By Roy Black, Sunday September 25th, 2015 The Mighty Diamonds belong to an exclusive fraternity of three-part harmony group singers that emerged in the mid-1960s in Jamaican popular music and lasted into the next decade. Earlier, The Heptones, The Techniques, The Paragons, The Melodians, The Wailers, and The Gaylads had laid the foundation for the phenomenon, which produced a plethora of hits, mainly in the rocksteady and early reggae styles. Those who were around at the time and close to the action will well remember Continue reading →

BY Howard Campbell Observer senior writer TROMBONIST Rico Rodriquez, who died September 4 in London at age 80, was a versatile musician who made an impact in Jamaica and the United Kingdom where he lived for over 45 years. The Kingston born musician played on a number of ground breaking songs in both countries. These include Oh Carolina by the Ffolkes Brothers, Prince Buster’s Wash Wash, and Rudy A Message to You, a big hit in England in 1967 for Jamaican singer Dandy Livingston. Rodriquez, who attended Continue reading →

R&B and soul singer Ben E King, best known for the classic song Stand By Me, has died at the age of 76. The singer died on Thursday, April 30 his publicist Phil Brown told BBC News. King started his career in the late 1950s with The Drifters, singing hits including There Goes My Baby and Save The Last Dance For Me. After going solo, he hit the US top five with Stand By Me in 1961. It returned to the charts in the 1980s, including a three-week Continue reading →

Percy Sledge, the R&B singer whose soulful ballad of eternal love and rejection, “When a Man Loves a Woman,” topped the charts in 1966, died on Tuesday in Baton Rouge, La. He was 74. His death was confirmed by Artists International Management, which represented him. Mr. Sledge had liver cancer, for which he underwent surgery in 2014, Mark Lyman, his agent and manager, said. Mr. Sledge, sometimes called the King of Slow Soul, was a sentimental crooner and one of the South’s first soul stars, Continue reading →

Published in The Gleaner: Sunday, March 8, 2015 For one brief moment, Mickey & Sylvia were the superstars of 1950s rock and roll music. Like Shirley and Lee from that same era, they portrayed the ‘sweethearts of the blues’ image with their mid-song romantic dialogues and Mickey’s excellent guitar solos. The two components became regular features of the duo’s recordings, providing the spice that made their songs some of the sweetest to emerge from the rhythm and blues and rock and roll scenes of the Continue reading →

Roy Black, February 22, 2015 To the well-reputed 1960s Kingston College headmaster, Douglas Forrest, it is almost an unforgivable sin for a student with a talent for singing to not find himself in the school’s choir. The choir, which at the time was rated as the best in the Caribbean, produced several outstanding vocalists in Jamaican popular music. The story goes that a popular Jamaican morning-radio presenter, while being a student at Kingston College, made the impolitic mistake of not offering himself as a chorister, Continue reading →

Roy Black, Gleaner Writer The high point of male vocalising in popular music was epitomised by the mellow-toned, crystalline vocal delivery of Sam Cooke. Musicologists worldwide have given Cooke the nod, as far as singing talent was concerned, placing him ahead of others like Nat King Cole, Roy Hamilton, Ronnie Dyson and Luther Vandross. The well-reputed Atlantic Records executive, Jerry Wexler, whose organisation steered the careers of a plethora of 1960s stars, said of Cooke, “Sam was the best singer who ever lived, no contest. When I listen to him, Continue reading →

Published: Sunday, November 2, 2014 B Royal Studio One recording company, situated at 13 Brentford Road in Kingston, Jamaica, became the happy hunting ground for many early Jamaican recording artistes who went on to achieve great success. John Holt, who passed away recently and who was featured in last week’s article, was one of those who benefited from the Studio One experience, having made three trips there prior to his departure from group singing. On his first trip there, he was in the company of Continue reading →