World of Jamaican Music

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

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Errol Thompson

Engineer. Reggae, dub

Active
1970s-1980s
Sunrise
December 29, 1948
Sunset
November 13, 2004 (strokes)
Also recorded as
The Mighty Two

Errol Thompson, known as E.T., was, for David Katz, "one of Jamaica's greatest recording engineers."

After a brief apprenticeship at Studio One in 1968, he learned his craft at Randy's Studio 17 on North Parade. There he engineered Lee Perry's sessions with the Wailers and the Clive Chin sessions with Augustus Pablo that produced "Java" and much of the early Far East material, and cut Java Java Dub in 1973, one of the records with a claim to being the first dub album. He also helped Perry set up the Black Ark.

He moved to Joe Gibbs's studio at 24 Retirement Crescent in the mid-1970s, and the partnership with Gibbs, billed as the Mighty Two, ran through the decade. Between them they produced Culture's Two Sevens Clash, a long run of Dennis Brown records including "Money in My Pocket," Althea and Donna's "Uptown Top Ranking," Prince Far I, and the Mighty Diamonds.

The African Dub All-Mighty series, issued in four chapters between 1975 and 1979, is the work he is most identified with. Bradley says his "use of mad echo and reverb, and his addition of SFX that included roosters crowing, phones ringing and doors slamming earned him the right to be thought of as King Tubby's heir apparent," and praises how he could "completely rebalance" a tune four or five times in a minute.

A royalty suit over the Mighty Two's "Someone Loves You Honey" closed Gibbs's studio in the 1980s, and Thompson spent most of a decade working in Gibbs's grocery store before the studio reopened in 1993. He departed in November 2004.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. David Katz calls him "one of Jamaica's greatest recording engineers," active from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. David Katz, "Errol Thompson," Guardian, December 8, 2004, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/dec/09/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries1.
  2. Katz says that after a brief apprenticeship at Studio One in 1968 he became chief engineer at Randy's in 1969, engineered much of Lee Perry's Wailers work there, and in 1972 engineered Augustus Pablo's "Java" and presided, with Clive Chin, over Pablo's debut album. Katz, "Errol Thompson." Bradley says Thompson was house engineer at Randy's "practically since it opened." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 331, 341.
  3. Bradley says the Thompson-engineered Impact All-Stars sessions at Randy's had been cutting dubs since 1972, and calls Java Java Java (1973) "another of the very first dub albums." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 330. Katz names the album Java Java Java Java, "one of the first fully-fledged dub albums." Katz, "Errol Thompson."
  4. Katz, "Errol Thompson."
  5. Bradley says that in 1975, when Gibbs's sixteen-track studio opened, "he poached Errol Thompson from Randy's as his house engineer." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 352. Katz dates the move to 1976. Katz, "Errol Thompson." The Rough Guide says Thompson had already stepped in at Gibbs's labels after Niney left and had the Errol T imprint named after him in the mid-1970s. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 100.
  6. Katz says the studio closed after a royalty lawsuit over "Someone Loves You Honey" and reopened in 1993. Katz, "Errol Thompson."
  7. Bradley lists Dennis Brown, Culture, Prince Far I, the Mighty Diamonds, and Althea & Donna among the artists who recorded at Retirement Crescent, and calls "Two Sevens Clash" "a Mighty Two (Gibbs' & Thompson) production." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 352, 354.
  8. Bradley says Thompson mixed Gibbs's African Dub Chapter One at Randy's and that African Dub Chapter Three came out in 1978. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 331. Katz says the pair's dub albums appeared "in the late 1970s and early 1980s." Katz, "Errol Thompson." "Exploring Joe Gibbs LP African Dub," VP Records, accessed November 5, 2026, https://www.vprecords.com/exploring-joe-gibbs-lp-african-dub/.
  9. Bradley says Thompson's "use of mad echo and reverb, and his addition of SFX that included roosters crowing, phones ringing and doors slamming earned him the right to be thought of as King Tubby's heir apparent." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 331.
  10. Katz, "Errol Thompson," which says that for "the better part of a decade" he "was chiefly employed at Gibbs' large grocery store."
  11. Katz gives his dates as December 29, 1948, to November 13, 2004, and says he died "after a series of strokes." Katz, "Errol Thompson."

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