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LITTLE ROY (b. 1950 - )

TAFARI EARTH UPRISING

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VARIOUS - Pressure Sounds - studio - discs:1

Little Roy was born Earl Lowe in 1950 in Whitfield Town, Kingston. Since he was young he shared a special vibe with Leroy Sibbles (future leader of The Heptones). Earl started to sing when he was quite young and at thirteen he went to Studio One where it seems that Jackie Mittoo helped him to cut his first single called "Cool it" (1965). Later Earl worked for Prince Buster but the success did not came as expected. So he moved to Lloyd "The Matador" Daley where he cut the Rastafari inspired song "Bongo Nyah" in 1969. After this single Earl cut "Righteous Man" with Dennis Brown and old friend Leroy Sibbles, "Hardest Fighter", "Without My Love" and "Keep On Trying". Inspiring to be independent from the big labels, in 1974 Little Roy along with Lloyd Barnes and Munchie Jackson created the Tafari and Earth labels. At this point Earl was able to control his own creations. Part of the songs presented here in this compilation were released in the US inside the album "Tribal War". The title track became soon a classic and was recut by a lot of artists including John Holt, George Knooks, Prince Far I and Junior Reid. Little Roy worked also with Lee "Scratch" Perry. In 1973 the Upsetter engineered Little's voice track of the song called "Prophecy" at Randy's. And in 1974 Lowe went to the legendary Black Ark to record "Tribal War" and "Black Bird". The magic All three songs are collected here. Later in the 70's Roy worked on stage with Fred Locks, Israel Vibration and Judy Mowatt. Since the beginning of his career Little Roy have always put cultural themes in his lyrics with the result of strong statements highly enforced by his Rastafari beliefs. Always trying to avoid the main channels to make his music listened and therefore consequently appreciated, Little Roy was some how under recorded. This Roots compilation contains some high peaks: "Prophecy", "Tribal War" and the stellar "Jah Can Count On I".