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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Hortense Ellis

Artist. Ska, rocksteady, reggae

Active
1959-2000
Sunrise
April 18, 1941, Trench Town, Kingston, Jamaica
Sunset
October 2000
Also known as
First Lady of Song, Mahalia Saunders

Hortense Ellis was a singer whose career ran from the talent shows of the late 1950s into the 1990s, and who was, with Marcia Griffiths, one of the few women to win success on her own terms in Jamaican music.

She was born in Trench Town, a younger sister of Alton Ellis, and like him came up through Vere Johns's Opportunity Hour: in 1959 she won its grand final, beating her brother, and in those years she walked from theater to theater late at night in her stage clothes. Her first records, in 1961, were for Coxsone Dodd: "Eddie My Love" and "Loving Girl," and a duet with Lascelles Perkins, "All by Ourselves," the pairing billed as Lascelles and Hortense. In 1964 the Star named her "First Lady of Song," and she toured the island with Byron Lee and the Dragonaires.

She recorded for Duke Reid, Bunny Lee and Ken Lack among others, cut duets with her brother, and for Lee Perry made covers of "Right on the Tip of My Tongue" and "Piece of My Heart" under the name Mahalia Saunders. Her biggest record came in 1976, when Gussie Clarke's production of "Love Comes from Unexpected Places," a Kim Carnes song, reached the top five of the RJR chart. Clarke said she "had an exceptionally unique voice and sound," and that the voice was what drew him to working with her. For Clive Chin she made "Woman of the Ghetto," her version of the Marlena Shaw song.

She lived mostly in New York and Miami in the 1980s, returned to Jamaica in 1989, and departed in 2000.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Barrow and Dalton write that female singers "apart from Marcia Griffiths and the late Hortense Ellis" have had "a hard job gaining success on their own terms in Jamaican music." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 75.
  2. Augustyn gives her birth in Trench Town on April 18, 1941, to Percival and Beatrice Ellis, and says she won the 1959 competition "over Alton." Heather Augustyn, "First Lady of Song: Hortense Ellis," SkaBook (blog), October 10, 2014, https://skabook.com/2014/10/10/first-lady-song-hortense-ellis/. On the late-night walks between theaters: Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 19.
  3. Augustyn, "First Lady of Song." The Rough Guide lists "Lascelles (Perkins) & Hortense (Ellis)" among the ska era's boy-girl duos. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 35.
  4. Augustyn says the Star gave her the award in 1964. Augustyn, "First Lady of Song." The Observer says she won a silver cup that year as "Jamaica's Best Female Vocalist" and toured with Byron Lee and the Dragonaires. "Hortense Ellis, Underrated Talent," Jamaica Observer, February 23, 2022, https://jamaicaobserver.com/entertainment/hortense-ellis-underrated-talent.
  5. "Hortense Ellis, Underrated Talent." The Rough Guide notes her version of the country standard "My Last Date" over the riddim of Pat Kelly's "How Long." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 89.
  6. "Hortense Ellis, Underrated Talent," which says the record also did well in Britain.
  7. "Hortense Ellis, Underrated Talent."
  8. Augustyn, "First Lady of Song," which calls it her favorite of her own records.
  9. "Hortense Ellis, Underrated Talent," which gives her death on October 19, 2000, at fifty-nine, in her sleep. Augustyn gives October 1, 2000, and "a lung ailment from years of smoking." Augustyn, "First Lady of Song."

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