Joe Higgs

Joseph Benjamin Higgs (3 June 1940 – 18 December 1999) was a reggae musician from Jamaica. In the late 1950s and 1960s he was part of the duo Higgs and Wilson together with Roy Wilson. A popular artist in Jamaica for four decades, he tutored younger musicians including Bob Marley and the Wailers and Jimmy Cliff.

Biography Higgs was instrumental in the foundation of modern Jamaican music, first recording in 1958 for producer and businessman (and later Jamaican Prime Minister) Edward Seaga, both as a solo artist and with Roy Wilson. He is often called the "Godfather of Reggae". In fact, it was at one of the informal music lessons Joe Higgs held in Trench Town, that Bob and Bunny Livingston met Peter Tosh. Marley acknowledged later on that Higgs had been an influential figure for him, while Higgs described their time together: "I am the one who taught the Wailers the craft, who taught them certain voice technique".

Higgs has also been described as the "Father of Reggae" by Jimmy Cliff. For a while Higgs toured with Cliff, acting as his bandleader as well as writing songs for Cliff including "Dear Mother", and also performed with The Wailers on their US tour when Bunny Wailer refused to go on the tour in 1973. and has been described as "a seminally sophisticated work combining reggae, jazz, and rhythm and blues influences to create a new texture that would have a profound effect on the best Jamaican music to follow". As well as The Wailers, Higgs also helped several other singers and groups including The Wailing Souls. Two further albums were released in the 1980s, Triumph (1985) and Family (1988), and in 1990 he recorded Blackman Know Yourself on which he was backed by the Wailers Band, and includes covers of the Marley/Lee Perry songs "Small Axe" and "Sun Is Shining". In 1995, his final album was issued, Joe and Marcia Together, a collaboration with his daughter.

Higgs died of cancer on 18 December 1999 at Kaiser Hospital in Los Angeles.

Quotations

From memorial website:

"Joe Higgs was a brother amongst the Wailers for years. He was encouragement, and he inspired us and kept us together." – Peter Tosh (1976) "We looked up to Joe Higgs. He was something like a musical guardian for us. He was a more professional singer, because he was working for years with a fella named Roy Wilson as Higgs & Wilson. They had a lotta hits and they had the knowledge of the harmony techniques, so he taught us [The Wailers] them. And he helped in the studio, to work out our different parts." – Bunny Wailer (1980's) "Joe Higgs helped me understand that music. He taught me many things." – Bob Marley

Discography Life of Contradiction (1975), Micron Unity is Power (1979), Island/1 Stop Triumph (1985), Alligator Family (1988), Shanachie Blackman Know Yourself (1990), Shanachie – Joe Higgs with the Wailers Band Joe and Marcia Together (1995)

Contributions to other albums Negril (LP, 1975. Micron Music Ltd.) (CD, 2003. 3D Japan), session musician