Graeme Goodall Vanderbilt (1932 – 3 December 2014) was an Australian
recording engineer
An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, ...
and record label owner who was a key figure in the early days of Jamaica's recording industry, constructing several of the Island's studios, co-founding
Island Records
Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, anoth ...
, and operating other labels in the United Kingdom releasing Jamaican music.
Career
Born in 1932,
[Veal, Michael (2007) ''Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae'', Wesleyan University Press, , p. 49] Graeme Goodall grew up in
Caulfield, Victoria
Caulfield is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, south-east of Melbourne's Melbourne city centre, Central Business District, located within the City of Glen Eira Local government areas of Victoria, local government ...
, and studied at Caulfield North Central School and
Scotch College.
[Dwyer, Michael (2014)]
Music world mourns Australian ska pioneer and Island Records co-founder Graeme Goodall
, ''Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper i ...
''. Retrieved 13 December 2014 (article labelled 15 December 2014) In the early 1950s he worked at Melbourne radio station
3UZ briefly before studying television in London and training as an engineer with the
International Broadcasting Company
Captain Leonard Frank Plugge (21 September 1889 – 19 February 1981) was a British radio entrepreneur and Conservative Party politician.
Early years and political life
Plugge was born at Walworth, only son of Frank Plugge (1864–1946), a co ...
.
[Meschino, Patricia (2014)]
Island Records Co-Founder and Jamaican Music Engineer Graeme Goodall Dead at 82
, ''Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...
'', 12 December 2014. Retrieved 13 December 2014
He became involved in the independent record industry and travelled to Jamaica in 1954 to set up the first FM radio network in
Kingston —
Radio Jamaica Rediffusion.
He went on to work as chief engineer of the
Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation
The Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) was a public broadcasting company in Jamaica founded in 1959 by premier Norman Manley with the aim of emulating the success of other national broadcasting companies such as the BBC and CBC.Thomas, Pradip ...
.
He began recording local musicians at the Radio Jamaica studios, and went on to build
Federal Records
Federal Records was an American record label founded in 1950 as a subsidiary of Syd Nathan's King Records and based in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was run by famed record producer Ralph Bass and was mainly devoted to Rhythm & Blues releases. The comp ...
, Jamaica's first recording studio (which was rebuilt in 1961 and later became Tuff Gong Recording Studio) with local entrepreneur
Ken Khouri
Kenneth Lloyd Khouri (1917 – 20 September 2003) was a pioneering Jamaican record producer and founder of Federal Records, the first recording studio in Jamaica, which was sold to Bob Marley's Tuff Gong record label in 1981. He is credited by re ...
to the rear of Khouri's furniture store on King Street.
Goodall worked as a recording engineer for
Ken Khouri
Kenneth Lloyd Khouri (1917 – 20 September 2003) was a pioneering Jamaican record producer and founder of Federal Records, the first recording studio in Jamaica, which was sold to Bob Marley's Tuff Gong record label in 1981. He is credited by re ...
on some of the earliest Jamaican studio recordings.
The studio not only provided the Island's first recording facility but also produced
acetate disc
An acetate disc (also known as a ''lacquer'', ''test acetate'', ''dubplate'', or ''transcription disc'') is a type of phonograph record generally used from the 1930s to the late 1950s for recording and broadcast purposes and still in limited use t ...
s, allowing
sound system operators to record tracks and have them available to play within hours.
Known to the local musicians as "Mr. Goody", Goddall went on to assist with the construction of several studios, including Dynamic Sound,
Studio One and later
Channel One Studios
Channel One is a recording studio in Maxfield Avenue, West Kingston, Jamaica.Campbell, Howard (2014)Making magic at Channel One, ''Jamaica Observer'', 17 July 2014. Retrieved 18 July 2014 The studio was built by the Hoo Kim brothers in 1972, and ...
, and carry out engineering work for producers such as
Clement "Coxsone" Dodd
Clement Seymour "Coxsone" Dodd (26 January 1932 – 4 May 2004) was a Jamaican record producer who was influential in the development of ska and reggae in the 1950s, 1960s and beyond.
He was nicknamed "Coxsone" at school due to his talent a ...
,
Byron Lee
Byron Lee ,
''Jamaica Gleaner'', 27 October 2008. born Byron Aloysius St. Elmo Lee ...
, and
Leslie Kong
Leslie Kong (20 December 1933 – 9 August 1971) was an influential Chinese-Jamaican reggae producer.
Career
Leslie and his two older brothers Cecil and Lloyd ran a restaurant, ice cream parlour and record shop called Beverley's in Orange Stre ...
