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Dennis Brown - Reggae's Most Important Singer

Written By Stan Evan Smith

Dennis Brown or D. Brown, as he was affectionately known is one of the greatest singers and performer in the history of Jamaican music. He is reggae music’s most important and influential singer. His father, Arthur Brown, was a well-known actor in Jamaican theater circles on Orange Street, a ghetto area located in the downtown Kingston section of Jamaica, his father died on January 12th, 2000, however, very little is known about his mother. Born on February 1st 1957 Dennis Brown attended Central Branch Junior Secondary School in West Kingston. At the age of eight as a singer he became a child prodigy performing his first concert with Byron Lee & the Dragonaires band. Because of his diminutive size, Brown had been placed on beer crates to be able to sing in the mike. Dennis grew from ‘Boy Wonder’ to ‘Teen Sensation’ and finally to ‘Crown Prince’ of reggae music He recorded his first song in 1969 and, this was the beginning of a thirty-year musical career or "a journey" as he described it. This journey took him on sold out concerts in Europe, Asia, Africa, Japan, the Caribbean, Central, South and North America and established his reputation along with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh as one of the pioneers of reggae music. His final concert was in Salvador, Brazil on June 13th 1999. He suffered a brief illness while he was in Brazil with his band, Lloyd Parks We the People, and singers Max Romeo and Gregory Isaac. According to LPWP saxophonist, Tony Green, on June 18, 1999 Brown stopped in Miami where he voiced the song ‘Soon Depart’ for producer Karl Pitterson and when finished voicing the song, he uttered, and "that’s the end of me." It was, reportedly, the last song Dennis Brown would record He died of heart failure due to respiratory complications in the University Hospital of the West Indies on July 1st 1999. He was 42 years old. Devoutly religious, Dennis Brown was a member of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, a branch of the Rastafarian faith, an Ethiopia-centered religion rooted in the liberation of the black man. Dennis was from the tribe of Joseph.

He received a funeral at Jamaica’s National Arena attended by dignitaries including Prime Minister P.J. Patterson and then leaders of the opposition Jamaica Labor Party and National Democratic Movement Mr. Edward Seaga and Mr. Bruce Golding. He was given an unofficial burial in the National Heroes Circle the burial site of Jamaica’s national eight heroes including Marcus Garvey, Morant Bay rebellion leader Paul Bogle and revolutionary Maroon leader Nanny in the National Heroes Park. Prime Minister PJ Patterson promised that national honor would be bestowed on Dennis Brown. Six years later no award for national recognition has been given, it is long overdue.

Dwarfed by Bob Marley because of his international recognition and cultural influence, Dennis Brown is the most influential and important singer in Reggae music. Bob Marley was Reggae’s Classical Troubadour and its most famous figure but, Dennis Brown is, as producer Mickey Bennett noted "the Reggae’s singer’s singer." As a stylist he perfected the vocal sound unique to reggae singing. With His phenomenally huge voice, with its edge and slow tremella, almost perfect tone and timing, had the ability to make any song sound right on time. It’s originality and uniqueness in sound made his singing style, ‘epitomize what a reggae singer is all about.’ He possessed ‘that rhythmic quality to his voice, the smoothness with which he dominated the rhythm track making every song, he sung, sound like a Dennis Brown’ song. His unparalleled significance and influence in defining the style of singing unique to reggae music and his influence on premier reggae singers Frankie Paul, Luciano, Ritchie Stephens, Sanchez, Bushman, Prince Malachi and Maxi Priest -who acknowledged Brown’s influence, when asked by Don Cornelius of Soul Train who was his greatest music influence answered unequivocally "Dennis Brown" is unmatched. They all took a page or two from Browns’ vocal songbook. This makes him, arguably, possibly the greatest Jamaican singer, ever and the ‘greatest singing influence in the history of reggae music given his unparallel and disproportionate impact on vocals and singers. For more than two and half decades, his vocal style, was the most influential to emerge, it shape and defined, what successful singers, in reggae, imitated to achieve success. Unlike most of Jamaica’s leading vocalists whose most significant influences were R&B legends, Brown’s was local Ska and Rock Steady legend Delroy Wilson.

From early 1970’s to the early 1990’s no other singer in Reggae had as many hit songs, or inspired more imitators than Dennis Brown. He recorded more than 200 singles and approximately 70 albums. Successful singers in Reggae patterned his style as his hit making ability and his career declined mid 1990’s. However, he toured feverishly, wrote prolifically and recorded none stop. From his first hit song "No man is an Island" in 1968 to his last hit song ‘Stop Fighting’ Brown worked with all the major producers in Reggae music and had hit songs for them.

The 1980’s were his most dominant and most commercially successful stint as an artist. His career went international with his songs competing with each other on ethnic charts in cities in the United States, Europe and the Caribbean. As the most sought after Reggae Act for live shows and recording he commanded a staggering at the time $25-35,000 per show (working three nights a week) and a percentage of the gate receipt. He signed a recording contract with A& M. Recording in the U. S. that produced three of the finest reggae albums ever made. The albums ‘Foul Play’, ‘Love Has Found Its Way’ and ‘The Prophet Rides Again’ received critical acclaim. In New York he headlined major venues like The Red Parrot, The Felt Forum at Madison Square Garden and the Apollo where he sold out two shows the same night. He recorded prolifically (unwisely causing over exposure) and toured extensively. A series of poor management choices, shady business practices by his producer Joe Gibbs (under cutting the A. & M record contract provisions) and the latent effects of drug addiction ushered in the seeds of the decline in his career.

The tapering of his career coincided with the dawn of dance hall music dominated by sing jays and DJs in the1990’s. The torch was passed to a new breed of singers like Garnet Silk, Freddie McGregor, Ritchie Stephens and Beres Hammond. He recorded in search of a hit and received a Grammy nomination for his album ‘Temperature Rising.’

The musical legacy of Dennis Brown will remain a lasting legacy and, a testament to his greatness and the music genre he helped pioneer. His music will live forever.