Barrington Levy—
EVEN though its leader Bob Marley was still releasing quality albums and songs, roots reggae had peaked by the late 1970s and a new sound called dancehall emerged from Kingston’s inner cities.
One of its exciting exponents was a gifted singer named Barrington Levy, just 15 years old when he stormed reggae charts in 1979.
That year, Island Records released Marley’s militant Survival album which earned strong reviews internationally. In Jamaica, Levy ruled the charts and dancehalls with songs like Don’t Fuss or Fight, Shine Eye Girl, Looking My Love, and Collie Weed.
They were produced by Hyman “Jah Life” Wright and Henry “Junjo” Lawes. The songs were recorded at Channel One studio in Kingston with the Roots Radics Band.
A young Barrington Levy
Because his early hit songs were done for Wright and Lawes, it is believed they were the first to record him. That distinction actually goes to singer Dobbie Dobson who produced My Black Girl, a song Levy did in 1978 as a member of The Mighty Multitudes as part of a duo that included his cousin Everton Dacres.
He was introduced to Lawes by Wright and formed a fruitful partnership with the flamboyant owner of the Volcano label and sound system.
“I was on loads of sounds but the sound that I started on was Burning Spear, but in them times I was on every sound. I was working, and people started to hear about me on cassette. And then Junjo come over and said, ‘You think you can be a big star,’ and he come up with some rhythm tracks and we do A Yah We Deh, and after that we do Collie Weed. That was the big one, it mash up the place. It was then that we made the album Bounty Hunter,” Levy told journalist Ray Hurford in 1992.
Bounty Hunter (also released as Shaolin Temple) was not only a hit in Jamaica, but in the United Kingdom as well. It earned Levy a lasting fan base in that country where he moved to in 1980.
In the UK he made an effortless transition from prodigy to adulthood. He had producer Paul “Jah Screw” Love to thank for that.
Love produced the weed-man anthem, Under mi Sensi and Here I Come, another big hit that solidified Barrington Levy’s coming of age as a singer and artiste.
Barrington Levy has earned his title as godfather of dancehall music. He was once signed to a major label (MCA Records), collaborated with the genre’s next generation (most notably with Bounty Killer on Living Dangerously), and has been sampled by hip hop acts like Shyne and pop group Black Eyed Peas.
He remains one of the best touring acts in reggae.
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