HE may have been one of the honourees at last Saturday’s Jamaica Reggae Industry Association awards at the Courtleigh Auditorium in St Andrew, but most of Mikey Chung’s acceptance speech was saved for another musician.

“Lynn Taitt played on 95 per cent of the rock steady hits, it’s time we honour him. I dedicate this award tonight to Lynn Taitt,” Chung declared.

Taitt, a Trinidadian, was a prolific session guitarist in Jamaica during the 1960s. He died in January, 2010 from cancer in Montreal, Canada at age 75.

Born Nerlynn Taitt, he first came to Jamaica in 1962 as part of a Trinidadian band celebrating Jamaica’s independence from Britain. He stayed after that event and played on numerous ska and rock steady hit songs including Take It Easy (Hopeton Lewis), 007 (Shanty Town) by Desmond Dekker and The Aces and Hold Tight by American singer Johnny Nash.

Take It Easy is recognised by many students of Jamaican music as the first rock steady song. Taitt led his band, The Jets, on the 1966 recording session at Federal Records in Kingston.

He influenced numerous Jamaican musicians including Chung, a guitarist/bass player/keyboardist whose career started in the late 1960s. Chung and his younger brother Geoffrey were members of the Now Generation band that played on numerous hit songs by Ernie Smith and Pluto Shervington during the early and mid 1970s.

Known as Mao, the older Chung was also a member of Peter Tosh’s Word, Sound and Power band.