Castro Brown, a stalwart of British reggae, died on May 11 in Croydon, England at age 68. His daughter, Theresa Brown, said he succumbed to complications of a heart attack he suffered four days earlier.
Brown, who was from Portland parish in eastern Jamaica, died at the Croydon University Hospital.
He moved to the United Kingdom in 1961 at age 11 and settled with his family in Croydon, south London. By the end of that decade, Brown was working with pioneer sound systems, and became closely associated with the Coxsone ‘sound’, owned by Lloyd “Lloydie Coxsone” Blackford, during the early 1970s.
Eventually, Brown started Morpheus Records and was a partner in DEB Music, which was owned by his close friend, singer Dennis Brown. In the mid and late 1970s, that label produced songs like Man Next Door by Brown and Trickster by Junior Delgado.
Castro Brown was also known as a show promoter, with most of his events taking place in London and West Indian-strong areas like Birmingham. In Jamaica, he was founder and principal of New Name Records and recording studio which worked closely with acts like Lady Saw.
In recent years, Brown returned to boxing, a lifelong passion. He worked successfully as a manager and trainer in The Contender, a widely-popular televised boxing series in Jamaica.
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