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 →

Lindon Pottinger

Producer. Ska

Active
1961-1960s
Also known as
Lindon O. Pottinger, Lyndon Pottinger, Linden Pottinger

Lindon O. Pottinger was a producer of the ska years whose home studio is described in several accounts as the first in Jamaica owned by a black Jamaican, and the first husband of the producer Sonia Pottinger.

An accountant, he and Sonia ran small businesses in Kingston before he began producing records in 1961 on his Gaydisc, Golden Arrow and SEP labels, the last of them her initials; the records were sold through the couple's Tip Top shop on Orange Street, and a singer of the day remembered Lindon as owning Tip Top Records "along with his wife." His recordings included the Maytals, Derrick Harriott, Lord Tanamo and the teenage Millie Small, and in 1962 he paired Roy Panton with Yvonne Harrison as Roy and Yvonne.

In the Rough Guide's account his big vocal star was Winston Samuels, "a fine singer who has been unjustly overlooked," and he had a huge hit with Jimmy James, later a soul man in Britain; on the instrumental side "King Size" and "Faberge" on Gaydisc "did the business for him." The trumpeter Baba Brooks recorded "Cork Foot," an update of the mento "Cork Foot Simpson," for him with Drumbago on drums, and the guitarist Jah Jerry and the singer Clancy Eccles were among those who worked for him. Chris Blackwell licensed his productions to Island in Britain. The marriage later ended; from 1966 Sonia ran labels of her own.

Last updated October 21, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. See the Sonia Pottinger entry and its sources.
  2. "Bovine Ska and Rocksteady 8/27/14: Spotlight on the SEP Label," Lily and Generoso 4ever! (blog), September 1, 2014, https://lilyandgeneroso4ever.com/2014/09/01/bovine-ska-and-rocksteady-82714-spotlight-on-the-sep-label/. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 66, 80.
  3. See the Sonia Pottinger entry. "Spotlight on the SEP Label," which names Roy and Millie, Lord Tanamo and Winston Samuels among SEP's artists. On Roy and Yvonne, see their entries.
  4. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 46.
  5. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 33, 42, 100.
  6. Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 130.
  7. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 80, which calls Sonia "formerly married to producer Lindon O. Pottinger" and dates her own releases from 1966.

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