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 →

Headley Bennett

Artist. Ska, rocksteady, reggae

Active
1960s-present
Sunrise
May 29, 1931, Kingston, Jamaica
Sunset
August 21, 2016, Kingston, Jamaica

Felix Headley Bennett, known as Deadly Headley, played alto saxophone on so many Jamaican records across so many decades that no discography of his work is complete.

He entered Alpha Boys School at five and left at fifteen, played for a period in Canada, and returned to Kingston to work the sessions. In 1962, as a member of the Sheiks, he played at Palisadoes airport for Princess Margaret's independence visit. The same year he was in the band at Leslie Kong's Beverley's for two records that started careers: Bob Marley's first single, "Judge Not," and Jimmy Cliff's "Hurricane Hattie." He also played on Derrick and Patsy's "Housewife's Choice." His solo on Delroy Wilson's "Dancing Mood" is the one most often singled out (Roy Black calls it "the single most important one that heralded the start of the rocksteady era"), and at Studio One he played the saxophone on "Full Up," named, he said, for Dodd's instruction to fill up a bare rhythm.

Through the rocksteady years he was part of Lynn Taitt and the Jets, and he continued as a session player at Studio One, with the Revolutionaries, and at Lee Perry's Black Ark. In the 1980s Adrian Sherwood brought him into the On-U Sound circle: he recorded the album 35 Years From Alpha, partly at Harry J's and partly in England, and played on sessions for Singers and Players, African Head Charge, and Dub Syndicate.

He received the Order of Distinction in 2005 and departed in August 2016 at eighty-five.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Wikipedia gives his dates as May 29, 1931, to August 21, 2016, and says he played on "hundreds, possibly thousands" of recordings. "Headley Bennett," Wikipedia, accessed October 1, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headley_Bennett.
  2. Wikipedia says he entered the Alpha Boys School at five and left at fifteen, but places his move to Canada in the late 1960s, with a return to Jamaica in 1977. "Headley Bennett." Howard Campbell, in the Jamaica Observer obituary that Augustyn reprints, says he left Alpha "after 12 years at age 16" and returned from Canada in the mid-1970s. Heather Augustyn, "Tribute to Deadly Headley," SkaBook (blog), September 1, 2016, https://skabook.com/2016/09/01/tribute-deadly-headley/.
  3. Wikipedia reports the Palisadoes performance with the Sheiks. "Headley Bennett."
  4. Wikipedia credits him on "Judge Not" for Leslie Kong. "Headley Bennett." The Rough Guide says Prince Buster claimed Bennett's alto solo on Derrick Morgan's 1962 "Forward March" copied Lester Sterling's on Buster's "They Got To Come," starting the Buster-Morgan feud. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 34.
  5. The Rough Guide says the record was "distinguished as much by Headley Bennett's splendid alto sax solo as by the duo's lively vocalizing." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 35.
  6. Roy Black, in the Gleaner of August 31, 2016, reprinted in Augustyn, "Tribute to Deadly Headley," thinks "Dancing Mood" "the single most important" record "that heralded the start of the rocksteady era," and recounts Bennett's story of "Full Up": Dodd gave him a bare rhythm and told him to "just full it up, man." Black credits the record to Sound Dimension, Campbell to the Soul Defenders.
  7. Wikipedia lists Lynn Taitt and the Jets, the Mighty Vikings, and the Revolutionaries among his bands. "Headley Bennett."
  8. The Rough Guide names him among Coxsone Dodd's session saxophonists and says the Heptones' horn parts were "usually devised by saxophonist 'Deadly' Headley Bennett." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 73, 90. Bradley names him in Studio One's post-rocksteady horn section and in the brass section of Channel One's Revolutionaries. Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 214, 358.
  9. Wikipedia lists his late-1970s and early-1980s sessions for King Tubby, Prince Jammy, and Scientist, and his work on Mikey Dread's Dread at the Controls releases. "Headley Bennett."
  10. The Rough Guide names him among the players in Adrian Sherwood's On-U circle and says the second Reggae Archive volume "collects most of the tracks from Jamaican saxophonist Headley Bennett's 35 Years From Alpha." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 411. Wikipedia dates the album to 1981, recorded at Harry J's and at several English studios. "Headley Bennett."
  11. Wikipedia says he received the Order of Distinction in 2005, at seventy-four. "Headley Bennett." Black gives his death at home on Sunday, August 21, 2016, at eighty-five. Augustyn, "Tribute to Deadly Headley." Black and Campbell disagree on the nickname: Black traces it to a listener's "boy, what a deadly sound," Campbell to his Roots Radics years in the early 1980s.

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