Phyllis Dillon

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Phyllis Dillon (born December 27, 1944 in Linstead , St. Catherine , † April 15, 2004 in Long Island , USA ) was a Jamaican singer. She was among the first women to be successful in the Jamaican music business in the 1960s and was also known as the "Queen of Rocksteady ".

Life

Phyllis Dillon was born in 1944 - 1948 or 1945 according to other sources - in rural Linstead, where she also spent her youth. There she gained her first musical experience in school and church choirs, later also with her first band, the Vulcans . While performing in Kingston , she was discovered by guitarist Lyn Taitt , a session musician on Duke Reid's Treasurer Isle label. Dillon signed with Reid in 1965, and the following year she recorded Don't Stay Away, produced by Reid . The single was a resounding success in Jamaica and became Dillon's biggest hit. In the following years she brought out other successful singles with One Life to Live , The Love That a Woman Can Give a Man , Perfidia , Rock Steady and Don't Touch My Tomato . Duets sung with Alton Ellis ( Right Track ) and Hopeton Lewis ( Walk Through This World With Me and Love Was All We Had ) also contributed to their popularity.

Because she wanted to do something other than music, she moved to New York , USA, in December 1967 , where after a while she found a job with a bank. In the first few years she returned to Jamaica twice a year to record songs with Reid and to perform in Kingston clubs. Even when the rocksteady sound evolved into reggae , she took part in the change and remained successful. In the mid-1970s she withdrew from the music business and devoted herself entirely to her family. It wasn't until the 1990s that she tried and made a comeback .

She was diagnosed with cancer in the early 2000s . She succumbed to her illness on April 15, 2004.

Discography (selection)

  • Don't Stay Away (single, 1966)
  • One Life to Live (Album, 2000, Creole Down Home Records)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Women who shaped Jamaican music , Jamaica Gleaner, March 8, 2012. Retrieved March 11, 2012.
  2. ^ A b David Moskowitz: Caribbean Popular Music: An Encyclopedia of Reggae, Mento, Ska, Rock Steady, and Dancehall, Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 2006. ISBN 9780313331589 (at Google Books ), pp. 66f.
  3. ^ Allmusic biography of Andrew Hamilton, see under web links
personal data
SURNAME Dillon, Phyllis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Jamaican singer
DATE OF BIRTH December 27, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Linstead , St. Catherine , Jamaica
DATE OF DEATH April 15, 2004
Place of death Long Island , New York , USA