Danny Sims
Producer. Rocksteady, reggae
- Active
- 1950s-2012
- Sunrise
- November 9, 1936, Hattiesburg, Mississippi
- Sunset
- October 2012, Los Angeles
- Also known as
- JAD Records, Cayman Music
Danny Sims was an American promoter, manager, publisher and label owner who, Bradley argues, did more than anyone outside the studio to put Bob Marley in touch with the big time.
Mississippi-born, he opened Sapphire's, a soul-food restaurant in Manhattan frequented by Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier, and became one of the first black promoters to work internationally, booking Sam Cooke, Curtis Mayfield and Aretha Franklin, and Malcolm X's lectures. In 1965 he moved his business to Jamaica with his partner Johnny Nash, believing it unsafe to stay in the United States. Nelson George, who interviewed him, describes "the slick patter of a well-schooled hustler," a man who told him, more than once, "I'm a mobster," and whose partner in JAD was, George writes, Joe Armone, a figure in organized crime.
After Nash heard the Wailers at a grounation in 1966, Sims met Marley, Rita Marley, Peter Tosh and Mortimer Planno at his house in Russell Heights. He signed them to his Cayman Music publishing company and to the JAD label he ran with Nash, and for several years Marley practically lived at his house, where Sims's servants refused to serve the Rastas. The rocksteady album he cut with Bob, Rita and Peter in 1968 found no buyers in America or Britain, so he let Marley record with other producers, including Lee Perry. In 1970 he took Marley to Sweden with Nash, then to London, where the Wailers backed Nash's I Can See Clearly Now album and Sims arranged a school tour for Marley and Nash.
In 1972 the Wailers' contract passed to Chris Blackwell's Island. Sims later managed Marley again in his last months, and George reports that he arranged security through Armone's circle for Marley's 1980 tour, and Marley stayed at Sims's New York house after his collapse in Central Park. Marley had signed a three-year composer agreement with Cayman Music in October 1973, and in 1984 Cayman sued his estate, claiming that he had concealed his authorship of the songs he recorded in those years by crediting them to others; the claim was dismissed as time-barred in 1988. Roger Steffens, who reports that Marley gave composer credits to friends to escape the contract, has named Sims as his source. He departed in Los Angeles in 2012; the cause was colon cancer.
Last updated November 5, 2026
Connections
- The Wailers (artist)
- Bob Marley (collaborator)
- Peter Tosh (collaborator)
- Chris Blackwell (collaborator)
- Rita Marley (collaborator)
- Johnny Nash (collaborator)
- Mortimer Planno (worked with)
Notes
- Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 403, 411.
- Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 403.
- Sims's account in Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 403, 404.
- Nelson George, "Rhythm and Gangster 4," Substack, July 16, 2023, https://nelsongeorge.substack.com/p/rhythm-and-gangster-4.
- Sims's account in Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 405, 406, 407. Caribbean Life dates the five-year contract to 1967. "Pivotal Reggae Innovator Danny Sims Dies," Caribbean Life, October 12, 2012, https://caribbeanlifenews.com/pivotal-reggae-innovator-danny-sims-dies.
- Sims's account in Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 407, 408.
- Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 408, 409, 410.
- "Danny Sims Dies," Caribbean Life. Bradley says the Island deal was made by Brent Clarke, who had taken over day-to-day management. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 411, 420.
- Sims swore that Marley, a prolific writer until October 1973, "claimed not to have written a single song between October 1973 and October 1976," the term of the agreement; a jury found that Sims had learned of the alleged fraud by 1980: Barrett v. Universal-Island Records Ltd. and Others, [2006] EWHC 1009 (Ch), May 15, 2006, https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/ch/2006/1009, paras. 24, 278-79, 283.
- Roger Steffens and Leroy Jodie Pierson, Bob Marley and the Wailers: The Definitive Discography (2005), quoted in Barrett v. Universal-Island Records, paras. 285-86.
- "Danny Sims Dies," Caribbean Life.
