Keith Hudson

Kingston, London and New York

Keith Hudson was born on March 18, 1946 in Kingston and died on November 14, 1984 in New York; Wikipedia gives his age as 38, while Last.fm and a ReggaeCollector snippet say 42. He sang and played trombone, and ran the Mafia label among others. After school he apprenticed in dentistry and used the earnings to fund recording sessions. At Boys Town School in Kingston he organized school concerts with Bob Marley, Delroy Wilson and Ken Boothe, and at about 14 he took his trombone to Coxsone Dodd's Brentford Road studio and met Don Drummond.

His first release around 1969 was "Shades of Hudson" by the DJ Dennis Alcapone on Imbidimts, and his first session produced Ken Boothe's Jamaican hit "Old Fashioned Way"; he also worked with Delroy Wilson, Alton Ellis and John Holt, and was one of the first to record U-Roy. He began recording his own vocals from 1970 and concentrated on singing from 1972, using the Soul Syndicate band; Big Youth's "S.90 Skank" (1972) was a major hit he produced. In 1974 he moved to the UK, signed with Brent Clarke's Atra and recorded at Chalk Farm Studios in London; Flesh of My Skin, Blood of My Blood followed in 1974 and Torch of Freedom in 1975.

In 1976 he moved to New York on a four-year Virgin contract; Too Expensive (1976) was poorly received and Virgin ended the deal. He founded the Joint label, resumed with Soul Syndicate, and made Rasta Communication (1978), a roots classic, then Playing It Cool, Playing It Right (1981) and Steaming Jungle (1982), his last album. New Order covered "Turn the Heater On" in a 1982 Peel Session, and Wikipedia lists Ian Curtis as a fan. VP Records' Carter Van Pelt told the Jamaica Observer in 2021 that he was very deliberate in making reggae that did not sound like anything else coming out of Kingston.