Clifton "Jackie" Jackson (born March 1947) is a Jamaican bass player, who was an important session musician on
ska
Ska (; ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walki ...
reggae
Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...
records in the 1960s and 1970s, and later a member of
Toots and the Maytals
The Maytals, known from 1972 to 2020 as Toots and the Maytals, are a Jamaican musical group, one of the best known ska and rocksteady vocal groups. The Maytals were formed in the early 1960s and were key figures in popularizing reggae music.
...
.
Biography
Jackson was born in 1947 and grew up in central Kingston. His uncle was a well-known musician, Luther Williams, whose sister Mavis gave Jackson piano lessons. He attended a music school, and started playing bass after seeing
Lloyd Brevett
Lloyd Brevett OD (1 August 1931 – 3 May 2012) was a Jamaican double bassist, songwriter, and a founding member of The Skatalites. He was a Rastafarian, and the uncle of The Melodians member, Tony Brevett.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 ...
. He was also influenced by Motown records, particularly the bass playing of
James Jamerson
James Lee Jamerson (January 29, 1936 – August 2, 1983) was an American bass player. He was the uncredited bassist on most of the Motown Records hits in the 1960s and early 1970s (Motown did not list session musician credits on their releases ...
. He joined his first band, Ty and the Titans, after the existing bassist left. After two years with the band, he joined the Cavaliers, led by
Lester Sterling
Lester Sterling OD (born 31 January 1936),Musicians Bio ", Alpha Old Boys Association, retrie ...
. When the Skatalites broke up, Jackson was approached by saxophonist
Tommy McCook
Tommy McCook (3 March 1927 – 5 May 1998) was a Jamaican saxophonist. A founding member of The Skatalites, he also directed The Supersonics for Duke Reid, and backed many sessions for Bunny Lee or with The Revolutionaries at Channel One ...
Duke Reid
Arthur "Duke" Reid CD (21 July 1915 – 1 January 1975) was a Jamaican record producer, DJ and label owner.
He ran one of the most popular sound systems of the 1950s called Reid's Sound System, whilst Duke himself was known as The Troja ...
, he played on "Girl I've Got A Date" by Alton Ellis, which is considered one of the foundational songs of the rocksteady genre. The bass line of "Girl I've Got a Date" was allegedly duplicated in other international hits " The Liquidator" by the Harry J Allstars, and "
I'll Take You There
"I'll Take You There" is a song written by Al Bell (using his real name Alvertis Isbell), and originally performed by soul/gospel family band the Staple Singers. The Staple Singers version, produced by Bell, was released on Stax Records in Febru ...
" by
the Staple Singers
The Staple Singers were an American gospel, soul, and R&B singing group. Roebuck "Pops" Staples (December 28, 1914 – December 19, 2000), the patriarch of the family, formed the group with his children Cleotha (April 11, 1934 – February 21 ...
.
The record's success meant that Jackson became in great demand for sessions at Reid's Treasure Isle recording studio, directed by McCook and often playing alongside guitarists Lynn Taitt and Hux Brown, keyboard players Gladstone Anderson and
Winston Wright
Winston Wright (19431993) was a Jamaican keyboardist. He was a member of Tommy McCook's Supersonics, and acknowledged as Jamaica's master of the Hammond organ. Winston was born in May Pen, Jamaica on September 5, 1943 and died in Kingston, Jamaica ...
, and drummer
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 spanne ...
. Jackson was a mainstay of rocksteady music, and started working with other producers including
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 ...
,
Joe Gibbs
Joe Jackson Gibbs (born November 25, 1940) is an American auto racing team owner and former professional football coach. In football, he was head coach for the Washington Redskins of the National Football League (NFL) from 1981 to 1992, and ...
,
Lloyd Daley
Lloyd Daley also known as Lloyd's the Matador (born 12 July 1939, Kingston, Jamaica, died 18 March 2018, Florida, USA Allmusic.com/ref>) was a Jamaican electronic technician, sound system pioneer, studio engineer and reggae producer.
Career
D ...
