Soca music, Carnival anthems and Caribbean party classics
Jamaica · Bandleader
Leader of Byron Lee and the Dragonaires — a bridge between mento, ska, calypso, and soca.
“Tiney Winey.” Distributor upload (Topic) — supplied by VP Records. Not an artist-posted upload.
Byron Lee, leader of Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, was the great bandleader-entrepreneur of Jamaican popular music and a bridge between mento, ska, calypso, and soca. He formed the Dragonaires around 1950 with school friend Carl Brady, turned professional in 1956, and backed touring stars including Harry Belafonte; the band appears playing “Jamaica Jump Up” in the first James Bond film, Dr. No. He is credited with introducing the electric bass guitar to Jamaica, and in 1968 he bought the WIRL studios and built them into Dynamic Sounds, the Caribbean's best-equipped studio, where the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and Paul Simon all recorded. As ska gave way to reggae, Lee turned increasingly to calypso and soca, playing Trinidad and Tobago Carnival regularly alongside the Mighty Sparrow, and in 1990 he founded Jamaica Carnival. He received the Order of Jamaica in 2008, the year he died.