World of Jamaican Music

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An illustrated map of the creators of Jamaican music and how they are connected.

Remembering Derrick Harriott (1939-2026), rocksteady singer and producer. Read his story →

Clancy Eccles

Producer. Rocksteady

Active
1959-2005
Sunrise
1940, St. Mary, Jamaica
Sunset
June 30, 2005, Spanish Town, St. Catherine, Jamaica (stroke)
Also known as
Dynamites, The Dynamites

Clancy Eccles was a singer, songwriter, producer, and talent scout, and the figure who did most to connect Jamaican popular music to party politics.

He was born in St. Mary, and began recording for Coxsone Dodd in 1959 or 1960, after one of Dodd's talent contests. "Freedom" was taken up by Alexander Bustamante's Jamaica Labour Party, the first Jamaican record used for a political campaign, and it established a pattern Eccles returned to. He recorded for Dodd until late in 1961 and then, by Katz's account, nothing for three years, because he would not break his contract. He recut "Freedom" in 1969 as the title track of an album.

He began producing in 1967 and worked with a house band he called the Dynamites, cutting early reggae hits including "Fatty Fatty" and King Stitt's "Fire Corner." He ran the Clandisc, Clansone, and New Beat labels and recorded Alton Ellis, Joe Higgs, Lord Creator, and Larry Marshall, among others. He has been credited with deriving the word reggae from streggae, Kingston slang for a good-time girl, which is one of several competing accounts of the term's origin.

Musicians appreciated his fairness. He helped Lee Perry set up the Upsetter label in 1968 and gave Winston "Niney" Holness early production work.

A committed socialist, Eccles advised Michael Manley's People's National Party on music and took part in the PNP Musical Bandwagon of the 1972 campaign, which carried Bob Marley, Dennis Brown, and Max Romeo around the island in support of Manley.

His 1970 release "Phantom," an instrumental version of King Stitt's "Herbsman" credited to the Dynamites and remixed down to its bassline, is among the recordings cited in accounts of how dub emerged.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. The Rough Guide says the "major exception" to Jamaican musicians' reluctance to publicize their politics came with Manley's 1972 campaign, with Eccles organizing singers in its support. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 111. See also Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 281.
  2. Eccles told the Rough Guide he was born "in 1940 in the parish of St Mary" and cut "Freedom" for Dodd at Ken Khouri's studio in November 1959, after a talent show. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 109. He told Katz, as Augustyn quotes him from Solid Foundation, that "in early 1960, Coxsone had a talent hunt," and that he was "the first one that Coxsone recorded out of that crop." Heather Augustyn, "Real Dance Crasher," SkaBook (blog), January 22, 2016, https://skabook.com/2016/01/22/dancecrasher/. Wikipedia gives his birthplace as Dean Pen and his birth date as December 9 (noting that some sources say December 19); a 2014 Gleaner profile says he was born in Highgate, St. Mary. "Clancy Eccles," Wikipedia, accessed October 1, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clancy_Eccles; "Eccles Goos as Performer, Producer," Jamaica Gleaner, August 17, 2014, http://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20140817/ent/ent8.html.
  3. The Gleaner reports that Bustamante, then chief minister, adopted "Freedom" in 1960 for his campaign against the West Indies Federation. "The Music of Politics," Jamaica Gleaner, December 25, 2011, http://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20111225/ent/ent10.html. The Rough Guide dates the record's success to 1961, and Eccles recalled that it was written when people were "thinking about repatriation to Africa," not yet "about independent Jamaica"; Bradley calls it a "rudimentary R&B adaptation of 'John Brown's Body.'" Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 23, 109; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 95.
  4. Augustyn, summarizing Katz's Solid Foundation, in Augustyn, "Real Dance Crasher." The page in Katz's book was not seen.
  5. Eccles dated his return as a producer to 1967, beginning with Monty Morris's "Say What You're Saying"; the Rough Guide notes that the Dynamites also recorded as Harriott's Crystalites and for Leslie Kong. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 109-10. Bradley lists "Fatty Fatty" among Eccles's own hits and says Stitt's "Fire Corner" was one of 1969's best sellers. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 225, 294. The Rough Guide gives King Stitt's name as Winston Spark; Eric "Monty" Morris was a different artist, a singer Eccles also produced. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 109, 120, 122.
  6. The Rough Guide names the New Beat and Clandisc labels and productions by Alton Ellis, Lord Creator, Cynthia Richards, Monty Morris, Higgs & Wilson, and Busty Brown; Bradley adds Larry Marshall's "Please Stay." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 83, 109; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 225. The Clansone label is named by Wikipedia. "Clancy Eccles," Wikipedia.
  7. The Rough Guide says he "has been credited" with the derivation. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 108. The Gleaner reports that Eccles claimed he coined the word at a dance, calling to a woman "hey streggae, come make we reggae," and was "taken to task" for claiming to have created reggae itself; another Gleaner column calls his story "just one of many versions." "Eccles Goos as Performer, Producer." "The Music Diaries: The Birth of the Reggae Explosion," Jamaica Gleaner, December 9, 2018, https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/entertainment/20181209/music-diaries-birth-reggae-explosion.
  8. Wikipedia says musicians appreciated "his fairness and sense of equity." "Clancy Eccles," Wikipedia. The Gleaner adds that he turned to production after growing dissatisfied with what producers paid him, and records his bitter dispute with Lord Creator over the ownership of "Kingston Town." "Eccles Goos as Performer, Producer."
  9. The Rough Guide says he "helped both Lee Perry and Winston 'Niney' Holness set up as producers," lending Niney the money to press "Blood & Fire" in late 1971; Bradley notes that Eccles arranged Perry's 1968 "People Funny Boy." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 110; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 199. Wikipedia dates his help with Perry's Upsetter label to 1968. "Clancy Eccles," Wikipedia.
  10. The books differ on his role. Bradley says Manley himself "formed the PNP Musical Bandwagon," with Bob and Rita Marley, Alton Ellis, Dennis Brown, Inner Circle, Judy Mowatt, and others; the Rough Guide has Eccles "organizing some of the best youth singers" for the campaign and links Max Romeo's "Let the Power Fall For I" to it. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 281; Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 106, 111. The Gleaner says he acted as a talent scout for the PNP, "by appointment." "Music of Politics."
  11. The Rough Guide says the remixing of "Phantom" "reduced the track to its fundamental element," the bassline, and calls it a "ground-breaking proto-dub version." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 110, 218.

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