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  • Switchboard: 876 978-9161
  • Studio Line: 876 978-7388

Jamaica’s first champion calypsonian: Leonard “Lord Power” Williams

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 The role played by singers and musicians of Jamaica's first popular music, mento, in the attractiveness of the island as a tourism destination—particularly in the 1950s and 1960s—remains under-acknowledged. They were vital to the tourist-driven entertainment programs of hotels and nightclubs across the island. Mento, however, was marketed as ...
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  2091 Hits
2091 Hits

“THE SWEET” SOULETTES

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 American girl groups with catchy monikers like the Ronettes, the Marvelettes, and the Bobbettes, influenced the naming of at least two popular local singing groups. One of the two, the Gaylettes, have already been featured in Notes in Jamaican Music, so the spotlight now falls on the other, the Soulettes. Formed in the mid-sixties, the origin...
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  2912 Hits
2912 Hits

The Gaylettes – Sweethearts of Soul, Reggae & Rocksteady

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  American music trends such as jazz and rhythm & blues, infiltrated and eroded Jamaica's colonial tradition of classical music, which had gathered steam in the 1940s. By the early 1960s, America's newest genre, soul, was also influencing Jamaica's musical landscape. While male solo singers and groups ruled the new art-form, girl groups we...
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  4145 Hits
4145 Hits

Hortense Ellis - Jamaica's “First Lady of Song"

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Born in that celebrated seedbed of talent called Trench Town on April 18, 1941, Hortense Mahalia Ellis blossomed into a highly regarded vocalist. Her potential as such was apparent from an early age, and she often participated in school and community concerts. But, by the late 1950s, it was time to showcase her voice on a grander stage. Brother Alt...
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  3175 Hits
3175 Hits

Millicent "Patsy" Todd

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One of Jamaica's prolific hit-makers of the 1960's was Millicent Todd, more popularly known as Patsy. Born in 1944, Todd was raised in the Fletcher's Land community of West Kingston, and attended the nearby All Saints school. On realizing she could sing, her mother informed popular singer Derrick Morgan of her talent. Millicent was 15 when Morgan f...
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  3246 Hits
3246 Hits

Sonia “Miss P” Pottinger

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 In the mid-1960s, St. Thomas native Sonia Pottinger entered the male dominated world of record producing. Sonia had already been exposed to the business, as she was the wife of record producer and Tip Top Record Shop owner, Lindon Pottinger. Lindon had produced hit songs such as "My Happy Home" by Roy and Patsy, and "Bewildered" by Jimmy Jame...
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  2354 Hits
2354 Hits