Graeme Goodall

Graeme Goodall (1932 – 3 December 2014) was an Australian recording engineer and record label owner who was a key figure in the early days of Jamaica's recording industry, constructing several of the Island's studios, co-founding Island Records, and operating other labels in the United Kingdom releasing Jamaican music.

Career Born in 1932, Graeme Goodall grew up in Caulfield, Victoria, and studied at Caulfield North Central School and Scotch College. In the early 1950s he worked at Melbourne radio station 3UZ briefly before studying television in London and training as an engineer with the International Broadcasting Company.

He became involved in the independent record industry and travelled to Jamaica in 1954 to set up the first FM radio network in Kingston — Radio Jamaica Rediffusion. Goodall worked as a recording engineer for Ken Khouri on some of the earliest Jamaican studio recordings.

Known to the local musicians as "Mr. Goody", Goodall went on to assist with the construction of several studios, including Dynamic Sound, Studio One and later Channel One Studios, and carry out engineering work for producers such as Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, Byron Lee, and Leslie Kong, engineering recordings by Laurel Aitken ("Boogie in My Bones") Millie ("My Boy Lollipop"), The Wailers, Prince Buster, The Skatalites, Derrick Morgan, and Desmond Dekker, among many others. After Dekker's "Poor Me, Israelites" proved popular in clubs but failed to get much airplay due to its production, Goodall got Kong to send him the master tapes; he remixed it and released it in the UK in 1969 on Pyramid as "Israelites", the single going on to top the UK Singles Chart and sell over two million copies. He also ran West Indies Records and set up the Trojan Records subsidiary Attack Records.

Goodall married his Jamaican wife Fay in 1961 and in the early 1970s they moved to the US.

Graeme Goodall died at his home in Atlanta, Georgia on 3 December 2014 from natural causes, aged 82. He was survived by his wife, two children, and four grandchildren.