, and
Sonia Pottinger
Sonia Eloise Pottinger OD ( Durrant; 21 June 1931 – 3 November 2010)Thompson, Dave (2002) ''Reggae & Caribbean Music'', Backbeat Books, , p. 316 "The Giants: Jackie Jackson", ''Jamaica Observer'', 6 August 2016 Retrieved 19 June 2020 At Kong's Beverley's label, where the band became known as Beverley's All-Stars, he played on
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 ...
's hits, including "
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 ...
Bob Marley
Robert Nesta Marley (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981; baptised in 1980 as Berhane Selassie) was a Jamaican singer, musician, and songwriter. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, his musical career was marked by fusing elements o ...
,
Ken Boothe
Kenneth George Boothe OD (born 22 March 1948) is a Jamaican vocalist known for his distinctive vibrato and timbre. Boothe achieved an international reputation as one of Jamaica's finest vocalists through a series of crossover hits that appeal ...
, and
Toots and the Maytals
The Maytals, known from 1972 to 2020 as Toots and the Maytals, are a Jamaican musical group, one of the best known ska and rocksteady vocal groups. The Maytals were formed in the early 1960s and were key figures in popularizing reggae music.
...
, among many others. After meeting and recording with
Toots Hibbert
Frederick Nathaniel Hibbert, (8 December 1942 – 11 September 2020), better known as Toots Hibbert, was a Jamaican singer and songwriter who was the lead vocalist for the reggae and ska band Toots and the Maytals. A reggae pioneer, he perfor ...
, and playing on the hit "
Pressure Drop
Pressure drop is defined as the difference in total pressure between two points of a fluid carrying network. A pressure drop occurs when frictional forces, caused by the resistance to flow, act on a fluid as it flows through the tube. The main de ...
Mother and Child Reunion
"Mother and Child Reunion" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Paul Simon. It was the lead single from his second studio album, ''Paul Simon'' (1972), released on Columbia Records.
Background
It was at the time one of the few songs by a ...
The Harder They Come
''The Harder They Come'' is a 1972 Jamaican crime film directed by Perry Henzell and co-written by Trevor D. Rhone, and starring Jimmy Cliff. The film is most famous for its reggae soundtrack that is said to have "brought reggae to the world". ...
'' soundtrack. He played on Hibbert's records through to the 1980s, and has also played on records by other musicians such as
Herbie Mann
Herbert Jay Solomon (April 16, 1930 – July 1, 2003), known by his stage name Herbie Mann, was an American jazz flute player and important early practitioner of world music. Early in his career, he also played tenor saxophone and clarinet (inclu ...
,
Garland Jeffreys
Garland Jeffreys (born June 29, 1943) is an American singer and songwriter in rock and roll, reggae, blues, and soul music.
Career
Jeffreys is from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, of African American and Puerto Rican heritage. He majored in art hist ...
, and
Lee "Scratch" Perry
Lee "Scratch" Perry (born Rainford Hugh Perry; 20 March 1936 – 29 August 2021) was a Jamaican record producer, composer and singer noted for his innovative studio techniques and production style. Perry was a pioneer in the 1970s development o ...
. "Jackie Jackson", ''Know Your Bass Player'' Retrieved 19 June 2020
As reggae became more successful internationally, Jackson became a member of Toots Hibbert's touring band from the early 1970s onwards. They became the opening band for
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Maria Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946) is a retired American singer who performed and recorded in diverse genres including rock, country, light opera, the Great American Songbook, and Latin. She has earned 11 Grammy Awards, three American ...
and
the Eagles
The Eagles are an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1971. With five number-one singles and six number-one albums, six Grammy Awards and five American Music Awards, the Eagles were one of the most successful musical acts of the 1970s ...
, and from then on continued to tour. Jackson also became a key influence on later bassists, including Aston "Family Man" Barrett and
Robbie Shakespeare
Robert Warren Dale Shakespeare (27 September 1953 – 8 December 2021) was a Jamaican bass guitarist and record producer, best known as half of the reggae rhythm section and production duo Sly and Robbie, with drummer Sly Dunbar. Regarded as on ...
. In 2005, he won a
Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pr ...