09/06/2024
Happy birthday in the heaven of a great real Jamaican unforgettable legend like the Radio disc jockey, studio engineer, singer and producer Micheal George Campbell, better known in the world as MIKEY DREAD.(4 june 1954-15 march 2008)
Reggae fans may already be familiar with how some notable songwriters became record producers to gain better control of their fates, but Mikey's trajectory was particularly unusual, moving from student fan to sound engineer, and then to radio programmer, recording as an artist, and ultimately a record producer, producing one of the most unusual catalogs of all.
Instructed by King Tubby and Lee 'Scratch' Perry and with longstanding personal ties to Junior Murvin and members of the Congos, Mikey was in a good position to create single pieces of roots reggae, and as the art of DJ Style is indelibly linked to the version of the "B side" and the dub, Mikey Dread ended up creating a stream of exceptional dub records in addition to his vocal work. He was also a skilled producer of emerging talent, helping to advance the careers of youth that arose just as roots music was heading towards the direction of dancehall, such as Edi Fitzroy, Rod Taylor and Hopeton Lindo, and helped young Earl Sixteen achieve even more solid foundations.
After graduating from high school, he moved to Kingston to study electrical engineering at the College of Arts, Science and Technology, but was very frustrated by the lack of focus on electronics and so he moved on to an internship at the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC).
He started working in 1976 as a sound engineer at JBC (Jamaican Broadcasting Corporation). After finishing his studies in college he began his radio broadcast "Dread At The Controls" and with the same name he founded the homonymous record label.
He initially started out as a producer, recording singles for other already famous singers like Sugar Minott, Earl Sixteen, Rod Taylor and Edi Fitzroy. Subsequently in 1977 he recorded at the studios of Joe Gibbs, the famous song "Uptown Top Ranking" performed by the female duo Althea Forrest & Donna Reid and was a historic success.
He later began recording his singles as "School Girls" and "Homeguard" and later the single produced by Sonia Pottinger entitled "Rootsman Revival".
He started working in 1976 as a sound engineer at JBC (Jamaican Broadcasting Corporation). After finishing his college studies he started his radio show "Dread At The Controls" and with the same name he founded the eponymous record label.
He initially started out as a producer, recording some singles for other already famous singers such as Sugar Minott, Earl Sixteen, Rod Taylor and Edi Fitzroy. Later in 1977 he recorded at Joe Gibbs' studio, the famous song "Uptown Top Ranking" performed by the female duo Althes Forrest & Donna Reid and it was a historical success.
Subsequently she begins to record his singles as "School Girls" and "Homeguard" and after the single produced by Sonia Pottinger entitled "Rootsman Revival".
His first hit single was 1978's "His Imperial Majesty", followed by other hits like "Love Dread", "Step By Step", and in 1980 his active collaboration with Clash leader Joe Strummer with which he records "Radio One" and "Bank Robber" and other instrumental versions of the "Sandinista" album.
The name Mikey Dread originated from the commercial and his four-hour broadcast as a DJ, which he called Dread at the Controls. Jamaican radio did not revolve around local talent, but rather imported music primarily from the United States.
Although the Jamaican record industry was very flourishing in the 1960s, this aversion to local music had not diminished. Some of the labels had overcome this handicap through a pay-to-play system, a kind of advertising.
So Studio One, Treasure Isle and the other larger labels on the island would buy blocks of time for advertising, during which they would play their new releases. This led to advertising coming exclusively from those labels with adequate money and with only two radio stations existing on the island, there were few alternatives to reach the national audience.
The Dread radio show changed things dramatically. Not only did he feature Jamaican music, but he played the hottest new songs within days (and even hours) of their press. Mikey also knew his musical history and one of his favorite tactics was to spin the original classic songs whose beats were currently in dance halls.
But Mikey Dread didn't stop with anarchic and hip music, his special and particular jingles were all recorded in King Tubby's studio and were as innovative as the show itself.
