Played on Marley’s first recording

Howard Campbell

Friday, February 03, 2012

IN February, 1962, an aspiring 16- year-old singer approached producer Leslie Kong with some songs he had written, hoping Kong would record them for his Beverley’s Records label.

The teenaged singer was Robert Nesta Marley and his impromptu performance reportedly impressed Kong who that day produced Marley’s first song ever — Judge Not. One of the musicians who played on that historic number was saxophonist Headley Bennett.

A graduate of the Alpha Boys’ School, Bennett was an established session musician at the time.Throughout the 1960s, he played on some of the biggest songs from the ska and rocksteady eras.

The solo on one of those songs, Delroy Wilson’s Dancing Mood, is arguably the most memorable interludes in Jamaican popular music; it is Headley Bennett’s signature piece.

Bennett played on hit songs by Don Drummond, John Holt and the Heptones before immigrating to Canada in the late 1960s. On his return to Jamaica in the 1970s, he showed he had lost none of his touch, teaming with the hot Roots Radics Band on big hits by Gregory Isaacs and Bunny Wailer.

It was during their rocking sessions of the 1970s and 1980s that the Radics dubbed the veteran hornsman ‘Deadly’ Headley.

Headley Bennett is now 80 years old and an elder statesman of Jamaican music. In 2005, he was awarded the Order of Distinction by the government of Jamaica for his contribution to Jamaican music.

Horned and dangerous, saxophonist Tony Greene’s weighs in on the his fellow hornsman’s work, giving his favourite Headley Bennett performances

1. Sunday Morning — Gregory Isaacs

2. Green Moon — Headley Bennett

3. Garden Of Love — Don Drummond

4. Dancing Shoes — The Wailers

5. Dancing Mood — Delroy Wilson

6. Judge Not — Bob Marley (recorded as Bobby Martell)

7. Love I Can Feel — John Holt

8. Guiding Star — The Heptones

9. I Shall Be Released — The Heptones

10. Full Up — Soul Defenders