Phil Pratt Friday

Born 1950 in Kingston/Jamaica, Phil Pratt is one of the most crucial reggae producers. He started to work at Studio One during the rocksteady era, as a box-loader, when Lee Perry was operating there and then moved on to Caltone, where, as a sublabel, he launched Sunshot. Caltone’s musical arranger, Lyn Taitt, was a pivotal figure and as Derrick Morgan recalled: “Lyn Taitt. He’s the man who changed Jamaican music right round from ska to rock steady.” In rock steady the bass no longer gave equal emphasis to every beat but instead played a repeated pattern that syncopated the rhythm and the rhythmic focus shifted to the bass and the drums where it has remained ever since. Pratt was the one to push forward the young Horace Andy, and during the 1970s he worked with other key artists of that era - singers like Al Campbell and Dennis Brown as well as deejays like Dennis Alcapone and Jah Woosh.
In the early 1980s Phil Pratt moved to London, and when the digital dancehall era set in, he quit music business and opened a restaurant. Greg Lawson visits us in Orbit Friday the 27th At 1:00 with a full count of Phil Pratt's music.
Be there or you mustn't really care. Which would be so wrong, you must wear a thong.




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