HE may be oblivious to most fans at major concerts, but sound engineer Dennis Thompson has ensured a crystal-clear sound for some of the biggest pop acts for nearly 40 years.

Thompson has worked in the studio and toured with reggae’s elite: Bob Marley, Dennis Brown, Jimmy Cliff, Bunny Wailer, Burning Spear, Augustus Pablo, Buju Banton and Steel Pulse. His resume also includes stints with jazz bassist Marcus Miller, and contemporary pop stars Alicia Keys and Missy Elliot.

Now in his mid-60s, Thompson lives in New York City where he is assembling tapes of shows he has done over the years for a personal archive he tentatively calls The Dennis Thompson Project.

“It’s the evolution of live shows in conjunction with the artistes, their management and estate. It’s a lot of stuff and it’s something I’d like to preserve,” Thompson told the Sunday Observer.

Some of those tapes are of famous concerts, like Brown performing at Reggae Sunsplash at Jarrett Park in the early 1980s or Pablo playing JapanSplash. There are many dates with Steel Pulse and Buju Banton, with whom Thompson worked during the 1980s and 1990s, respectively.

The most treasured of Thompson’s collection are his shows with Marley. Among them are dates in New England during the reggae king’s last tour in 1980.

Thompson was engineer for Marley’s last live concert, which took place at the Stanley Theatre in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 23 that year. The show is recaptured on Live Forever: The Stanley Theatre, Pittsburgh, PA, September 23, 1980, released in 2010 by Tuff Gong International.

A graduate of Kingston College, Thompson grew up in central Kingston. His contemporaries at that school included keyboardist Jackie Mittoo, later a founding member of The Skatalites and musical director at Studio One.

Thompson’s reputation as a sound engineer was growing when he first worked with Marley, then a member of The Wailers at Randy’s studio in 1973 on songs like Lick Samba and Craven Choke Puppy.

Three years later, Marley was a solo act and superstar-in-the-making when he asked Thompson to accompany him on a world tour promoting his Rastaman Vibration album.

It was Thompson’s first time on the road, and working in a non-studio environment.

“I grew up very fast, I was totally green. I had to rely on common sense and the grace of the Father for the first five shows,” he said. “Early PA systems you had no such thing as noise gauge, you had one EQ and one compressor, and that’s it.”

Dennis Brown and Buju Banton were the reggae acts Thompson worked with mainly in the 1980s and 1990s. One of his biggest gigs in recent years has been with the talented Miller whose credits include playing and arranging songs for jazz legend Miles Davis and soul great Luther Vandross.