Tribute to a pillar of Jamaican music

The Editor, Sir:

I would like to acknowledge the passing of Glenroy Kincaid Adams on December 17 in Kingston. Glen Adams was a pillar of Jamaican music with a career spanning 50 years.

He was a founding member of The Heptones, The Pioneers, the Reggae Boys, the Aggrovators, the Bunny Lee Allstars, the Hippy Boys and the Upsetters - a group that not only played on the hits Everybody Need Love, Seven Letters, Bangarang, Liquidator, and the Return of Django - but also backed Bob Marley & the Wailers on such Lee Perry produced hits as Duppy Conqueror, Who the Cap Fit - for which he wrote the now-classic introductory motif - and Mr Brown, a song he arranged and wrote entirely.

Originally a singer who made stage clothes, Glen was a guitar player turned keyboardist who invented a style of organ dubbed 'The Creep', ushering in the era of reggae and subsequently imitated by Stevie Wonder on his hit, Master Blaster Jamming. First recorded by Sir Clement 'Coxsone' Dodd in 1960, Glen tasted success as a 15-year-old with the release of a sound system dub plate, Wonderthirst, for which Mr Dodd paid him five pound sterling. Classmates (boys and girls) lined up during lunch break seeking 'Wonderthirst's' autograph.

groundbreaking tour

After a groundbreaking tour of the United Kingdom between 1969 and '70 with the Upsetters, and the release of the three Wailers' LPs Soul Rebel and Soul Revolution Part 1 & 2 on which they played, Glen moved to Brooklyn, New York in the spring of 1971, eventually opening a recording studio, aptly christened Landmark Corner due to its historic location in the building that had housed one of the first outlets for reggae music in the United States.

Not simply an immense talent and an ambassador for Jamaican music, Glen was a human being extraordinaire. Although he suffered from polymyositis, an inflammation of the muscles for 30 years, he did not complain nor allow it to curtail his independent activity. The only man I know who had Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh singing backup for him - on the ethereal Never Had a Dream - he personified the very best. With a wicked sense of humor and cutting-edge intellect, he was a supportive friend who gave graciously of his time.

"I have always had strong feelings that people who were born the year that I was born have been given special talent and skills. I was never pressured in doing anything that I did not want to do and I always feel free to do my thing," he wrote just months before he passed. Glen 'Capo' Adams, the 'Wailing Upsetter', leaves an indelible mark on Jamaican music. He also leaves an indelible mark on me in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I am, etc.,

ELIZABETH

BARRACLOUGH

lizardbearclaw@earthlink.net

Albuquerque

New Mexico