Jah Jerry
Artist. Ska
- Active
- 1948-2007
- Sunset
- August 11, 2007, Kingston, Jamaica
- Also known as
- Jerome Haynes, Jerome "Jah Jerry" Haynes, Jerome Hinds, Jerome Hines
Jerome "Jah Jerry" Haynes was the Skatalites' original guitarist, a rhythm player rather than a soloist, and, as much as anyone, in the Rough Guide's phrase, he "can claim to have invented ska."
His father had a guitar, and in 1948 and 1949 he went to Ernest Ranglin for lessons; Ranglin taught him "Sunny Side of the Street" and "Swanee River." By the mid-1950s he was playing with Val Bennett's big band at the Caribbean Hotel, and through Drumbago he went into the recording business, first cutting an instrumental for Count Boysie's sound system. For Prince Buster he played on the records that made Buster's name, among them the Folkes Brothers' "Oh Carolina" and Buster's own "They Got to Go," on which his clipped chords and the saxophones riffing on the afterbeat give the first clear sound of ska; Buster had him, or Charley Organaire, put a chord on the afterbeat from the session that produced Monty Morris's "Humpty Dumpty." He also played the introduction to Derrick Morgan's first hit, "Shake a Leg." He described his style through Buster's image: "I change chords on the guitar" like a man changing gears.
He played for Leslie Kong, Duke Reid, Coxsone Dodd, Randy Chin and others, backing Millie Small, Jimmy Cliff, Bob Marley and Desmond Dekker, and as a founding Skatalite he played on "Freedom Sounds" and "Guns of Navarone." He was not part of the re-formed band, and departed in Kingston at eighty-six.
Last updated October 21, 2026
Connections
- The Skatalites (band)
- Roland Alphonso (bandmate)
- Johnny "Dizzy" Moore (bandmate)
- Val Bennett (bandleader)
- Lindon Pottinger (bandleader)
- Count Boysie (bandleader)
- Ernest Ranglin (mentor)
- Coxsone Dodd (session work)
- Duke Reid (session work)
- Leslie Kong (session work)
- Prince Buster (session work)
- Drumbago (session work)
- Derrick Morgan (session work)
- Monty Morris (session work)
- Charley Organaire (worked with)
- Randy Chin (session work)
Notes
- Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 33. Howard Campbell, "Skatalites Guitarist Remembered," Jamaica Gleaner, September 26, 2007, https://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20070926/ent/ent4.html, quoting a musicologist: "He was a rhythm guitarist, never a soloist."
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 33, quoting Jah Jerry.
- Campbell, "Skatalites Guitarist Remembered." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 4, 31.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 33.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 33, quoting him.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 33. Campbell, "Skatalites Guitarist Remembered." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 50, 100.
- Campbell, "Skatalites Guitarist Remembered."
