Doris Darlington

Last updated

Doris Darlington
Birth nameDoris Albertha Darlington
Also known asNanny
BornJamaica
Died(1998-06-25)25 June 1998 [1]
GenresReggae, Ska, Rocksteady
Instrument(s) turntables, record producer
Labels Studio One

Doris Albertha Darlington (died 25 June 1998) was a Jamaican Maroon who owned a food shop and later a liquor store in Kingston, Jamaica, in the 1950s and 1960s. This site provided the initial space for her son Coxsone Dodd to begin playing music for customers, a practice that eventually led to his founding Studio One and becoming one of the island's key musical forces. When her son was away buying records to play on the sound system, Darlington set up and ran the sound system herself, and thus can be named one of Jamaica's first sound system operators, and a force in the development of ska, rocksteady and reggae music. Darlington also ran a record store in Jamaica, was often present at Studio One recording studios and involved in producing music in the early 1960s.

Contents

Darlington was nicknamed "Nanny" after the famed female leader Nanny of the Maroons.

Biography

Darlington was a descendant of the Jamaican Maroons, communities descended from escaped Africans who fought for and established free communities in the Jamaican interior. In the 1950s she owned a food shop whose customers were interested in hearing the latest R&B tunes from the US. Her son Clement "Coxsone" Dodd began to meet this need with a turntable, an amplified sound system and a collection of records, and eventually the space expanded into a bar with a canteen in the back at which Darlington would cook. However, whenever Dodd went on trips to purchase music, he would leave Nanny in charge of the show, running the technical and creative side of the Downbeat sound system. This made her "the first female sound system operator". [2]

Dodd later said of her contribution to music that "She is the founding mother of everything, for without her nothing would’ve happened". [3] Dodd also named one of his sublabels D. Darling after her. [4] Darlington also ran the record store, Music Land, [5] in Spanish Town, Jamaica. (Some sources describe her as running a record store called Muzik City, [6] which is also associated with Coxsone Dodd). [7]

Production career

Darlington was often present at Studio One recording studio, and sometimes took an active role from at least 1961 to the early 1990s, when she was listed as producer on George Faith's 1992 album Just the Blues. [8] The bulk of her credits are from the early 1960s, when she produced a small string of rocksteady, Jamaican rhythm and blues and jazz singles. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ska</span> Music genre

Ska is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat. It was developed in Jamaica in the 1960s when Stranger Cole, Prince Buster, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, and Duke Reid formed sound systems to play American rhythm and blues and then began recording their own songs. In the early 1960s, ska was the dominant music genre of Jamaica and was popular with British mods and with many skinheads.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coxsone Dodd</span> Jamaican record producer (1932–2004)

Clement Seymour "Coxsone" Dodd was a Jamaican record producer who was influential in the development of ska and reggae in the 1950s, 1960s and beyond.

Arthur "Duke" Reid CD was a Jamaican record producer, DJ and label owner.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alton Ellis</span> Jamaican singer-songwriter

Alton Nehemiah Ellis was a Jamaican singer-songwriter. One of the innovators of rocksteady, he was given the informal title "Godfather of Rocksteady". In 2006, he was inducted into the International Reggae And World Music Awards Hall Of Fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Studio One (record label)</span> Record label in Jamaica

Studio One is one of Jamaica's most renowned record labels and recording studios; it has been described as the Motown of Jamaica. The record label was involved with most of the major music movements in Jamaica during the 1960s and 1970s, including ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub and dancehall.

There are several subgenres of reggae music including various predecessors to the form.

Delroy George Wilson CD was a Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae singer. Wilson is often regarded as Jamaica's first child star, having first found success as a teenager. His youngest son, Karl "Konan" Wilson, has found success as part of British duo Krept and Konan.

In Jamaican popular culture, a sound system is a group of disc jockeys, engineers and MCs playing ska, rocksteady or reggae music. The sound system is an important part of Jamaican culture and history.

Nerlynn Taitt was a guitarist born in San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago, who later moved to Jamaica and became a pioneer of rocksteady music.

The dance halls of Jamaica in the 1950s and 1960s were home to public dances usually targeted at younger patrons. Sound system operators had big home-made audio systems, spinning records from popular American rhythm and blues musicians and Jamaican ska and rocksteady performers. The term dancehall has also come to refer to a subgenre of reggae that originated around 1980.

Winston Sparkes, better known as King Stitt, was a Jamaican pioneer DJ.

Tommy McCook was a Jamaican saxophonist. A founding member of The Skatalites, he also directed The Supersonics for Duke Reid, and backed many sessions for Bunny Lee or with The Revolutionaries at Channel One Studios in the 1970s.

Soul Jazz Records is a British record label based in London. Outside of releasing records, the label also publishes books, occasionally films and performs as a DJ set. The music releases labels from a variety of genres, including reggae, house, hip hop, punk rock, jazz, funk, bossa nova and soul.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noel Simms</span> Musical artist

Noel Bartholomew Simms, better known by his nickname and artistic names Scully or Zoot, was a Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae percussionist and vocalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cedric Brooks</span> Musical artist

Cedric "Im" Brooks was a Jamaican saxophonist and flautist known for his solo recordings and as a member of The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, The Sound Dimensions, Divine Light, The Light of Saba, and The Skatalites.

Larry Marshall was a Jamaican reggae singer, who recorded both as a solo artist and as part of the duos Larry & Alvin and Larry & Enid.

Owen Gray, also known as Owen Grey, is a Jamaican musician. His work spans the R&B, ska, rocksteady, and reggae eras of Jamaican music, and he has been credited as Jamaica's first home-grown singing star.

Gladstone Anderson, 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. 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.

Kenneth Lloyd Khouri was a pioneering Jamaican record producer and founder of Federal Records, the first recording studio in Jamaica, which was sold to Bob Marley's Tuff Gong record label in 1981. He is credited by reggae historians for the birth of rocksteady in the 1960s. Rocksteady later mixed with Jamaican mento, a genre in which Khouri also had a pioneering role, leading to the creation of reggae music.

References

  1. ↑ "In The Supreme Court of Judicature of Jamaica" (PDF). Supremecourt.gov.jm. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  2. ↑ "Songbirds – Pioneering Women in Jamaican Music". Waxpoetics.com. 15 January 2015. Retrieved 29 August 2020.
  3. ↑ Heather Augustyn. Songbirds – Pioneering Women in Jamaican Music. Half Pint Press, 2014, ISBN   978-1502436047
  4. ↑ David Katz, People Funny Boy p. 37, ISBN   978-1846094439
  5. ↑ "Songbirds – Pioneering Women in Jamaican Music". Waxpoetics.com. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
  6. ↑ "Studio One (Soul Jazz Records)". Savagejaw.co.uk. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
  7. ↑ "An Orange Street Remembrance – Tallawah". Tallawah.com. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
  8. ↑ Moskowitz, David. Caribbean Popular Music: An Encyclopedia of Reggae, Mento, Ska, Rock Steady and Dancehall, Greenwood Press, 2006, p. 109, ISBN   978-0313331589
  9. ↑ "Doris Darlington". Discogs.com. Retrieved 29 August 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.