Clancy Eccles

Clancy Eccles (9 December 1940 in Dean Pen, St. Mary, Jamaica – 30 June 2005 in Spanish Town, Jamaica) was a Jamaican ska and reggae singer, songwriter, arranger, promoter, record producer and talent scout. Known mostly for his early reggae works, he brought a political dimension to this music. His house band was known as The Dynamites.

Biography

Son of a tailor and builder, Eccles spent his childhood in the countryside of the parish of Saint Mary. Eccles had an itinerant childhood due to his father's need to travel Jamaica seeking work. He used to regularly attend church, and he became influenced by spiritual singing; In his words: "One of my uncles was a spiritual revivalist, who always did this heavy type of spiritual singing, and I got to love that". Eccles's professional singing career began as a teenager, working the north-coast hotel circuit in the mid-1950s. In his late teens, he moved to Ocho Rios, where he performed at night in various shows, with artists such as The Blues Busters, Higgs & Wilson and Buster Brown. He moved to Kingston in 1959, where he started his recording career. He first recorded for Coxsone Dodd, who had organised a talent show in which Eccles took...

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