Linval Thompson

Although his profile has remained relatively modest beyond reggae audiences, vocalist, record maker, and composer Linval Thompson has never required wider exposure. Since the middle of the 1970s his efforts have steered the music’s course, repeatedly erasing supposed lines between its stylistic categories. Early on he lent his voice to distinguished Jamaican producers, cutting “Natty Dread a Pressure Them” for Augustus Pablo and “Kung Fu Man” for Lee Perry. The subsequent appearance of Ride on Dreadlocks on Blood and Fire, together with fresh editions of his earlier catalog, secured his standing among the leading roots-era vocalists. Devotees continue to prize his enduring anthems “Cool Down Your Temper” and “Don’t Cut Off Your Dreadlocks.” Thompson functions in three capacities: as a performer and lyricist he helped originate, disseminate, and elevate dancehall reggae, while his production work with Dennis Brown, the Wailing Souls, Eek-A-Mouse, Freddie McGregor, the Viceroys, and others marked him as an innovator; independently he has also issued numerous vocal and dub sets on his own imprints.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1954, he relocated during his early teens to Queens to join his mother. While still attending high school he composed his initial songs; although he pursued studies in engineering, music remained his central pursuit. His first recordings were made with producer Bunny Rugs, later the lead singer of Third World, and their debut single “There Is No Other Woman in This World” achieved modest local notice. In 1974 he recorded several tracks, among them “Weeping and Wailing” and “Jah Jah Deh,” for Everett Martin’s New York–based Mart’s label, yet later that year he returned to Jamaica and worked with Keith “Stamma” Hobson, an associate of Keith Hudson. “Mama Say” attracted limited attention, but its successor, the transformed reading of Dennis Brown’s “Westbound Train” titled “Westbound Plane,” brought the young singer wider notice as his personal vocal approach took shape. Back in Kingston he entered Perry’s Black Ark studio under Phil Pratt and added to the Upsetter favorite “Kung Fu Man.” Although those early ties and a short period with Augustus Pablo’s Rockers label proved useful, Thompson’s most substantial achievements arrived once he concentrated on production. After his 1975 Bunny Lee–supervised debut Don’t Cut Off Your Dreadlocks, issued in the United States as Cool Down, he and assistant Henry “Junjo” Lawes oversaw I Love Marijuana in 1978 at Channel 1, with Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace and Aston “Family Man” Barrett supplying the rhythm section. The album’s reception drew additional singers seeking Thompson’s sonic signature. While the artists he guided through the late 1970s and early 1980s rarely matched that commercial reach, releases by Mystic Eyes and the DJs Big Joe and Trinity preserved the classic late-’70s roots atmosphere.

At the start of the 1980s, reggae shifted toward the DJ-centered dancehall style, and Thompson, alongside his former protégé Lawes, stood at its leading edge, laying rhythms with the Roots Radics at Channel 1 and sending the tapes to Scientist for mixing. Those sessions yielded dub albums such as Scientist Meets the Space Invaders in 1981 and Scientist Encounters Pac Man in 1982. Thompson also crafted his own dub works, including Negrea Dub, Green Bay Dub, and Outlaw Dub. In 1982 Freddie McGregor scored a hit with the Thompson-produced “Big Ship (Sailing on the Ocean),” prompting the singer to name his own label after the track; it proved one of Thompson’s final major production successes, as his output diminished by the middle of the decade. The style had embraced digital methods after the breakthrough of Wayne Smith’s “Under Me Sleng Teng” in 1985. Disinclined toward the new direction, Thompson withdrew, focusing on his Stony Hill holdings and real-estate interests. He returned to the studio only sporadically, reuniting with longtime associate Robbie Shakespeare for the 1988 album Starlight. Throughout the following decade, previously unavailable Thompson material resurfaced via reissues on Majestic Reggae (Jah Jah Dreader Than Dread), Blood and Fire (Ride on Dreadlocks), and Trojan (Channel 1 Rockers), among other outlets. These collections offered a sharper view of a catalog that, at its strongest, could stand beside the work of his contemporaries Johnny Clarke, Horace Andy, and Cornell Campbell. Thompson maintained occasional live performances and studio dates into the twenty-first century, culminating in the 2018 double-disc sets Linval Presents Dub Landing, Vols. 1 and 2.