This is the fifth in our daily series highlighting 55 Jamaicans who broke down barriers and helped put the country on the world stage. Each day, one personality will be featured, culminating Independence Day, August 6.

OPERATING from a match box-sized studio in Waterhouse, St Andrew, studio engineer Osbourne “King Tubby” Ruddock created sounds which redefined the Jamaican music landscape of the 1960s and ’70s and still echo today.

An electrician by profession, King Tubby began his musical odyssey at 17 as a sound system operator of Tubby’s Hometown Hi-Fi.

Deejays U-Roy and Dennis Alcapone were rostered acts for the sound.

However, with his knowledge of electrical circuits, he would later shift his focus to that of a studio engineer with impressive results.

His sought-after dubs provided the soundtrack for that period. He created an entirely different musical track by shifting the emphasis on the instruments and add special effects such as delays, echoes, reverbs, thunderclaps and even gunshots. These were novel sounds of the day.

Producers Bunny “Striker” Lee, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Augustus Pablo, and Vivian “Yabby You” Jackson all sought ‘The King’s’ expertise.

Singers Johnny Clarke, Cornell Campbell, Linval Thompson, Horace Andy, Delroy Wilson and Jah Stitch also benefited from King Tubby’s magic.

His most popular dub of all time is King Tubby Meets The Rockers Uptown with Augustus Pablo in 1976. The album was produced by Pablo, who played the melodica, piano, organ, and clarinet.

In the latter part of that decade, King Tubby slowed down and passed on his knowledge to a new generation of engineers including Lloyd “King Jammy” James and Hopeton “Scientist” Brown.

In the 1980s, Tubby constructed a larger studio in Waterhouse and oversaw his Firehouse, Waterhouse and Taurus labels.

The labels released songs by Anthony Red Rose, Sugar Minott, Conroy Smith, King Everald, and other popular musicians.

King Tubb was shot and killed on February 6, 1989 outside his home in Duhaney Park, St Andrew. He was 48.

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