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 White

Artist. Ska, rocksteady, reggae

Active
1957-2023
Sunrise
September 4, 1941, Kingston, Jamaica
Sunset
September 26, 2023, Hackney, London
Also known as
William Joseph White, Joe White & Chuck, Joe & Della

Joe White was a singer, songwriter, keyboard and melodica player whose career ran from the late 1950s through ska, rocksteady and reggae.

He grew up in Kingston, learned tailoring at the Alpha Boys School, and started recording in 1957. In the mid-1960s he sang in the Leaders with Ken Boothe, Roy Shirley and Chuck Josephs, and Glen Adams, then an informal musical director for Duke Reid, brought him into Reid's stable. His duet with Chuck, "Every Night" (1966), was the first release on Sonia Pottinger's label, a session she put in the hands of Baba Brooks; it stayed in the Jamaican charts for several months. His "Rudies All Around" pictured the rude boy as an island-wide phenomenon, "from Kingston to Montego Bay." Derrick Harriott counted him among the Jamaican singers who took up the American soul style in the mid-1960s.

In the 1970s he formed the show band Conscious Minds with Ken Boothe and B.B. Seaton, and then played live with Tommy McCook's re-formed Skatalites. On melodica he was one of the players who followed Augustus Pablo's "Far East" sound: "Merry Up," his duet with Glen Brown, was Brown's first big local hit, and he recorded melodica sides for Derrick Harriott and an instrumental dub album for Harry Johnson. Harry Mudie recorded him too, and his "Pretty Black Girl" for Mudie was his biggest reggae hit of the 1970s.

Disillusioned by unpaid royalties, he moved to London in 1976 and ran a clothing stall in Ridley Road Market in Dalston. He departed in Hackney in 2023.

Last updated October 15, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. "UK-Based Multi-Genre Jamaican Musician Has Died," Jamaica Gleaner, December 20, 2023, https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20231220/uk-based-multi-genre-jamaican-musician-has-died.
  2. "UK-Based Multi-Genre Jamaican Musician Has Died."
  3. Katz names the Leaders in his obituary of Roy Shirley and credits Adams with "introducing the singer Joe White to Reid's stable." David Katz, "Roy Shirley," Guardian, August 28, 2008, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/aug/28/worldmusic; David Katz, "Glen Adams Obituary," Guardian, January 6, 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jan/06/glen-adams-obituary.
  4. Sonia Pottinger's account in Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 81. The Gleaner dates the record to 1966. "UK-Based Multi-Genre Jamaican Musician Has Died." Katz says it was "an instant hit" that "remained in the Jamaican charts for several months." David Katz, "Sonia Pottinger Obituary," Guardian, November 18, 2010, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/nov/18/sonia-pottinger-obituary.
  5. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 57, 58, which gives the label as WIRL.
  6. Harriott's account in Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 161.
  7. "UK-Based Multi-Genre Jamaican Musician Has Died."
  8. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 114, 119, 235; "UK-Based Multi-Genre Jamaican Musician Has Died."
  9. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 112; "UK-Based Multi-Genre Jamaican Musician Has Died."
  10. "UK-Based Multi-Genre Jamaican Musician Has Died."

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