delroy Wilson, Bob Andy, Ken Boothe and Phyllis Dillon; musicians such as Jackie Mittoo, Lynn Taitt and Tommy McCook. The term ''rocksteady'' comes from a popular (slower) dance style mentioned in the Alton Ellis song "Rocksteady", that matched the new sound. Some rocksteady songs became hits outside Jamaica, as with ska, helping to secure the international base reggae music has today. Characteristics The Jamaican musicians and producers who developed rocksteady had grown up learning and playing jazz and had played through ska. In a similar way to what happened at Motown, the musicians respons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Treasure Isle
Arthur "Duke" Reid CD (21 July 1915 – 1 January 1975) was a Jamaican record producer, DJ and record label owner. He ran one of the most popular sound systems of the 1950s called Reid's Sound System, whilst Duke himself was known as The Trojan, possibly named after the British-made trucks used to transport the equipment. In the 1960s, Reid founded the record label Treasure Isle (named after his liquor store), which produced ska and rocksteady music. He was still active in the early 1970s, working with toaster U-Roy. He died in early 1975 after having suffered from a severe illness for the last year. Biography Reid was born in Portland, Jamaica. After serving ten years as a Jamaican police officer, Reid left the force to help his wife Lucille run the family business, The Treasure Isle Grocery and Liquor Store at 33 Bond Street in Kingston. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keith Hudson
Keith Hudson (18 March 1946 – 14 November 1984),Thompson, p.311 was a Jamaican reggae artist and record producer. He is known for his influence on the dub movement. Biography Raised in a musical family, Hudson attended Boys Town School in Kingston, where he organized school concerts with schoolmates including Bob Marley, Delroy Wilson, and Ken Boothe.Larkin, p.128 He was an ardent follower of Coxsone Dodd's ''Downbeat'' sound system and was soon hanging out with musicians such as Don Drummond, carrying his trombone into sessions at Dodd's Brentford Road studio when he was around fourteen. His first release circa 1969 was "Shades of Hudson" by DJ Dennis Alcapone on his own Inbidimts label, using a rocksteady track that had been recorded a few years before. After leaving school he served an apprenticeship in dentistry, and used these skills to raise money for recording sessions. In the same year he obtained some Termites and Carl Bryan rocksteady rhythms from Olympic Recor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Count Matchuki
Winston Cooper (–1995), better known as Count Matchuki or Count Machuki, was a Jamaican deejay. Biography Cooper was born in Kingston, Jamaica,Moskowitz, David V. (2006) ''Caribbean Popular Music: an Encyclopedia of Reggae, Mento, Ska, Rocksteady, and Dancehall'', Greenwood Press, , pp. 70–71 and began working on sound systems in the 1950s, when the music played was largely American R&B. His stage name of Count Matchuki derived from his habit of chewing matchsticks. He initially worked on Tom Wong's '' Tom the Great Sebastian'' system and later the ''Tokyo the Monarch'' system, before moving on to Clement "Coxsone" Dodd's ''Downbeat'' Sound System.Katz, David (2003) ''Solid Foundation: an Oral History of Reggae'', Bloomsbury, , p. 10Barrow, Steve & Dalton, Peter (2004) ''The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd edn.'', Rough Guides, , p. 17, 123 He added talkovers to the songs, emulating the jive talk of American radio DJ's at the request of Dodd, who became familiar with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Coxsone Dodd
Clement Seymour "Coxsone" Dodd (26 January 1932 – 4 May 2004) was a Jamaican record producer who was influential in the development of ska and reggae in the 1950s, 1960s and beyond. He was nicknamed "Coxsone" at school due to his talent as a cricketer (his friends compared him to Alec Coxon, a member of the 1940s Yorkshire County Cricket Club team). Biography The Kingston-born Dodd used to play records to the customers in his parents' shop. During a spell in the American South he became familiar with the rhythm and blues music popular there at the time. In 1954, back in Jamaica, he set up the Downbeat Sound System, being the owner of an amplifier, a turntable, and some US records, which he would import from New Orleans and Miami. With the success of his sound system, and in a competitive environment, Dodd would make trips through the US looking for new tunes to attract the Jamaican public. While he did, his mother Doris Darlington would run the sound system and play ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King Tubby
Osbourne Ruddock (28 January 1941 – 6 February 1989), better known as King Tubby, was a Jamaican sound engineer who influenced the development of dub music in the 1960s and 1970s. Tubby's studio work, in which as a mixing engineer he achieved creative fame previously only reserved for composers and musicians, was influential across many genres of popular music. He is often cited as the inventor of the concept of the remix that later became ubiquitous in dance and electronic music production. Singer Mikey Dread stated, "King Tubby truly understood sound in a scientific sense. He knew how the circuits worked and what the electrons did. That's why he could do what he did". Career In the late 1950s, Jamaican sound systems were becoming popular in Kingston and were developing into enterprising businesses. A radio repairman, Tubby found frequent work for the sound systems, as the tropical weather of the Caribbean island (often combined with sabotage by rival sound system owners ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bunny Lee
Edward O'Sullivan Lee OD (23 August 1941 – 6 October 2020), better known as Bunny "Striker" Lee, was a Jamaican record producer. He was known as a pioneer of the United Kingdom reggae market, licensing his productions to Trojan Records in the early 1970s, and later working with Lee "Scratch" Perry and King Tubby. Early life Bunny Lee was born on 23 August 1941 and grew up in the Greenwich Farm area of Kingston, where his father was a shoemaker.Burrell, Ian (2014)Jamaican music producer Bunny 'Striker' Lee: Rewinding a career that never missed a beat, ''The Independent'', 11 November 2014. Retrieved 16 November 2014 Career Lee began his career working as a record plugger for Duke Reid's Treasure Isle label in 1962,Larkin, Colin:"The Virgin Encyclopedia of Reggae", 1998, Virgin Books, later performing the same duties for Leslie Kong.Barrow, Steve and Dalton, Peter:"Reggae: The Rough Guide", 1997, Rough Guides, He then moved on to work with Ken Lack, initially in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a British record label owned by Universal Music Group. They were originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman (musician), Tom Newman. They grew to be a worldwide success over time, with the success of platinum performers Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, Devo, Tangerine Dream, Genesis (band), Genesis, Phil Collins, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, OMD, the Human League, Culture Club, Simple Minds, the Spice Girls, Lenny Kravitz, the Sex Pistols, and Mike Oldfield among others, meaning that by the time it was sold, it was regarded as a major label, alongside other large international independents such as A&M Records, A&M and Island Records. Virgin Records was sold to Thorn EMI in 1992. EMI would later be acquired by Universal Music Group (UMG) in 2012 with UMG creating the Virgin EMI Records division. The Virgin Records name continues to be used by UMG in certain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
