Derrick Harriott, the Jamaican singer and record producer whose career stretched across ska, rocksteady and reggae, has died at 87, The Gleaner reported.<\/p>\n
Dorrel Mattocks, operator of the Derrick Harriott Music Store at Twin Gates Plaza in St Andrew, confirmed to the newspaper that Harriott died at home at about 1am on Saturday. Mattocks said the veteran musician had been ill, had spent time in hospital and had recently returned home. The report did not specify a cause of death.<\/p>\n
Born in Kingston on February 6, 1939, Harriott began his career in the late 1950s. He co-founded The Jiving Juniors in 1958, with the vocal group recording early local hits including Lollipop Girl and Over the River.<\/p>\n
In 1962, he launched his solo career and established his Crystal record label. His recordings included I Care and The Loser, which became his signature song.<\/p>\n
His contribution extended beyond his own performances. As a producer, Harriott helped shape early reggae and dub, recording early sessions at King Tubby\u2019s studio and producing music for Dennis Brown, Big Youth, The Ethiopians, Keith & Tex and The Kingstonians.<\/p>\n
His work received national and industry recognition. The Jamaican government awarded him the Order of Distinction in 2009, and he received the JaRIA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019.<\/p>\n
Harriott\u2019s career connected the vocal-group recordings of the late 1950s with the development of reggae and dub. His legacy rests both in the songs he recorded himself and in the work he produced for other Jamaican artistes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From The Jiving Juniors to Crystal, Harriott helped shape Jamaican music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jamaica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}