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 →

Johnny Osbourne

Artist. Reggae, dancehall

Active
1967-present
Sunrise
1948, Kingston, Jamaica

Johnny Osbourne (born Errol Osbourne) is a singer whose recording career runs from rocksteady through roots reggae to digital dancehall, with a decade in Canada in the middle of it.

He attended Alpha Boys School. In 1967 he became lead singer of the Wildcats and recorded for Winston Riley, though nothing was issued; the group's manager then paid for a session at Studio One, which produced his debut single, "All I Have Is Love." He cut the album Come Back Darling for Riley in 1969, fronting the Sensations, and emigrated to Toronto the day he finished it. He spent about ten years in Canada, latterly as lead singer of Ishan People, with whom he made two albums. The group broke up in 1979 and he went home.

Coxsone Dodd recorded him heavily through late 1979 and early 1980, voicing him over Studio One riddims held in stock, and those sessions produced Truths and Rights (1979), a roots album made at the point when roots was ending. In 1979 he also cut "Folly Ranking" for Prince Jammy, and its lovers answer "Fally Lover" for Henry "Junjo" Lawes, with the Roots Radics behind him. "Ice Cream Love," from the same Lawes sessions, is built on Burning Spear's Studio One riddim "He Prayed." "Warrior," "Innah Disco Style," and "Never Stop Fighting" all appeared between 1980 and 1982. In 1981 his "13 Dead (Nothing Said)," about the official response to the New Cross fire in south-east London, in which thirteen young black people died, was the first release on Aswad's Simba label.

"Water Pumping" (1983), an adaptation of Hopeton Lewis's "Take It Easy," gave Jammy his first number one, and "Yo Yo" and "Lend Me a Chopper" came the same year. "Buddy Bye" (1985) was voiced on Jammy's Sleng Teng riddim, which put Osbourne on the record that carried digital production into general use. He recorded covers of American soul throughout, including "Ready or Not" and Earth, Wind and Fire's "Reasons," and enough songs with "rub a dub" in the title to be called the Dancehall Godfather. Asked about the title he allowed only "one of the originals of the dancehall artists." He worked from the riddim ("The riddim have a mood. So the mood of the riddim give me that mi work with") and tested songs on dubplate at dances: "the crowd react to it, we come back to the drawing board." The Rough Guide says he "could fill out what were often fairly thin lyrical ideas with more than enough style."

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Wikipedia. "Johnny Osbourne," Wikipedia, accessed October 2, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Osbourne. Augustyn and Adam Reeves include him among the alumni profiled in their history of the school. Heather Augustyn, "Alpha Boys' School: Cradle of Jamaican Music by Heather Augustyn and Adam Reeves Is Now Available!," SkaBook (blog), November 18, 2017, https://skabook.com/2017/11/18/alpha-boys-school-cradle-of-jamaican-music-by-heather-augustyn-and-adam-reeves-is-now-available/.
  2. Wikipedia, citing Colin Larkin's Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music. "Johnny Osbourne." The Rough Guide dates "All I Have Is Love" to 1969. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 263.
  3. The Rough Guide dates Come Back Darling and Riley's "Warrior" and "See & Blind" 45s to 1969, and notes that the Sensations "featured Johnny Osbourne" in Riley's early years as a producer. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 263, 116. The Toronto move is from Wikipedia. "Johnny Osbourne."
  4. Wikipedia. "Johnny Osbourne." The Rough Guide says his career "had lost its impetus during an extended stay in Canada." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 263.
  5. The Rough Guide says that on his return in 1979 he went back to Studio One for "Forgive Them," "Love Is Here To Stay," and "Jealousy, Heartache & Pain," and places Truths and Rights in the year after Sugar Minott's 1978 Live Loving. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 263. Discogs dates the Studio One LP to 1979. "Johnny Osbourne: Truths and Rights," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/166260. Wikipedia says the sessions ran through late 1979 and early 1980. "Johnny Osbourne." Bradley names Osbourne in Studio One's "last, early-1980s hurrah." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 224. Katz names Osbourne among the "proto-dance hall singers" of Dodd's "Studio One renaissance in 1979." David Katz, "Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd," Guardian, May 6, 2004, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/may/06/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries.
  6. The Rough Guide calls "Folly Ranking" the track that signaled his turn to the dancehall, and says his Lawes sides "Fally Lover," "Too Sexy," and "Ice Cream Love" were cut over "Roots Radics workouts of the same high order." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 272, 268.
  7. The Rough Guide notes that "Too Bad Daughter," from the same Lawes albums, uses the rhythm of the Wailing Souls' "Kingdom Rise Kingdom Fall." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 268.
  8. Wikipedia. "Johnny Osbourne."
  9. Katz calls it "hard-hitting." David Katz, "Angus 'Drummie Zeb' Gaye Obituary," Guardian, September 8, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/sep/08/drummie-zeb-angus-gaye-obituary.
  10. The Rough Guide calls "Water Pumping" "the biggest reggae hit of 1983" and Osbourne "the most consistent hitmaker among all of Jammy's vocalists." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 272. It notes that Hopeton Lewis's "Take It Easy" was the template. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 64.
  11. Wikipedia. "Johnny Osbourne." The Rough Guide credits "Lend Me Your Chopper" to Channel One's Hitbound label, on the "Real Rock" rhythm. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 262.
  12. The Rough Guide says the Sleng Teng one-rhythm album "sold hugely" and singles out "Johnny Osbourne's superb 'Buddy Bye'"; it lists "Buddy Bye" among his sound-system burial tunes for Jammy. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 298, 299.
  13. Wikipedia. "Johnny Osbourne." Augustyn reports that in a Daily Gleaner article of December 21, 1982, he named Curtis Mayfield as an influence from his youth in the "government yard." Heather Augustyn, "People Get Ready: Curtis Mayfield and Jamaica," SkaBook (blog), April 10, 2015, https://skabook.com/2015/04/10/people-get-ready-curtis-mayfield-and-jamaica/.
  14. Jesse Serwer, "LargeUp Interview: Talking Dubplates + Dancehall with Johnny Osbourne," LargeUp, March 20, 2013, https://www.largeup.com/2013/03/20/largeup-interview-dancehall-godfather-johnny-osbourne/2. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 267.

World of Jamaican Music: the whole map