Mikey employed whichever singer was in the studio at the time, including two students, Althea Forrest and Donna Reid, who Dread soon followed. The pair had recently recorded a song with production team The Mighty Two (Errol Thompson & Joe Gibbs), as a female replica of DJ Trinity's hit "Three Piece Suit," which Dread used for a jingle.
In response, Mighty Two released the single "Uptown Top Ranking" in late 1977, which topped the charts in Jamaica and Britain. Terror seemed to have the magic touch and so he tried to repeat his hit on the air in the recording studio with the help of Lee Perry.
The resulting debut cut, "Dread at the Controls," quickly became the DJ's anthem. He was soon followed by "School Girl" and the powerful "Homeguard". Other singles followed, including one with Mighty Two and "Rootsman Revival" for Sonia Pottinger. Meanwhile, Dread's radio show continued on its way, delighting audiences and infuriating conservative DJ heads at JBC.
By 1979, however, Dread had grown weary of the constant battles at the station and resigned. He initially took a job as an engineer at Treasure Isle, but soon joined producer Carlton Patterson, for whom he recorded the single "Barber Saloon". The couple joined forces behind the recording desk, and together they produced the Ray I hit "Weatherman Skank".
In 1979 he broke off his collaboration at JBC after constant quarrels and discussions with the owners of the radio and was hired as a sound engineer by Duke Reid at the Treasure Isle studio.
Here he met another great Jamaican producer Carlton Patterson with whom he recorded "Barber Saloon" and Mikey Dread together with Carlton Patterson recorded Ray I's song "Weatherman Skank".
When Mikey left JBC, he briefly worked as an engineer at Treasure Isle, assisting in the studio on the release of Culture's "Cumbolo" album, but turned down an offer from Chris Blackwell to become a resident engineer at Compass Point Studio at Bahamas.
Instead, a deal with Trojan Records brought his first debut album with "Evolutionary Rockers" to Britain under the title "Dread At The Controls", and the dub album "African Anthem" was released shortly thereafter on the Cruise label.
Mikey traveled to Britain on this material and began recording and touring with The Clash, channeling future product through the DATC spin-offs associated with British labels Stiff and Rough Trade.
Before the end of the year, Dread had launched his own label, Dread at the Controls, which was also chosen as the title of his debut album and DATC's first release.
The dub version, "African Anthem Dubwise", followed and featured dub remixes of King Tubby, Prince Jammy and Dread himself. Both albums featured deep dub excursions and jingles were recorded with each intro of each song.
At the start of the new decade, Dread was on his way to England to open the Clash's month-long tour. Afterwards, all five went straight to the studio where Mikey supervised the group's single "Bankrobber" and vocalized on the other tracks on the album such as "Living in Fame", "One More Time" and "If Music Could Talk".
The Clash originally composed the song with a ska arrangement in mind, but Dread didn't want to hear about it and made his views public.
Then he began to completely restructure the song into a beautiful heavy dub tune. Dread would also record his DJ version of "Bankrobber", under the title "Rocker's Galore U.K. Tour". The recording sessions moved to New York where Rasta joined The Clash for their next single, a cover of Eddy Grant's "Police on My Back", as well as "One More Time", a song that would soon appear on the album "Sandinista" of the band.
While there, Dread recorded a single of him, titled "Rocker's Delight". After the Clash experience, Mikey Dread turned his attention to his DATC label and his recordings. Continuing to co-produce with Patterson, the label released a series of pivotal ballroom singles from key artists such as Sugar Minott, Edi Fitzroy and Junior Murvin.
Dread had also maintained his relationship with King Tubby, and remixes of him were often featured on the B-sides of the label, another crucial element to the label's success. Meanwhile, Mikey recorded some of his singles, "Proper Education", "Love the Dread" and "African Map".
These inevitably featured B-side dub remixes, created by Patterson, Mikey Dread and King Tubby, and often the discs were pursued by fans purely for the voiceovers themselves. Mikey's new album, "Beyond World War III", arrived in 1981.
