The incredible show of Steel Pulse Tuesday at the Coliseo Theater had a protagonist who went completely unnoticed by the 2.000 people who packed the santiaguino venue.
As it happens traditionally, the musicians on stage are the ones who get all the attention of the spectators, as obviously happened with the band from Birmingham, but in silence, on the sound console, was the historic Jamaican engineer and producer Errol Brown, a true reggae music celebrity.
Brown, of 73 years, has a long track record on knobs of over 50 years in which he has worked with some of the most important artists of this genre, including Bob Marley & The Wailers, In addition to being the winner of 6 Grammy Awards as producer and engineer of reggae albums winners of this renowned award.
His musical beginnings were at the end of the 60 with his uncle, Arthur “Duke” Reid, studio owner Treasure Isle, where I work, among others, with Alton Ellis, Culture y Marcia Griffith.
was the latter, member of the I-Threes, who recommended it to Bob Marley when he quit his job on Treasure Isle, in order to join the study Tuff Gong late 70's′.
“it was like a dream, I was a little scared, but it was like a dream. I had just come from working on a two-track console and now I was seeing a computerized dashboard of 36 canales, screen on console, it was a challenge. I was scared because I didn't know if my knowledge was up to par”, said Brown, recalling in an interview his meeting with Bob and accepting the position.
He participated in the recording of the albums Survival, Uprising, Confrontation and the best-selling reggae record in history, Legend, as well as participated in many of the band's tours.
In addition to the mentioned, He has worked with musicians of the stature of Peter Tosh, U-Roy, Gregory Isaacs, The Sensation, The Paragons, Judy Mowatt, Burning Spear, Third World, Buju Banton, Prophetic Culture, Rebelution Y Matisyahu, among many others, as well as with Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers since they were children.
Another interesting aspect of this engineer is that although the creation of dub is attributed to Rudolph “Ruddy” Redwood and its popularization King Tubby, Brown assures that it was he who originated this musical style.
“In fact it was me who started making dub, no King Tubby. He used to come to see me, but no one knows why my photo was not on the album cover, there was only my name on the back of the record as the engineer Errol Brown. All those treasures of recordings, I worked all this. He even worked and made the dub cuts in the studio directly for the sound system. We had a huge machine where we could cut vinyl right in the control room.”, held in an interview.
Some time ago Errol Brown joined the staff of Steel Pulse, band with which he continues to develop his passion for reggae music.
