Earl Zero
Artist. Reggae, roots
- Active
- 1970s-present
- Sunrise
- Greenwich Farm, Kingston, Jamaica
- Also known as
- Earl Anthony Johnson
Earl Zero is a Greenwich Farm roots singer, the eldest of ten children of a fisherman and a fishmonger, "sometimes brilliant" in the Rough Guide's phrase, best remembered as the writer of "None Shall Escape the Judgement."
At twenty he had already recorded the song for Bunny Lee, but Lee judged it had a better chance in Johnny Clarke's more commercial voice, and Clarke's 1974 version took him into the premier league. Clarke recalled that Zero and his group, with Earl "Chinna" Smith, were at Duke Reid's studio when the song was cut there.
A devout young Rastaman, Zero went on to write and record several tracks with the same dread conviction: "Please Officer" and "City of the Weakheart" for Tommy Cowan's Arab label, "Righteous Works" for Al Campbell's Addis Ababa, "Shackles & Chains" for Bertram Brown's Freedom Sounds, and in 1976 "Home Sweet Home," the first release on Don Mais's Roots Tradition label. His debut album, Only Jah Can Ease the Pressure, came out on Freedom Sounds. Prince Jammy's "Pablo in Moonlight City," a dub of his second cut of "Please Officer," became a dub landmark, and Ernest Ranglin later covered "None Shall Escape the Judgement." Zero moved to northern California in 1979 and has recorded there since; Jacob Miller also recorded "City of the Weakheart."
Last updated November 5, 2026
Connections
- Bunny "Striker" Lee (producer)
- King Jammy (engineer)
- Tommy Cowan (producer)
- Bertram Brown (producer)
- Soul Syndicate (session work)
- Earl "Chinna" Smith (collaborator)
- Rod Taylor (collaborator)
- Johnny Clarke (collaborator)
- Treasure Isle (studio)
Notes
- Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 186.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 186.
- Johnny Clarke, "Johnny Clarke Interview: Early 70s to the 80s (Part II)," Reggaeville, accessed October 6, 2026, https://reggaeville.com/artist-details/johnny-clarke/news/view/johnny-clarke-interview-early-70s-to-the-80s-part-ii.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 186, 250; Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 366.
- David Katz, "Bertram Brown," Guardian, December 5, 2008, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/dec/05/obituary-bertram-brown-roots-reggae, which gives the British title as "In the Right Way."
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 51, 215, 273.
- "Respect: Earl Zero," Irie Magazine, December 3, 2015, https://www.iriemag.com/magazine/2015/respect-earl-zero/.
