Byron Lee

Before reggae or ska had gained traction beyond the Caribbean, Byron Lee became the initial bandleader to build an international audience for Jamaican music and proved instrumental in spreading its reach globally. During the period when Bob Marley was still an unknown young performer associated with the then-obscure Wailers, Byron Lee ranked as the most recognized Jamaican bandleader anywhere.

At age 20 he assembled the Dragonaires in 1956. The group quickly established itself as a large-ensemble counterpart to the solo calypso style popularized by Harry Belafonte and, earlier, Sir Lancelot. After touring in support of Belafonte, the Dragonaires attained worldwide visibility; their command of calypso and ska was matched by flawless execution across styles, featuring a trumpet-and-saxophone section capable of satisfying any big-band standard and Lee’s own highly individual bass work. Under Lee’s direction and with Ronnie Nasralla serving as co-producer and business manager, the Dragonaires executed every strategic decision effectively.

Fortune also placed them on Edward Seaga’s WIRL label, a newly established and influential imprint known for its reliable royalty payments. Their 1959 WIRL single “Dumplings” became a hit and served as the inaugural release on the British Bluebeat label.

Another calculated step secured their appearance in the first James Bond film, Dr. No (1962). Shot largely in and around Kingston, the movie incorporated extensive local detail, culminating in the calypso selection that closed the credits and opened the narrative. Lee and the Dragonaires received the prime musical slot, performing “Jump Up” at Pussfeller’s club during the scene in which Bond and his allies review clues and face an opposing agent with a concealed camera. Millions viewed the picture on its original release or its 1964 reissue following Goldfinger’s success, encountering Byron Lee & the Dragonaires both onscreen and throughout the United Artists Dr. No soundtrack, which sold in the hundreds of thousands. The same scene incidentally captured two pivotal figures in Jamaican music: among the dancers was a white Jamaican, Chris Blackwell, who founded Island Records roughly a year later.

As one of the earliest ska ensembles, the 14-piece Dragonaires—whose personnel shifted continually and who sometimes recorded as the Ska Kings—toured the Caribbean and North America, disseminating the ska sound. In the early 1960s Lee launched the concert agency Lee Enterprises Limited and his own Dragon’s Breath label. He brought American artists including the Drifters, Chuck Berry, Sam Cooke, and Fats Domino to Jamaica, presenting them at the Carib and Regal Theaters with Jamaican openers.

Lee’s pivotal year arrived in 1964, when he and the Dragonaires performed at the New York World’s Fair both in their own set and as backing band for Prince Buster, Eric Morris, and Peter Tosh. Their performances at the fair and at prominent Manhattan nightclubs generated extensive press coverage and elevated Jamaica’s tourism profile. That same year Lee purchased WIRL from Edward Seaga—who by then held a government post and had arranged the World’s Fair booking—renaming the company Dynamic Sounds Recording, Inc. He also formed a partnership with Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records that yielded the U.S. release of the multi-artist compilation Jamaican Ska and the all-Dragonaires album Jump Up, while granting Lee Caribbean distribution rights for Atlantic’s R&B catalog.

Despite these business commitments, Lee sustained a rigorous schedule of performances and recordings, issuing singles regularly and albums at least annually after the mid-1960s; many of these recordings featured versions of contemporary ska hits by other artists.

Although later commentators sometimes dismissed the Dragonaires as a diluted ska ensemble relative to the Skatalites, the Maytals, or the Wailers, Lee and his band did more than any other 1960s act to popularize ska and Jamaican music internationally. Together with the 1964 global success of Millie Small’s Island Records single “My Boy Lollipop,” which sold more than six million copies, their efforts inaugurated a major expansion of Jamaican music’s commercial reach.

By 1969 Lee owned Kingston’s premier recording facility, and Dynamic Sounds had become the most sought-after studio in the Caribbean. In the early 1970s major American and British rock artists began using the studio, among them the Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, and Eric Clapton; Paul Simon’s “Mother and Child Reunion” in particular highlighted the studio’s sonic qualities. Lee continued to record and perform, shifting from ska to reggae and, by the late 1970s, to soca. Despite periodic criticism that their style was overly polished, Lee and the Dragonaires retained a devoted audience into the close of the twentieth century, their Jamaican dancehall-inflected sound resonating at annual Carnival celebrations. They also released yearly collections of covers of the season’s leading Carnival songs, extending the practice of recording ska hits that Lee had begun in the 1960s.