Cecil Bustamente Campbell, known professionally as Prince Buster, was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and producer. The records he released in the 1960s influenced and shaped the course of Jamaican contemporary music and created a legacy of work that would be drawn upon later by reggae and ska artists.
Ernest Ranglin is a Jamaican guitarist and composer who established his career while working as a session guitarist and music director for various Jamaican record labels including Studio One and Island Records. Ranglin played guitar on many early ska recordings and helped create the rhythmic guitar style that defined the form. Ranglin has worked with Theophilus Beckford, Jimmy Cliff, Monty Alexander, Prince Buster, the Skatalites, Bob Marley and the Eric Deans Orchestra. He is noted for a chordal and rhythmic approach that blends jazz, mento and reggae with percussive guitar solos incorporating rhythm 'n' blues and jazz inflections.
Leslie Kong was a Jamaican reggae producer.
Hortense Ellis was a Jamaican reggae musician, and the younger sister of fellow artist Alton Ellis.
Lorenzo "Laurel" Aitken was a Cuban-Jamaican singer and one of the pioneers of ska music. He is often referred to as the "Godfather of Ska".
Symarip were a British ska and reggae band, originating in the late 1960s, when Frank Pitter and Michael Thomas founded the band as The Bees. The band's name was originally spelled Simaryp, which is an approximate reversal of the word pyramids. Consisting of members of West Indian descent, Simaryp is widely marked as one of the first skinhead reggae bands, being one of the first to target skinheads as an audience. Their hits included "Skinhead Girl", "Skinhead Jamboree" and "Skinhead Moonstomp", the latter based on the Derrick Morgan song, "Moon Hop".
People from the Caribbean have made significant contributions to British Black music for many generations.
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.
Dalton Sinclair Bishop, better known as Jackie Opel, was a Barbadian singer who possessed a rich, powerful voice with a high octave range. He was known as the "Jackie Wilson of Barbadian culture" and was also a gifted dancer. Bishop was born in Bridgetown, Barbados.
Derrick Morgan OD is a Jamaican musical artist who was popular in the 1960s and 1970s. He worked with Desmond Dekker, Bob Marley, and Jimmy Cliff in the rhythm and blues and ska genres, and he also performed rocksteady and skinhead reggae.
Byron Lee and the Dragonaires are a Jamaican ska, calypso and soca band. The band played a crucial pioneering role in bringing Caribbean music to the world. Byron Lee died on 4 November 2008, after suffering from cancer for a sustained period.
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.
The history and the discography of the Island Records label can conveniently be divided into three phases:
Eric "Monty" Morris is a Jamaican ska singer, known for his work with the Skatalites and hit singles such as "Sammy Dead Oh" and "Oil in My Lamp".
Dandy Livingstone is a British-Jamaican ska, rocksteady, and reggae musician and record producer, best known for his 1972 hit, "Suzanne Beware of the Devil", and for his song, "Rudy, A Message to You", which was later a cover hit for The Specials. "Suzanne Beware of the Devil", reached number 14 on the UK Singles Chart and number 78 in Australia. In the early 1960s, Livingstone recorded some of the bestselling UK-produced ska singles of the era.
Wilfred Gerald Edwards, known as Jackie Edwards, was a Jamaican musician, songwriter and record producer, whose career took in ska, R&B, soul, rocksteady, reggae, and ballads.
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.
The Blues Busters was a vocal duo from Jamaica formed in 1960, consisting of Philip James and Lloyd Osbourne Campbell. The Blues Busters was the most consistently popular Jamaican male duo of the early 1960s, and among the Jamaican artists who performed at the 1964 New York World's Fair. They initially worked in cabaret shows to tourists in Kingston and Jamaica's north coast, but got their big break when they were asked to accompany Sam Cooke on his tour of the island in March, 1961. Taking inspiration from Cooke, on returning to the cabaret circuit they emulated the soulful harmonies of his performances and recorded a number of soul and reggae cover versions, having minor hits with "Thinking" and "Privilege". They continued until the mid-1980s, by which time they had released several albums, one of which was a tribute to Cooke.
Winston Lara, better known by his stage name Gene Rondo, was a Jamaican reggae singer. After first recording as part of the duo Gene & Roy in Jamaica, he relocated to London where he continued to record until the 1980s, including several album releases in the 1970s, both solo and as a member of The Undivided. He was sometimes credited as Gene Laro or Winston Laro.
