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 →

Glen Adams

Artist. Rocksteady, reggae

Active
1960s-2010
Sunrise
November 27, 1945, Jones Town, Kingston, Jamaica
Sunset
December 17, 2010, Kingston, Jamaica

Glen "Capo" Adams was an organist, singer, and producer, a member of the Hippy Boys and of the Upsetters lineup that backed the Wailers for Lee Perry.

He was born in Jones Town, Kingston, to a Kingston mother and a Vincentian father who had met while working in Curaçao. He started as a singer and was in an early lineup of the Pioneers and a founder of the Heptones before moving to keyboards in 1968, when, by Mick Sleeper's account, the regular player missed a Bunny Lee session and he sat in, on records including Stranger Cole's "Bangarang" and Slim Smith's "Everybody Needs Love." Bunny Lee remembered him "just learning to play organ," flapping "his hands over the keyboard like wings" on the quick figure that gave the John Crow Skank its name. With Alva "Reggie" Lewis and the brothers Aston and Carlton Barrett he played in the Hippy Boys, the band that backed Max Romeo, recording for Sonia Pottinger, Bunny Lee, and Joe Gibbs, and singing with Lewis on the sides issued as the Reggae Boys and the Soul Mates.

The band traveled to Britain late in 1969 as the Upsetters, standing in for Perry's original group after "Return of Django" charted, and on returning worked behind the Wailers on Perry's sessions. Adams co-wrote "Mr Brown." He moved to New York in 1971 and settled in Brooklyn, where he worked as an arranger and producer and ran his Capo label. He departed in Jamaica in December 2010, at sixty-five.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. The Rough Guide calls him the organist in "the Hippy Boys/the Upsetters, one of the best session bands of Jamaican music's next phase." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 77. Bradley calls the Hippy Boys "more or less the nucleus of the Upsetters." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 226.
  2. The Gleaner says he was born in Jones Town to a Jamaican mother and a father from St. Vincent. Howard Campbell, "Reggae-Music Pioneer Leaves a Legacy of Greatness," Jamaica Gleaner, December 20, 2010, https://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20101220/ent/ent3.html. Katz says his parents met in Curaçao, that his father was a teacher from St. Vincent, and that his mother, a milliner, returned to Jamaica alone two weeks before he was born; he was raised in Jones Town: David Katz, "Glen Adams Obituary," Guardian, January 6, 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jan/06/glen-adams-obituary.
  3. The Rough Guide says that in the rocksteady era he was "primarily known as another convincing singer in the Curtis Mayfield mould," recording for Bunny Lee. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 77. Sleeper says he sang in "an early Pioneers line up," and the Gleaner says he began as a singer with the Heptones. Mick Sleeper, "Tribute to Glen Adams," United Reggae, January 4, 2011, https://unitedreggae.com/articles/n543/010411/tribute-to-glen-adams; Campbell, "Reggae-Music Pioneer." Bunny Lee told Bradley that Adams "was then just learning to play organ" at the sessions that produced the "John Crow Skank." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 202. Katz says he recorded with the Pioneers in 1966, co-founded the Heptones and introduced them to Studio One, sang in a duo with Ken Boothe, and took up the organ in 1968, when Duke Reid suggested him for a Bunny Lee session with the Barretts that produced Stranger Cole's "Bangarang": Katz, "Glen Adams Obituary."
  4. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 202. Sleeper calls his style "rudimentary" but says it "added a certain vibe"; the Rough Guide's verdicts run from "hamfisted mauling" on one cut to "one of the best examples on record of Glen Adams' keyboard skills" on "Live Injection." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 80, 87. In the Gleaner, a tribute letter credits him with inventing the "creep" organ style Bunny Lee describes in Bradley. Elizabeth Barraclough, "Tribute to a Pillar of Jamaican Music," letter, Jamaica Gleaner, December 28, 2010, https://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20101228/letters/letters4.html.
  5. In the Rough Guide, Max Romeo recalls: "So I formed a band called the Hippy Boys. That was the great Family Man and his brother Carlton Barrett ... and Alva Lewis and Glen Adams." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 105. Sleeper, by contrast, says Adams formed the band. Sleeper, "Tribute to Glen Adams." Katz has the band growing out of that 1968 session and then backing Romeo: Katz, "Glen Adams Obituary."
  6. The Rough Guide says the band had recorded for Bunny Lee, Sonia Pottinger, and Lloyd Daley before Perry, and that Pottinger's instrumentals were "often credited to the Hippy Boys." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 105, 128. Bradley lists the Hippy Boys among Joe Gibbs's acts. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 226.
  7. Sleeper says Adams and Lewis sang on early reggae sides such as "Them A Laugh And Ki Ki" and "What Is This" as the Reggae Boys and the Soul Mates. Sleeper, "Tribute to Glen Adams."
  8. Bradley says "Return of Django" stood at number 5 on the British chart of November 15, 1969. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 242. Sleeper says the original Upsetters could not commit to the tour, so Perry took the Hippy Boys instead, and that they appeared on Top of the Pops. Sleeper, "Tribute to Glen Adams." The Gleaner, however, says Adams and the Barretts played on "Return of Django" itself. Campbell, "Reggae-Music Pioneer."
  9. The Rough Guide says Perry's Upsetters "were in fact Max Romeo's old band the Hippy Boys," and credits Adams's "distinctive organ." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 128.
  10. Sleeper and the Gleaner both say Adams wrote "Mr. Brown," and the Gleaner credits him with its organ intro. Sleeper, "Tribute to Glen Adams." Campbell, "Reggae-Music Pioneer." Katz also says he "helped develop" "Concrete Jungle": Katz, "Glen Adams Obituary."
  11. Sleeper says he settled in Brooklyn in 1975, started Capo, and recorded as the Glen Adams Affair. Sleeper, "Tribute to Glen Adams." Katz dates his move to New York to 1971: Katz, "Glen Adams Obituary."
  12. The Gleaner says he died at the University Hospital of the West Indies while visiting Jamaica, at sixty-five, after living in Brooklyn for more than thirty years. Campbell, "Reggae-Music Pioneer." Sleeper says he had suffered a stroke earlier in 2010. Sleeper, "Tribute to Glen Adams." Katz gives December 18, 2010: Katz, "Glen Adams Obituary." The Gleaner's report of Monday, December 20, says he died "last Friday," December 17.

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