BY HOWARD CAMPBELL—
Observer senior writer—
Dr Phillip “Phillip T” Thompson—
DR Phillip “Phillip T” Thompson, former lead singer of the Inner Circle band, died in Freeport, Grand Bahama, on August 28 at age 72.
Thompson’s motionless body was discovered near his vehicle at a local shopping plaza. No cause of death was given in the Bahamian press.
While a medical student at The University of the West Indies’ Mona campus in Kingston during the early 1970s, Thompson was a member of Inner Circle. He shared vocal duties with Jacob Miller and Charlie Roberts from Antigua, another medical student.
Thompson recorded several songs with Inner Circle, founded in 1968 by brothers Ian and Roger Lewis. He sang lead on covers of The Hues Corporation’s Rock The Boat and Homely Girl, originally done by The Chi-Lites.
Roberts described Thompson as a “cool guy who did a lot of partying but was very serious about his work. He was a very good surgeon”.
Thompson returned to The Bahamas after graduating from The UWI in 1976 and established himself as one of the country’s leading surgeons and an influential figure in the Grand Bahama Junkanoo movement.
Peter Adderley, a former Grand Bahama Junkanoo Committee member, said Thompson was “God’s gift to the medical community”.
Roberts, who later joined the group Casual T and was part of the Jamaica football team’s medical staff for the 1998 World Cup campaign, said Thompson was also a big athletics fan who visited Jamaica annually for Boys’ and Girls’ Championships.
Dr Phillip Wellington Thompson is survived by five sons, four daughters, six grandchildren, one sister and a brother, Bishop Gilbert Thompson.
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