Joe Gibbs

Joe Gibbs, born Joel Arthur Gibson (14 October 1942 – 22 February 2008), was a Jamaican reggae and dub producer.

Biography

Born in Salt Spring, St. James, in 1942, Joe Gibbs studied electronics in Cuba and went on to work as an electronic technician for Stone & Webster in Montego Bay. He moved to Kingston, where he set up an electrical repair shop in Beeston Street, with television repairs and sales as its main concern. It was in this shop that he first started to sell records. The fast growth of the local music scene encouraged him to get more involved in the music business, and in 1966 he started to record some artists in the back of his shop with a two-track tape machine, working with Lee Perry, who had just ended his association with Clement "Coxsone" Dodd. With the help of Bunny Lee, he launched his Amalgamated record label, and had his first success with one of the earliest rocksteady songs, Roy Shirley's "Hold Them", which topped the charts in Jamaica.

When Perry decided to leave to start his own record label, Upsetter, Gibbs enrolled the young Winston "Niney" Holness (later known as Niney the Observer), who helped Gibbs maintain his productions at the top of the charts...

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