When Owen Gray heard he would be vested with Jamaica’s Order of Distinction (OD) in 2023 the veteran singer was overwhelmed.

“I’m so grateful, I’m so grateful. It’s great to know that people remember me and consider me; it’s a beautiful feeling,” he said in an interview with the Jamaica Observer.

Gray died in London on July 20 at age 86, his daughter Antoinette told this newspaper.

In the last six years, he suffered a stroke and was diagnosed with lung cancer. She said her father’s health had deteriorated in recent months.

Born in St Mary, Gray began recording music in the late 1950s. His 1960 song, Patricia, is widely believed to be the first single released by Island Records which Chris Blackwell started one year earlier in Kingston.

He had other hit singles such as Please Let Me Go before migrating to the UK in 1962.

In Jamaica, Gray also recorded for producer Clement Dodd at Studio One where he mentored a teenage singer from Clarendon named Millie Small, who had a global hit with My Boy Lollipop in 1964.

Music producer Anthony “Chips” Richards, Gray’s friend of over 50 years, said his contribution to Jamaican music is immeasurable.

“Tremendous, massive! Owen made a huge mark here [in the UK] with his music, like so many of the pioneers,” Richards told the
Observer.

Along with Small, Desmond Dekker, Laurel Aitken, Jimmy James, Dandy Livingstone, Tony Tribe, and Jimmy Cliff, Gray was part of a vibrant Jamaican music colony in the United Kingdom during the 1960s.

Initially, their music appealed to Skinheads, uncompromising white British youth who embraced ska and Jamaican sound system culture.

In the 1980s, Gray enjoyed a career revival after collaborating with Richards to record several well-received reggae albums that introduced him to fans in South America.

Owen Gray is survived by many children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and two sisters.

— Howard Campbell