Derrick Harriott, Ska and Rocksteady Pioneer, Dies at 87
The Kingston singer and producer behind “The Loser” helped carry Jamaican music from ska to rocksteady to reggae, then spent decades producing the next generation.
Derrick Harriott has died at 87. The Jamaican singer and producer, whose career ran from the first wave of ska through rocksteady and into reggae, died at home shortly after 1 a.m. on Saturday in St. Andrew, Jamaica.
Dorrel Mattocks, who runs the Derrick Harriott Music Store, confirmed the death to The Gleaner. He said Harriott had been sick and in and out of hospital, and had recently come home after a hospital stay. No cause of death beyond that period of illness has been given.
Harriott was born in Kingston on February 6, 1939. He came up through the soundsystem era and, in 1958, co-founded the vocal group the Jiving Juniors, whose early hits included “Lollipop Girl” and “Over the River.”
He went solo in 1962 and started his own label, Crystal. His first solo release, “I Care,” was a hit, and he followed it with songs including “What Can I Do” and “I’m Only Human.” His signature song was “The Loser,” a rocksteady hit built on his soul singing. “Solomon” and “Walk the Streets” were among his other well-known recordings.
As a producer, Harriott shaped as much Jamaican music as he sang. Through Crystal he produced Dennis Brown, Big Youth, the Ethiopians, Keith & Tex, the Kingstonians and the Chosen Few, among others. His studio band, the Crystallites, recorded the 1970 instrumental album Undertaker, and Scrub-A-Dub, mixed in 1974 at King Tubby’s studio, was one of the earliest dub albums. Swing magazine named him its top producer of 1970.
In Britain he became a club favorite as rocksteady and early reggae took hold there, and he kept links with second- and third-wave ska musicians in the United States while staying rooted in Jamaica. In the 1970s he opened a record shop on King Street in Kingston, later moving it to Twin Gates Plaza in Half-Way Tree, where the Derrick Harriott Music Store still trades.
Jamaica recognized the career twice over. He received the Order of Distinction in 2009 and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jamaica Reggae Industry Association in 2019.
Harriott was there at the start of three Jamaican sounds, and he kept working in the music long after they had traveled the world. He was a singer, a label owner, a producer and a shopkeeper, and each of those jobs left a mark on the records that followed.