The following year he released the new album "Jungle Signal", interspersing vocal tracks with great masterful dub versions. The single "Jumping Master" was a smash hit that same year, and yet another album like "Dub Merchant" came soon after, boasting eight blinding remixes of that song.
While Mikey and his music, label and productions were having a huge influence on the UK scene, it was evident that Britain too had an impact on Mikey's excellent work.
Rock lovers had joined the UK reggae scene and, in response, Mikey released the new album entitled "SWALK", his third album from 1982. And the UK was also undergoing another revolution, with the launch of the nation's fourth largest television channel, Channel Four.
This channel, while not directly controlled by the government, was set up to serve minority interests, a counterweight to the wider entertainment offered by the nation's other independent station, ITV.
Obviously the channel would offer musical performances, but in keeping with its protocol, it was looking for more alternative styles. Jamaican music was an obvious starting point and a six-part series on the island's music scene, Deep Roots, was commissioned.
The narrator's choice was equally obvious and Mikey accepted the offer. The following year, Mikey returned to Channel Four's cameras as the host of the Rockers Road Show, which featured live performances. Mikey himself provided the show's theme song, "Roots and Culture".
That song would be among the many highlights of 1984's "Pave The Way" album, self-produced and boasting some of the greatest musicians in both Jamaica and the UK, the album remained one of the most creative reggae records ever recorded, assuming it is so classified.
"Pave the Way Part I & II" came the following year, but it would be five years before Mikey returned with another full album. His singles production was even more sporadic, as he focused on television work.
During the English period he collaborated with several visits to Adrian's On-U Sound studios along with the laying of three memorable voices for the Singers And Players, two of which concerned his past life "Autobiography (Of The Dread Operator)" and "School Days ".
Both rhythms were completely re-vocalized on On-U-Sound by his friend Congo Ashanti Roy respectively as "Breaking Down The Pressure" and "African Blood" followed by a third entitled "Vegetable Matter".
By the time he went back to recording the "Happy Family" album in 1989, most people had stopped paying attention to him. In the new decade, Mikey briefly switched to the Rykodisc label and released the album "Obsession" in 1992, full of the British "Lovers Rock" genre.
In the same year he was involved in the debut album of former Guns'n'Roses guitarist Izzy Stradlin, Izzy Stradlin & the Ju Ju Hounds. Another four years passed and in 1996, Mikey returned with another album with "Come to Mikey Dread's Dub Party".
Since then he again paused in a long period of musical silence. In front of the cameras, however, Mikey remained an important figure. Some of his projects include the Deep Roots Music video story and the British TV series Rockers International. In 1991, Rykodisc released another "Best Sellers" album, followed by the latest album as "Prime of Mikey Dread: Massive Dub Cuts 1978-1992".
As for his productions for other artists, he recorded the album "Reggae Sound" for Earl Sixteen in 1981, "Bad Man Posse" for Junior Murvin in 1982 and production in collaboration with Adrian Sherwood recording for the Singers & Players ( independent collective of musicians) the album "Leaps And Bounds" on the On-U Sound label.
We also remember his concerts on May 2, 2003 in Bari at the Merendero Club organized by the organization of musical events Bass Culture and in Rome on May 8, 2003 held at the Spazio Boario Global Village.
https://youtu.be/ugDhIt1_ASw (Live in Rome 2003)
Retiring from the music scene for a time, he ran a television station in Miami called "Caribbean Satellite Network" and, after continuing his studies, returned more concertedly to touring and recording in the new millennium with his "Rasta In Control" albums.
2002 and the last "Life Is A Stage" containing surprising moments of brilliance. Dread has maintained quality in his onstage shows as well, always testing the band regardless of the setting and directing individual musicians in and out of the mix for extended live dub training.
Michael Campbell left us too soon, succumbing to an incurable brain tumor before his untimely death on March 15, 2008.
