Herman Chin Loy ( Trelawny, 11 July 1948''Aquarius Rock. The Hip Reggae World of Herman Chin-Loy'' booklet and

liner notes Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for cassettes. Origin Liner notes are desce ...

) is a Jamaican

record producer A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure.Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...

, best known for his productions from the late 1960s and early 1970s of artists such as

Augustus Pablo Horace Swaby (21 June 1953 – 18 May 1999),Thompson, Dave (2002) ''Reggae & Caribbean Music'', Backbeat Books, , p. 200-202 known as Augustus Pablo, was a Jamaican roots reggae and dub record producer and a multi-instrumentalist, active f ...

Dennis Brown Dennis Emmanuel Brown CD (1 February 1957 – 1 July 1999) was a Jamaican reggae singer. During his prolific career, which began in the late 1960s when he was aged eleven, he recorded more than 75 albums and was one of the major stars of l ...

Alton Ellis Alton Nehemiah Ellis (1 September 1938 – 10 October 2008)Godfather ...

and

Bruce Ruffin Bruce Ruffin (born 17 February 1952)Moskowitz, David V. (2006) ''Caribbean Popular Music: an Encyclopedia of Reggae, Mento, Ska, Rock Steady, and Dancehall'', Greenwood Press, , p.260 is a Jamaican rocksteady and reggae artist. Biography Ruff ...

, and for the ''Aquarius'' and ''Scorpio'' labels that he ran. He is a

Chinese Jamaican Chinese Jamaicans are Jamaicans of Chinese ancestry, which include descendants of migrants from China to Jamaica. Early migrants came in the 19th century; there was another moment of migration in the 1980s and 1990s. Many of the descendants of ea ...

Biography

In 1969 Lloyd A. Chin-Loy opened Aquarius Record Store in

Half Way Tree Half Way Tree is a neighbourhood in the city of Kingston, Jamaica. It is the parish capital of St. Andrew. Half Way Tree is served by the Kingston 10 post office. In recent years, as a result of crime and violence in Downtown Kingston and Cr ...

, Kingston, Jamaica. In the early 1970s Chin-Loy contracted Mr. Rosser, a notable studio engineer from Wales, to build an innovative, state of the art 24-track recording studio - the first of its kind in Jamaica and probably the entire Caribbean region; and so was born Aquarius Recording Studio in the heart of Half-Way-Tree. Lloyd Chin-Loy subsequently brought on board his half-brother Herman Chin-Loy, who ran the retail end of the business. Herman dabbled in producing. His earliest productions were quirky, innovative instrumentals, using musicians such as

Lloyd Charmers Lloyd Charmers (born Lloyd Tyrell, 1938 – 27 December 2012, also known as Lloyd Chalmers, Lloyd Terell, or Lloyd Terrell)Ruddock, George (2012), ''Jamaica Gleaner'', 29 December 2012. Retrieved 29 December 2012 was a Jamaican ska and reggae s ...

and

The Hippy Boys The Hippy Boys was a Jamaican band formed in 1968 by Lloyd Charmers. The band included guitarist Alva "Reggie" Lewis, organist Glen Adams, and brothers Aston 'Family Man' Barrett on bass guitar and Carlton Barrett on drums. After the UK Single ...

on tracks such as "African Zulu", "Shang I",Larkin, Colin: ''The Virgin Encyclopedia of Reggae'', 1998, Virgin Books, "Reggae In The Fields", "Invasion", and "Inner Space".Barrow, Steve & Dalton, Peter: ''Reggae: The Rough Guide'', 1997, Rough Guides, He was the first producer to use the

Now Generation Band The Now Generation Band (or NOWGEN) was a Jamaican reggae band during the late 1960s into the 1970s. Beginning as a dance band on the road, they gradually undertook more recording dates and, in 1972, quit road work to concentrate on studio work. ...

and the first to record Horace Swaby, whose recordings, like those of other keyboard players who recorded for Chin Loy, were released under the name "Augustus Pablo", the success of Swaby's releases causing the name to stick. In the early 1970s, Herman Chin Loy also produced

Alton Ellis Alton Nehemiah Ellis (1 September 1938 – 10 October 2008)Godfather ...

, and

, whose "Rain" reached number 19 in the UK singles chart. Herman Chin-Loy was responsible for one of the first dub albums, ''Aquarius Dub'', released in 1973, and mixed at Dynamic studio by Chin Loy himself. A follow-up, ''Aquarius Dub part 2'', was released the next year. Herman Chin-Loy returned to reggae productions in 1979, after a brief hiatus, scoring several hits in the early

dancehall Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially, dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s.Barrow, Steve & Dalton, Peter (2004) "The Rou ...

style with artists such as

Little Roy Little Roy (born Earl Lowe in Witfield Town, Kingston, Jamaica) is a Jamaican reggae artist.Bush, NathanLittle Roy Biography, AllMusic, retrieved 2011-02-14 Biography Little Roy began his career at the age of 12 years in 1965 recording a few ...

and Ernest Wilson.

References

External links

Herman Chin Loy at Roots ArchivesDiscography at Discogs
Jamaican record producers Dub musicians Living people People from Trelawny Parish 1948 births {{Reggae-stub