, engineering recordings by
Laurel Aitken
Lorenzo "Laurel" Aitken (22 April 1927 – 17 July 2005) was an influential Caribbean singer and one of the pioneers of Jamaican ska music. He is often referred to as the "Godfather of Ska".
Career
Born in Cuba of mixed Cuban and Jamaican desc ...
("Boogie in My Bones")
Millie
Millie is a feminine given name or diminutive form of various other given names, such as Emily, Millicent, Mildred, Camilla or sometimes Amelia.
People with the given name
Notable people with the given name include:
* Millie Bailey (1918–20 ...
("
My Boy Lollipop
"My Boy Lollipop" (originally "My Girl Lollypop") is a song written in the mid-1950s by Robert Spencer of the doo-wop group The Cadillacs, and usually credited to Spencer, Morris Levy, and Johnny Roberts. It was first recorded in 1956 by American ...
"),
The Wailers
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
,
Prince Buster
Cecil Bustamente Campbell (24 May 1938 – 8 September 2016), known professionally as Prince Buster, was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and producer. The records he released in the 1960s influenced and shaped the course of Jamaican contemporary ...
,
The Skatalites
The Skatalites are a ska band from Jamaica. They played initially between 1963 and 1965, and recorded many of their best known songs in the period, including " Guns of Navarone." They also played on records by Prince Buster and backed many othe ...
,
Derrick Morgan, and
Desmond Dekker
Desmond Dekker (16 July 1941 – 25 May 2006) was a Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae singer-songwriter and musician. Together with his backing group The Aces (consisting of Wilson James and Easton Barrington Howard), he had one of the earlie ...
, among many others.
He also trained Jamaican engineers such as
Sylvan Morris and
Lynford Anderson
Linford Anderson aka Andy Capp (July 8, 1941 – March 16, 2020) was a Jamaican studio engineer, producer, and vocalist, best known for his 1968 hit "Pop a Top".
Biography
Anderson was born in Clarendon Parish, Jamaica on July 8, 1941, and gain ...
.
In 1959 he co-founded Island Records with
Chris Blackwell
Christopher Percy Gordon Blackwell (born 22 June 1937) is an English businessman and former record producer, and the founder of Island Records, which has been called "one of Britain's great independent labels". According to the Rock and Roll ...
and Kong, but his relationship with Blackwell broke down and he went on to start his own labels after relocating to the UK in 1965, the most successful of which were
Doctor Bird
The red-billed streamertail (''Trochilus polytmus''), also known as the doctor bird, scissor-tail or scissors tail hummingbird, is a species of hummingbird in the "emeralds", tribe Trochilini of subfamily Trochilinae. It is endemic to Jamaica ...
and
Pyramid
A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...
. After Dekker's "Poor Me, Israelites" proved popular in clubs but failed to get much airplay due to its production, Goodall got Kong to send him the master tapes; he remixed it and released it in the UK in 1969 on Pyramid as "
Israelites
The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan.
The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...
", the single going on to top the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
and sell over two million copies.
He also ran West Indies Records and set up the
Trojan Records
Trojan Records is a British record label founded in 1968. It specialises in ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub music. The label currently operates under the Sanctuary Records Group. The name ''Trojan'' comes from the Croydon-built Trojan truck t ...
subsidiary
Attack Records
Attack Records ran originally from 1969 to 1980 as an imprint of Trojan Records. Notable artists included The Pioneers, Gregory Isaacs, I-Roy, Big Youth and The Upsetters.
In 2003 it was revived for British singer Morrissey and the label Sanc ...
.
Goodall married his Jamaican wife Fay in 1961 and in the early 1970s they moved to the US.
Goodall later worked as Southern Regional Manager for
Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
Pro Audio.
Graeme Goodall died at his home in
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
on 3 December 2014 from natural causes, aged 82.
He was survived by his wife, two children, and four grandchildren.
[Campbell, Howard (2014)]
Jamaica music pioneer Graeme Goodall dies in Atlanta
, ''Jamaica Observer
''Jamaica Observer'' is a daily newspaper published in Kingston, Jamaica. The publication is owned by Butch Stewart, who chartered the paper in January 1993 as a competitor to Jamaica's oldest daily paper, ''The Gleaner''. Its founding editor i ...
'', 12 December 2014. Retrieved 13 December 2014
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goodall, Graeme
1932 births
2014 deaths
Australian record producers
People from Caulfield, Victoria
People educated at Scotch College, Melbourne
Australian expatriates in England
Australian expatriates in Jamaica
Australian emigrants to the United States