Roy Francis | |
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Genres | reggae |
Occupation(s) | Record Producer |
Roy Francis is a Jamaican record producer.
He started his Phase One label in 1977, recording The Chantells, Lopez Walker, Errol Davis, Steve Boswell, Jah Berry, The Terrors, The Heptones, and Dean Fraser.[ citation needed ]
As a songwriter he co-composed "Thief" as recorded by Yellowman in 1991, and "Poor and Simple" by Luciano in 1993.
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.
Rodney Basil Price, known as Bounty Killer, is a Jamaican reggae and dancehall deejay. AllMusic describes him as "one of the most aggressive dancehall stars of the '90s, a street-tough rude boy with an unrepentant flair for gun talk". He is considered one of the best dancehall lyricists of all time.
Osbourne Ruddock, better known as King Tubby, was a Jamaican sound engineer who influenced the development of dub in the 1960s and 1970s.
Lincoln Barrington "Sugar" Minott was a Jamaican reggae and dancehall singer, producer and sound-system operator.
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.
Dub is an electronic musical style that grew out of reggae in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is commonly considered a subgenre of reggae, though it has developed to extend beyond that style. Generally, dub consists of remixes of existing recordings created by significantly manipulating the original, usually through the removal of vocal parts, emphasis of the rhythm section, the application of studio effects such as echo and reverb, and the occasional dubbing of vocal or instrumental snippets from the original version or other works.
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.
Darrin Kenneth O'Brien, known by his stage name Snow, is a Canadian reggae musician, rapper, and singer. His 1992 single "Informer" spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
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.
Gregory Anthony Isaacs OD was a Jamaican reggae musician. Milo Miles, writing in The New York Times, described Isaacs as "the most exquisite vocalist in reggae".
Alfarita Constantia "Rita" Marley is a Cuban-born Jamaican singer-songwriter and entrepreneur. She is the widow of reggae legend Bob Marley. Along with Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt, Marley was a member of the reggae vocal group the I Threes, the backing vocalists for Bob Marley and the Wailers.
Leslie Kong was a Jamaican reggae producer.
The Ethiopians were one of Jamaica's best-loved harmony groups during the late ska, rocksteady and early reggae periods. Responsible for a significant number of hits between the mid-1960s and early 1970s, the group was also one of the first Jamaican acts to perform widely in Britain.
Clancy Eccles was a Jamaican ska and reggae singer, songwriter, arranger, promoter, record producer and talent scout. Known mostly for his early reggae works, he brought a political dimension to this music. His house band was known as The Dynamites.
Harry Zephaniah Johnson, known by the stage name Harry J, was a Jamaican reggae record producer.
Channel One is a recording studio in Maxfield Avenue, West Kingston, Jamaica. The studio was built by the Hoo Kim brothers in 1972, and has had a profound influence on the development of reggae music.
Garnet Silk was a Jamaican reggae musician and Rastafarian, known for his diverse, emotive, powerful and smooth voice. During the early 1990s he was hailed as a rising talent, however his career was ended by his early death in 1994, while attempting to save his mother from her burning house.
David Kelly is a Jamaican record producer and the brother of record producer Tony "CD" Kelly. He began his career as an engineer in the late 1980s. After getting into producing at the Penthouse label of Donovan Germain, he started his own label, Madhouse, together with business partner Janet Davidson in 1991. He went on to become one of the most successful dancehall reggae producers in Jamaica, recording numerous songs that topped the local and international reggae charts, such as "Action" by Nadine Sutherland & Terror Fabulous in 1994 and "Look" by Bounty Killer in 1999.
George Nooks, a.k.a.Prince Mohamed, Prince Mohammed, or George Knooks is a Jamaican reggae singer who initially found fame as a deejay.
Winston Hubert McIntosh, OM, professionally known as Peter Tosh, was a Jamaican reggae musician. Along with Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer, he was one of the core members of the band the Wailers (1963–1976), after which he established himself as a successful solo artist and a promoter of Rastafari. He was murdered in 1987 during a home invasion.