Winston Grennan

Winston Grennan (16 September 1944 – 27 October 2000) was a Jamaican drummer, famous for session work from 1962 to 1973 in Jamaica as well as later in New York City through the 1970s and 1980s.

Biography

Career

Grennan's career spanned several of the richest and most diverse decades in popular music, and he worked with a large number of the most famous artists of his time, both in Jamaica and in the United States.

Jamaica

Grennan is most famous for creating the one drop rhythm in the late 1960s; this beat places kick/snare emphasis on the third beat within a highly syncopated 4/4 bar. One Drop, an outgrowth of the ska and rocksteady, became the foundation for reggae music, combined with traditional Jamaican forms such as mento, burro and kumina. Grennan was also responsible for importing the "Flyers" beat to the United States – a beat which he had developed and recorded in the 60s in Jamaica. While living New York, Grennan performed at the uptown nightclub Mikell's, where local musicians scored and adapted the beat for their own use. A reconstituted Flyers later emerged in New York as the rhythm that became known as disco.

Grennan is also remembered for his work at...

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