Lloyd Charmers

Lloyd Tyrell, who recorded and performed as Lloyd Charmers, participated in several pivotal chapters of Jamaican music, moving from the late-1950s shuffle R&B and ska eras into the rocksteady and roots reggae years of the late 1960s and early 1970s while contributing as a vocalist, studio musician, and producer.

His first sustained work in Kingston came as half of the vocal duo the Charmers alongside Roy Willis; after a handful of late-1950s successes the pair attracted the interest of producer Clement “Coxsone” Dodd. Dodd issued their sides on his All Stars, World Disc, and Coxsone imprints, among them the major hit “Jeannie Girl,” which later appeared on the compilation All Star Top Hits. The duo remained active on Dodd’s Studio One label through the ska-to-rocksteady transition spanning 1962–1967.

Encouraged by singer Alton Ellis, Charmers began playing piano in 1966 and within a few years felt ready to assemble his own band. The resulting group, the Hippy Boys, featured Charmers on organ, guitarist Alva “Reggie” Lewis, drummer Carlton “Carlie” Barrett, and bassist Aston “Family Man” Barrett. The unit soon aligned with producer Bunny “Striker” Lee, making its debut as the backing band on Lester Sterling’s instrumental “Bangarang.” Rebranded the Bunny Lee Allstars, the musicians supported numerous Lee artists including Ken Parker, Max Romeo, Pat Kelly, John Holt, and Slim Smith & the Uniques, while Charmers himself sang briefly with the Uniques. Their hard-grooving rhythms also drew sessions from Sonia Pottinger, Harry J., Lloyd Daley, and Lee Perry, who renamed them the Upsetters for his own dates. Between 1969 and 1970 Charmers produced a series of instrumental tracks by the Hippy Boys that surfaced on the albums House in Session, Reggae Charm, and Reggae Is Tight; several later resurfaced on the 1998 anthology Psychedelic Reggae.

Drawing on the experience gained with Lee and his own Hippy Boys productions, Charmers established the Splash label in the early 1970s and also issued material on Soul Beat and Wild Flower. His refined, Philly-soul-inflected arrangements yielded hits for the Gaylads, B.B. Seaton, Lloyd Parks, and especially Ken Boothe, whose successes included “Have I Sinned,” “Black, Green & Gold,” and the Bread cover “Everything I Own.” Charmers himself wrote many of the songs he produced, among them Boothe’s “Crying Over You.” He simultaneously maintained a solo career, scoring early-1970s vocal hits such as “Oh Me Oh My” and “Rasta Never Fails,” and he oversaw instrumental and proto-dub recordings featuring his session group Now Generation, directed by guitarist Mickey Chung.

Details of Charmers’ activities after the mid-1970s remain sparse, yet examples of his work persist on the Psychedelic Reggae compilation, on Boothe’s Trojan album Everything I Own, and on Willie Lindo’s Wild Flower instrumental set Far & Distant.