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 →

Joe Higgs

Artist. Ska, rocksteady, reggae

Active
1958-1999
Sunrise
June 3, 1940, Kingston, Jamaica
Sunset
December 18, 1999, Los Angeles (cancer)

Joseph Benjamin Higgs was a singer and songwriter from Trenchtown who taught much of the first generation of reggae singers. He is often called the godfather of reggae.

He began in 1958 as half of Higgs and Wilson, with Roy Wilson, whom he had met at a talent contest where the promoter, unable to cut either of them from the solo field, suggested they sing as a pair. Their first record, "Oh Manny Oh," was made for Edward Seaga's West Indies Records Limited and sold around fifty thousand copies in Jamaica, an unprecedented figure for a locally pressed record. Further sides followed for WIRL and then for Coxsone Dodd, among them "How Can I Be Sure," "Mighty Man," and "There's a Reward." The partnership ended in 1964 when Wilson emigrated to the United States. Higgs then sang with Carlos Malcolm and the Afro-Jamaican Rhythms and fronted Lynn Taitt's Soul Brothers.

He held informal lessons in his yard in Trenchtown, teaching harmony, breath control, guitar, and stagecraft. He began working with Bob Marley around 1959, and it was at these sessions that Marley and Bunny Livingston met Peter Tosh. Higgs introduced the group to Coxsone Dodd. He also worked with the Wailing Souls and with Jimmy Cliff, for whom he acted as bandleader and wrote "Dear Mother." In 1973 he took Bunny Wailer's place on the Wailers' American tour.

He wrote "Steppin' Razor" in 1967 as a Festival Song Contest entry. Peter Tosh recorded it without crediting him; Higgs later won a judgment establishing his authorship but received nothing from the song's success. He won the Jamaica Tourist Board song competition in 1972 with "Invitation to Jamaica," issued on his own Elevation label.

"Life of Contradiction" was recorded for Island in 1972, but Chris Blackwell judged it hard to market and it went unreleased until Micron issued it in 1975. "Unity Is Power" followed in 1979. His 1983 single "So It Go" was kept off the radio for its criticism of the government of the day, and the harassment that followed led him to move to Los Angeles, where he lived for the rest of his life. Triumph (1985), Family (1988), and Blackman Know Yourself (1990), the last backed by the Wailers Band, followed, and in 1995 he recorded "Joe and Marcia Together" with his daughter. He departed in Los Angeles on December 18, 1999, at fifty-nine, survived by twelve children; the cause was cancer.

Last updated October 21, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Wikipedia. "Joe Higgs," Wikipedia, accessed October 2, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Higgs. Jimmy Cliff called him the "Father of Reggae." "Joe Higgs."
  2. Wikipedia, citing Chuck Foster's Roots Rock Reggae (1999), dates his first recordings for Seaga to 1958, "both as a solo artist and with Roy Wilson." "Joe Higgs."
  3. Bradley dates "Manny Oh" to late 1959 and credits Seaga with giving it a mento accent: "gently marking out the off-beat with a guitar chord." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 51, 52. The Rough Guide calls it a WIRL hit for Seaga. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 19, 22. Wikipedia says it sold 50,000 copies; a related article dates the sales to 1960. "Joe Higgs."; "Higgs and Wilson," Wikipedia, accessed October 2, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_and_Wilson.
  4. The Rough Guide says the duo went on "to cut a series of popular records for Coxsone, Duke Reid and Prince Buster," notably "There's A Reward," "Pain In My Heart," and "If You Want Pardon." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 22. "How Can I Be Sure" is from Wikipedia. "Higgs and Wilson."
  5. Wikipedia gives 1964. "Joe Higgs." A related article says Wilson left "in the late 1960s." "Higgs and Wilson."
  6. Wikipedia. "Joe Higgs."
  7. In the Rough Guide Higgs says, "The Wailers weren't singers until I taught them." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 38. Bradley notes that the Wailing Souls, "like the Wailers," were taught to sing by Higgs. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 213.
  8. Wikipedia, citing the New York Times obituary and Dave Thompson. "Joe Higgs." The Rough Guide calls Marley a "pupil of Joe Higgs." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 96.
  9. Wikipedia, citing the Rough Guide. "Joe Higgs." The Rough Guide calls Higgs the Wailers' "mentor" in its account of their Studio One start. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 38.
  10. Wikipedia. "Joe Higgs."
  11. The Rough Guide says Higgs took Bunny's place "for the ill-fated tour of the US with Sly & the Family Stone," which ended after four shows in Las Vegas, leaving them, in Higgs's words, "sitting on the edge of the desert on our suitcases." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 137, 138.
  12. Wikipedia. "Joe Higgs." Bradley calls it "the Joe Higgs-penned 'Steppin' Razor' which became Peter Tosh's theme tune." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 265.
  13. Wikipedia. "Joe Higgs."
  14. Wikipedia. "Joe Higgs."
  15. The Rough Guide dates the Micron release to 1975, when its "jazz-influenced rhythms were far from fashionable," and names Earl "Wire" Lindo, Val Douglas, Mikey Chung, and Eric Gayle as the musicians. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 202. Blackwell's judgment is from Wikipedia. "Joe Higgs."
  16. Wikipedia, citing David V. Moskowitz's Caribbean Popular Music (2006). "Joe Higgs."
  17. Wikipedia. "Joe Higgs."
  18. The Rough Guide confirms the date and cause of death. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 455. Wikipedia names Kaiser Hospital and the twelve children. "Joe Higgs." Howard Campbell, writing in 2024, calls his daughter Claudia "the eldest of the singer's 10 children": Howard Campbell, "A Tribute to Joe Higgs: The Father of Reggae," Jamaica Observer, June 2, 2024, https://jamaicaobserver.com/2024/06/02/tribute-joe-higgs-father-reggae.

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