{"id":435,"date":"2011-10-04T16:18:34","date_gmt":"2011-10-04T16:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/?p=435"},"modified":"2011-10-04T16:19:53","modified_gmt":"2011-10-04T16:19:53","slug":"leonard-dillon-early-reggae-singer-in-the-ethiopians-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/leonard-dillon-early-reggae-singer-in-the-ethiopians-dies.html","title":{"rendered":"Leonard Dillon, Early Reggae Singer in the Ethiopians, Dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the following article, published in The New York Times, Oct. 3, 2011, Rob Kenner reports on the passing of\u00a0 Jamaican music icon, Leonard Dillon, and celebrates his contributions.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Bnp1LUs_QwU\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/10\/03\/arts\/music\/leonard-dillon-early-reggae-singer-in-the-ethiopians-dies.html?_r=2\">Leonard Dillon, an influential Jamaican singer and songwriter who founded the pioneering vocal group the Ethiopians, died on Wednesday at his home in Port Antonio, Jamaica. He was 68. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>The cause was cancer, his daughter Patrice Dillon said.<\/p>\n<p>Long before artists like Bob Marley and Peter Tosh made reggae music synonymous with social and spiritual uplift, Mr. Dillon had emerged as one of the first Jamaican singers to infuse his songs with Afro-centric themes and sharp-eyed commentary.<\/p>\n<p>His body of work mirrored the evolution of Jamaican music, from laid-back <a title=\"About mento.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mentomusic.com\/WhatIsMento.htm\">mento-flavored<\/a> folk songs through the horn-driven dance tunes of ska in the \u201960s to the smooth rock-steady sound that eventually morphed into the bass-heavy music known as reggae.<\/p>\n<p>Tosh was so taken with Mr. Dillon\u2019s earliest compositions that he introduced him to Marley and the Wailers. They soon brought him to Studio One in Kingston \u2014 Jamaica\u2019s first black-owned recording studio and label \u2014 where the Wailers sang harmony on Mr. Dillon\u2019s earliest recordings.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Dillon joined Stephen Taylor and Aston Morris to form a vocal trio called the Ethiopians in 1966, the same year that <a title=\"Obituary of Selassie.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/learning\/general\/onthisday\/bday\/0723.html\">Haile Selassie<\/a>, the emperor of Ethiopia, made his first official visit to Jamaica. Selassie was greeted by throngs of ecstatic Rastafarians, members of a Jamaican spiritual movement that saw Selassie as divine and Ethiopia as the promised land.<\/p>\n<p>After Mr. Morris left the trio Mr. Dillon and Mr. Taylor continued as a duo, turning out hits, primarily in the Caribbean during the 1960s, like<a title=\"The song.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=EPrVKDXc9Ug\"> \u201cEverything Crash,\u201d<\/a> <a title=\"The song.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ob_xp1AXD4A\">\u201cThe Whip\u201d<\/a> and<a title=\"The song.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Iz_hrmkol1o\"> \u201cTrain to Skaville,\u201d<\/a> which also found wide popularity in Britain.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/a95hGZvkhko\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>After Mr. Taylor died in a car accident in 1975, Mr. Dillon recorded on his own as the Ethiopian.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Dillon\u2019s best songs featured a rebellious point of view that paved the way for reggae firebrands like Burning Spear and Culture.<\/p>\n<p>Leonard Winston Dillon was born on Dec. 9, 1942, in Port Antonio. His mother was a music instructor. In addition to his daughter Patrice, survivors include his wife, Sylvia; six other children, Camille, Tamara, Hyatta, Raymond, Serrano and Lenward; and seven grandchildren.<\/p>\n<p>He learned he had a brain tumor this year and had surgery, but the cancer spread, his daughter Patrice said.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Dillon\u2019s music fell out of favor with the rise of dancehall reggae in the 1980s and \u201990s, but he was undeterred. His final project, an unreleased 2009 album called \u201cOriginal Hit-Makers From Jamaica, Volume 1: Leonard Dillon the Ethiopian,\u201d was an attempt to restore his brand of vintage reggae to prominence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think he was trying to bring back the name Ethiopians in Jamaica,\u201d said Bunny Brown, a fellow Studio One recording artist. \u201cYou know, that name hasn\u2019t been called in Jamaica for years, but it\u2019s called in other parts of the world. He was also trying to bring back the real thing, the real authentic music, back to where it came from.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For original posting:<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/10\/03\/arts\/music\/leonard-dillon-early-reggae-singer-in-the-ethiopians-dies.html?_r=2\"> Leonard Dillon, Early Reggae Singer in the Ethiopians, Dies &#8211; NYTimes.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the following article, published in The New York Times, Oct. 3, 2011, Rob Kenner reports on the passing of\u00a0 Jamaican music icon, Leonard Dillon, and celebrates his contributions. Leonard Dillon, an influential Jamaican singer and songwriter who founded the pioneering vocal group the Ethiopians, died on Wednesday at his home in Port Antonio, Jamaica. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[174,175,151,176],"class_list":["post-435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-leonard-dillion","tag-marley","tag-reggae","tag-tosh"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4zx0X-71","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":438,"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions\/438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}