Brent Dowe
Artist. Rocksteady, reggae
- Active
- 1962-2006
- Sunrise
- 1946, St. James
- Sunset
- January 29, 2006, Kingston
- Also known as
- Brent Gayford Dowe
Brent Dowe was one of the two lead voices of the Melodians, the one the Rough Guide calls their "anguished tenor," and a co-writer of "Rivers of Babylon."
Born in St. James, he came to Kingston as a boy and was singing at the Friday concerts at Trench Town Comprehensive. He remembered the early 1960s rehearsals at Back-A-Wall, where Tivoli Gardens now stands, with Slim Smith, Ken Boothe and Roy Shirley, and the talent shows Vere Johns ran at the Ambassador Theatre, where the Melodians first came together. With Tony Brevett and Trevor McNaughton he recorded for Coxsone Dodd, Duke Reid, Sonia Pottinger and Leslie Kong; he gave a vivid account of how each paid (Dodd £10 to share, Reid £30) and called Kong, who paid them for publishing, "the most honest producer of those times."
When the Melodians took "Rivers of Babylon" to Kong, Dowe recalled, "we tell him it's a Christian song, that we want to sing to reggae"; the record was briefly banned from the radio because he sang "Oh Fari." It sold an estimated 80,000 copies in Britain before Boney M's cover sold millions more, yet decades later he was living in a modest bungalow in Hughenden, Kingston. He explained that a young singer took the deal he was offered: "guys like us didn't even think about the rest of the world."
In 1973 he left the group for a solo career with Sonia Pottinger, and "Build Me Up" made him a star in his own right; his album of the same name followed on High Note in 1974, much of it written with the Melodians' songwriter Renford Cogle. He went on to record at the Black Ark and for Bertram Brown's Freedom Sounds, and produced the Palmer Brothers' "Stepping Out of Babylon" for Tommy Cowan's Sweet City label. He rejoined the Melodians for their later reunions and in the 1990s revisited "Rivers of Babylon" for Sly and Robbie. He departed in Kingston in January 2006, at fifty-nine, days after a rehearsal; the cause was a heart attack.
Last updated November 5, 2026
Connections
- The Melodians (band)
- Coxsone Dodd (producer)
- Duke Reid (producer)
- Sonia Pottinger (producer)
- Leslie Kong (producer)
- Bertram Brown (producer)
- Sly Dunbar (collaborator)
- Robbie Shakespeare (collaborator)
- Tommy Cowan (collaborator)
- Ken Boothe (came up together)
- Roy Shirley (came up together)
- Slim Smith (came up together)
- Black Ark (studio)
Notes
- Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 66. Dowe called himself "the leader of the Melodians." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 70. Bradley says Dowe wrote the song. Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 170, 274. Canty calls it "the Brent Dowe/Trevor McNaughton number." Ian Canty, "Brent Dowe/The Melodians: Build Me Up & Pre-Meditation," album review, Louder Than War, accessed October 6, 2026, https://louderthanwar.com/brent-dowe-the-melodians-build-me-up-pre-meditation-album-review/.
- "Brent Dowe," Reggae Exhibition, National Library of Jamaica, accessed October 6, 2026, http://www.nlj.gov.jm/REGGAE%20EXHIBITION/Brent%20Dowe.htm.
- His own account in Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 70.
- His own account in Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 70-71.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 71.
- Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 274.
- Canty, "Build Me Up & Pre-Meditation." The "Build Me Up" single is dated 1973 on Discogs. "Brent Dowe / The Gaytones: Build Me Up," Discogs, accessed October 6, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/10701207-Brent-Dowe-The-Gaytones-Build-Me-Up.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 176, 194; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 366.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 293.
- "Brent Dowe," Reggae Exhibition, National Library of Jamaica, accessed October 6, 2026, http://www.nlj.gov.jm/REGGAE%20EXHIBITION/Brent%20Dowe.htm. The National Library and Discogs give January 29, 2006; the site's Melodians entry gives January 28. "Brent Dowe," Discogs, accessed October 6, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/artist/167555-Brent-Dowe. On the date, Howard Campbell, "The Melodians' Tony Brevett Dies in Miami Hospital," Jamaica Observer, October 26, 2013, via World A Reggae, https://www.worldareggae.com/?p=21683.
