Delroy WIlson

Delroy Wilson stood among Jamaica’s most soulful singers, releasing a torrent of chart successes and enduring classics across four decades. Born October 5, 1948, in Kingston’s Trenchtown district, the vocalist’s exceptional gift lifted him from poverty, and Coxsone Dodd’s discovery of him in 1962 altered the course of Jamaican music. The first Dodd-produced side, “If I Had a Beautiful Baby,” made scant impact, yet the producer remained committed to his young charge; the immediate successor, “Spit in the Sky,” became a sound-system favorite. Dodd himself wrote that track as a pointed retort to rival Prince Buster, while Lee Perry supplied “Joe Liges” to counter Buster’s “Bad Minded People.” The latter number delivered Wilson’s debut chart entry and ignited Jamaica’s lasting enthusiasm for diminutive vocal prodigies.

A series of notable singles sustained the exchange, among them “Prince Pharaoh” and “I Shall Not Remove,” the latter supplying the title of Wilson’s 1966 debut LP; he also cut the early Rasta anthem “Lion of Judah.” Throughout the ska period the teenage star maintained a steady output of popular Dodd recordings, though even stronger material emerged after his voice matured. His 1966 reading of the Tams’ “Dancing Mood” helped usher in the rocksteady era, scored an immediate hit, stayed a perennial favorite, and prompted several later recuts.

A cascade of landmark singles poured forth the next year: “Riding for a Fall,” “Once Upon a Time,” “Won’t You Come Home,” “Conquer Me,” “True Believer,” “I’m Not a King,” and “Rain from the Sky” all emerged from Studio One to dominate the Jamaican charts and confirmed Wilson as one of Dodd’s premier hitmakers. Dodd assembled many of these rocksteady classics on the 1969 collection The Best of Delroy Wilson, widely known as Original Twelve. Lesser-charting sides proved equally durable; tracks such as “Run Run,” “Ungrateful Baby,” “It’s Impossible,” and “Mr. DJ” (also called “Feel the Spirit”) are now regarded as standards.

By late adolescence Wilson was already shaping the emotionally layered, soul-inflected style that would mark his mature work. In 1967 he left Dodd and briefly aligned with Bunny Lee, yielding several noteworthy sides including “This Old Heart of Mine” before returning to Studio One. The following year he again departed Dodd and co-founded the W&C label with Wilburn Cole. The imprint debuted with Wilson’s solo “Once Upon a Time” and the duo’s “I Want to Love You,” yet both strong releases failed to sustain the venture, which collapsed like most artist-owned Jamaican labels. The same year Wilson, Ken Boothe, the Gaylads, and the Melodians launched the more ambitious Links label, which issued only a handful of singles—among them Wilson’s “Give Love a Try”—before folding.

By year’s end the entire Links roster had shifted to Sonia Pottinger, for whom Wilson delivered further classics including the major hit “Put Yourself in My Place.” Restless still, he next worked briefly with Keith Hudson on a powerful remake of “Run Run,” retitled “I’m Gonna Get You,” then rejoined several former Links colleagues at Leslie Kong’s Beverley label, where he recorded the superb “Show Me the Way” and the buoyant “Gave You My Love.”

Wilson’s first U.K. tour took place in 1970, during which he also cut material for Trojan. Back in Jamaica he resumed working with multiple producers, revisiting Dodd yet achieving particularly memorable results with Bunny Lee. Their 1971 collaboration “Better Must Come,” a sufferer’s plea adopted by the People’s National Party as its campaign anthem, captured the era, propelled the PNP to victory, and titled Wilson’s subsequent album. He followed it with the equally potent “Cool Operator.”

Wilson continued to record strong material for Lee and an array of other producers, returning to Pottinger, Dodd, and Hudson—the latter session producing the notable “Addis Abada.” Sessions with Niney Holness yielded the anthemic “Rascal Man” and the fine “Half Way Up the Stairs”; Joe Gibbs oversaw “Mash Up Illiteracy” and “Pretty Girl”; Douglas Williams produced the inventive “Ain’t That Peculiar”; A. Folder delivered the major hit “Have Some Mercy”; and further distinguished sides appeared for Gussie Clarke, Harry J Johnson, Phil Pratt, Vincent Chin, and others.

A sublime 1976 cover of Bob Marley’s “I’m Still Waiting,” recorded for Lloyd Charmers, became another smash. The same year brought the stellar album Sarge and Tony Robinson’s Greatest Hits collection. Additional successes followed, among them “All in This Together” and “Come in Heaven” for Gussie Clarke, plus notable singles for Jack Ruby and Bob Andy.

The ascendancy of DJs in the early 1980s slowed Wilson’s momentum, yet he rebounded with 1987’s “Don’t Put the Blame on Me” for King Jammy and the successful Lee-produced “Ease Up” the next year. Phil Pratt supervised the 1986 album Looking for Love, while Earl “Flabba” Holt produced Which Way Is Up the following year. In 1994 the Jamaican government honored his contributions with a commemorative plaque presented by Prime Minister Patterson. Although Wilson continued to record occasionally into the early 1990s, declining health led to his death from cirrhosis of the liver on March 6, 1995.