Migration leads to international popularity of Jamaican popular music

The mass migration of Jamaican recording artistes to the United Kingdom (UK) at the end of the 1950s was, perhaps, the prelude to the proliferation of Jamaican popular music there and in Europe.

It was the prospect of greater financial reward that led many to hunt their bread in 'greener pastures'. Among the more prominent artistes at the time, to make the exodus, were Laurel Aitken, Wilfred 'Jackie' Edwards, Owen Gray, Girl Satchmo, Dandy Livingstone, trombonist Rico Rodriguez and 'Lollipop Girl' Millie Small.

The migration was the first move towards ensuring that Jamaican music reached far beyond its shores.

Chris Blackwell, the England-born, Jamaica-bred, music mogul and record producer, was the man behind almost the entire exercise, as he sought to establish his Island Records enterprise in Britain, and needed the services of some of the best Jamaican talent to help support the venture.

Blackwell, considered the person most responsible for turning the world on to reggae music, was born in London in June 1937, but spent his childhood in Jamaica before returning to Britain to continue his education. He skipped university to pursue a career in real estate and other businesses while in Jamaica.

It was while he was in the jukebox business that he was brought into contact with the Jamaican music community and was soon introduced to the dancehall scene, where he met Owen Gray and Jackie Edwards and recorded them on his first record label named R&B.

In 1960, he produced the Boogie/R&B influenced, Boogie In My Bones by Laurel Aitken, which became the first No.1 Jamaican hit record.

Its flip side, Little Sheila, also created history when it became the first Jamaican recording to be distributed in England on Blackwell's Island label.

By 1962, Blackwell was back in England to continue the growth of his business, and even sold records from the back of his car, to the Jamaican community.

Of the batch of entertainers who migrated to the UK, Laurel Aitken was perhaps the first.

Born in Cuba in 1927 to a Jamaican father and a Cuban mother, he moved with his parents and siblings to Jamaica in 1938.

Aitken began earning a living in his mid-teens, by singing and dancing in Kingston nightclubs and later doing calypsos for the Jamaica Tourist Board, as visitors alighted at Kingston Harbour.

Between 1958 and 1960, he recorded in Jamaica in the pre-ska shuffle mode for various producers, recordings like, Bartender, Brother David, Judgement Day, More Whisky, I Shall Not Remove, and Mighty Redeemer. Relocating to England in 1960, he found the Jamaican community in Brixton welcoming, as he became the first Jamaican artiste to break Jamaica's music internationally with a plethora of Jamaican-flavoured UK hits for the Melodisc and Blue Beat labels, some of which charted as far as Spain and Belgium.

Owen Gray recorded several cuts in Jamaica before going via the migration route to the UK and making his contribution to the proliferation of Jamaican music there.

Interestingly, on the Jamaican scene, Millie Small's first recording, titled Sugar Plum, was sung in duet with Gray, while he maintained a prodigious output with Please Let Me Go for Blackwell, Darling Patricia for Leslie Kong, and Millie Girl for Prince Buster. He was perhaps, the first artiste to sing the praises of a particular Sound System in the recording On The Beach, in which he urged patrons to:

Come down to the beach,

I was dancing to the music of Sir Coxson, The Downbeat, on the beach.

While I was dancing two tunes, started to make my date

The girl said, "Listen to me daddy, its getting too late".

Millie Small may be considered a 'one-hit wonder', but that one hit - My Boy Lollipop - a remake of the relatively unknown, Barbie Gaye 1957 R&B recording, was perhaps the most important recording in Jamaica's music history.

Considered Jamaican, although it was cut in England, My Boy Lollipop sold over seven million copies, topped the charts in the UK and some European countries and reached No. 2 in America - the only ska recording to have done so. It literally opened the floodgates of opportunity for numerous Jamaican artistes, and for the first time, placed Jamaica firmly on the international music map.

The sweet-voiced balladeer, Jackie Edwards, who many considered, Jamaica's most accomplished romantic singer and songwriter, made his mark in Jamaica in the late 1950s with songs like, Your Eyes Are Dreaming, Heaven Just Knows and the latin-tempoed, Tell Me Darling, before accompanying Chris Blackwell to London in 1962.

Although having a few moderate hits, some with Millie Small, he found more success with covers of his compositions, Keep On Running, and Somebody Help Me by the Spencer Davis group. Both topped the British charts in 1966 and helped to put the focus on Jamaica as the emerging giant in popular music.

Girl Satchmo, a female impersonator of the great Louis 'Satchmo' Armstrong, was once a Kingston fish vendor who entered the famous Vere Johns opportunity talent contest in the early 1960s.

Her recording of Darling became very popular at the time. She was given an assisted travelling package to the UK by Johns in the mid-60s, where she continued to contribute to the spread of the music.

The distribution of Jamaican recordings in the UK also owes a lot to Emile E. Shalit's Melodisc Records.

Shalit became the authorised distributor of Jamaican recordings in the UK.

The label not only gave Jamaican ska a home in the UK, but gave the frenetic ska music its name. As the subsidiary of Melodisc Records, the label issued more than 400 singles and albums between 1960 and 1967. It was also about this time that Derrick Morgan was persuaded by his old friend and rival, Prince Buster, to accompany him to Britain to sign a contract with Shalit for the distribution of his records there.

The collaboration paid off, as Buster's productions were among the most popular in the UK.

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