Adrian Sherwood
Producer. Reggae, roots, dub
- Active
- 1975-present
- Sunrise
- 1958
- Also known as
- On-U Sound, Hitrun, Hit Run
Adrian Sherwood is an English producer whose Hitrun and On-U Sound labels carried Jamaican roots and dub into British post-punk, and who worked for years with Prince Far I and, later, Lee Perry.
Growing up in High Wycombe, he was deejaying as a teenager and got a job at Pama Records at fifteen or sixteen; he worked for the distributor Carl Palmer in the mid-1970s and was a founder of the Carib Gems label. With Pete Stroud he started Hitrun, where he made his first production, Dub from Creation (1977), credited to Creation Rebel, and by 1978 Hitrun was releasing Jamaican recordings by Bobby Melody, Prince Far I and others. When Far I toured Britain in 1979, Creation Rebel, with Clifton "Bigga" Morrison and the drummer Style Scott, backed him, and the alliance between the deejay and the young producer lasted until Far I's life was taken in 1983. It was Far I who first put him behind a mixing desk, handing him the controls at a show at London's 100 Club and showing him how to work the spring reverb and echo unit; Sherwood recalls adding only a touch of effect on the snare and the lead vocal.
Sherwood formed On-U Sound in 1980, releasing Far I, Creation Rebel and Bim Sherman, and over the next years fused reggae with rock, dance and funk in a production style of his own, with in-house groups such as Dub Syndicate and African Head Charge. The style was made at the mixing desk. Creation Rebel's Starship Africa, one of his earliest productions, set reggae rhythms among studio textures and industrial and science-fiction effects, and the Rough Guide credits the On-U groups with laying the foundation for much of the modern UK dub scene, with its layered percussion and sound effects. He also brought unlikely musicians together: the Jamaican singers Bim Sherman and Carlton "Bubbler" Ogilvie worked alongside the former Sugarhill Records session men Keith LeBlanc, Doug Wimbish and Skip McDonald; one Sherman album set acoustic reggae against strings from an Indian film orchestra; and McDonald's Little Axe records joined blues to dub. Perry, one of his early dub heroes, was among the visiting Jamaicans he produced; their album Time Boom X De Devil Dead is among Perry's later records, and the Rough Guide counts Sherwood among the remixers Perry's Black Ark sound most influenced.
Last updated October 31, 2026
Connections
- Lee "Scratch" Perry (artist)
- Prince Far I (artist)
- Dennis Alcapone (artist)
- The Congos (artist)
Notes
- Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 410-11, which gives his birth year as 1958.
- Bill Brewster, "Creation Rebel: Adrian Sherwood on Dub, Post-Punk and Lee 'Scratch' Perry," Red Bull Music Academy Daily, January 24, 2019, https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2019/01/adrian-sherwood-interview. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 410.
- Brewster, "Creation Rebel." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 410.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 192, 410.
- Larry Crane, "Adrian Sherwood," interview, Tape Op, no. 136 (March/April 2020), https://backup.tapeop.com/interviews/136/adrian-sherwood/index.html.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 410-11. Brewster, "Creation Rebel."
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 411.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 411.
- Brewster, "Creation Rebel." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 225, 411. On the album, see the Lee Perry entry.
