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 →

Junior Murvin

Artist. Reggae, dub

Active
1976-2013
Sunrise
1946, Port Antonio, Jamaica
Sunset
December 2, 2013, Port Antonio (diabetes complications)
Also recorded as
Junior Soul

Murvin Junior Smith, who recorded as Junior Murvin, sang in a high falsetto modeled on Curtis Mayfield and is known almost entirely for one record. He rejected the word: "I have a 'real-setto,' not false. Anything false can not come from your body."

He was raised by his great-grandmother, worked the pump for the organ at a Methodist church as a child, and studied car mechanics at Montego Bay Technical High School. He auditioned unsuccessfully for Beverley's and at Studio One, moved to Kingston during rocksteady, passed through the Hippy Boys, and recorded as Junior Soul for Derrick Harriott's Crystal label, where his Mayfield covers found an audience, and for Sonia Pottinger. His song "Solomon" was a sizeable hit for Harriott, who voiced it himself. After a long residency with the Falcons he returned to Port Antonio in 1975 fronting Young Experience, and when the band faltered he turned to writing songs.

He returned to Kingston in May 1976 with a notebook of songs and auditioned for Lee Perry at the Black Ark. Perry recorded "Police and Thieves" the same afternoon, adding lines of his own and taking a co-writing credit. The players were Sly Dunbar on drums, Boris Gardiner on bass, Ernest Ranglin on guitar, Keith Sterling on keyboards, and Joe Cooper, an old friend of Murvin's from Port Antonio, on organ, with Barry Llewellyn and Earl Morgan of the Heptones on harmony. It was the biggest-selling record in Jamaica that year, and Island's British release in July coincided with the disturbances at that year's Notting Hill Carnival, which is how it became a punk record; it reached the British chart in 1980. The Clash covered it on their first album in 1977.

The album Police and Thieves, backed by the Upsetters, followed on Island in April 1977 and includes "Roots Train" and "Tedious." Nothing afterward sold comparably. He made Apartheid with Prince Jammy in 1986, cut singles for King Tubby the following year, and released Signs and Wonders in 1988, then recorded mainly for sound systems and for his own small label in Port Antonio. He departed at the hospital in Port Antonio at sixty-seven.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Katz credits his "mastery of falsetto" and calls Mayfield "his most obvious influence." David Katz, "Junior Murvin Obituary," Guardian, December 3, 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/dec/03/junior-murvin. The Rough Guide: "The title track is so perfect that everything Junior Murvin later recorded remained in its shadow." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 177.
  2. Jah Rebel, "Junior Murvin: I Have a Real-Setto, Not a Falsetto," Reggae.be, December 7, 2013, https://www.reggae.be/nl/magazine/archive/2013-12-07-junior-murvin-i-have-a-real-setto-not-a-falsetto/.
  3. Katz, "Junior Murvin Obituary."
  4. Katz says he went to Kingston to audition for Beverley's but "was summoned back to Montego Bay before he could make a recording," and that an audition "with Lee 'Scratch' Perry at Studio One" was "similarly fruitless." He also details the Harriott and Pottinger singles. Katz, "Junior Murvin Obituary." The Rough Guide lists Murvin, "or Junior Soul as he was then known," among Harriott's singers. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 102. Katz adds that he "passed through the Hippy Boys" before approaching Harriott: Katz, "Junior Murvin Obituary."
  5. Katz says Harriott "gambled on Murvin's Solomon by voicing the record himself, yielding a sizeable hit." Katz, "Junior Murvin Obituary." Wikipedia, citing Colin Larkin's Guinness Who's Who of Reggae, instead credits Murvin with a minor hit with it in 1972. "Junior Murvin," Wikipedia, accessed October 2, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_Murvin.
  6. Katz describes a long residence with the Falcons and a return to Port Antonio in 1975 fronting Young Experience, led by Bobby Ellis, after which he concentrated on songwriting. Katz, "Junior Murvin Obituary."
  7. Katz says he "travelled to Perry's Black Ark studio in May 1976" and that Perry added "lyrics of his own." Katz, "Junior Murvin Obituary." The Island single credits "J. Murvin & L. Perry" as writers. "Junior Murvin, Police and Thieves," Island single (UK, WIP 6316), Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/334613. Max Romeo, quoted in the Rough Guide, recalled that Perry heard Murvin playing and said, "Here's the rhythm, let's do it"; the record "was out on the streets in just a couple of days." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 176.
  8. Katz names Dunbar, Gardiner, and Ranglin. Katz, "Junior Murvin Obituary."
  9. Bradley says that at the 1976 Notting Hill Carnival "it was possible [to] hear Junior Murvin's 'Police and Thieves' virtually non-stop." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 433. Katz: "In London it became a soundtrack to the violent disturbances of that year's Notting Hill Carnival." Katz, "Junior Murvin Obituary." Katz says the single reached number 23 in Britain in 1980, after the Clash's cover and its use in Rockers: Katz, "Junior Murvin Obituary."
  10. Bradley says the song made such an impression on punk that "the Clash released their own version of it." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 449. Wikipedia dates the Clash's album to April 1977. "Junior Murvin."
  11. The Rough Guide names "Tedious," "Roots Train," and "False Teaching" as tracks that "deserved a wider audience." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 177.
  12. Katz names Mikey Dread's Bad Man Posse (1982), Junjo Lawes's Muggers in the Street (1984), and King Jammy's Apartheid (1986), and dates Signs and Wonders to 1988. Katz, "Junior Murvin Obituary." Wikipedia gives 1989 and mentions singles on his own Murvin label in Port Antonio. "Junior Murvin."
  13. Katz gives his age as sixty-seven and says he had suffered from diabetes and hypertension; Wikipedia, citing the BBC, places his death in a Port Antonio hospital. Katz, "Junior Murvin Obituary."; "Junior Murvin."

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