World of Jamaican Music

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An illustrated map of the creators of Jamaican music and how they are connected.

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Linval Thompson

Artist. Reggae, dub

Active
1974-present
Sunrise
October 12, 1954, Kingston, Jamaica

Linval Thompson (born Leval Alphonso Thompson) is a Jamaican singer, producer and engineer who moved from roots vocals in the mid-1970s into a production career that carried through the early dancehall era.

He was raised in Kingston but spent time with his mother in Queens, and his first record, "No Other Woman," was self-released and cut in Brooklyn when he was about twenty. Back in Jamaica he recorded for Phil Pratt, returned to New York to study engineering, and on coming back cut "Kung Fu Man" for Lee Perry at the Black Ark. Johnny Clarke, then making hits for Bunny Lee, brought him to King Tubby's, where he sang for Lee; those sessions became Don't Cut Off Your Dreadlocks, issued in Britain on Third World and in the United States as Cool Down. Bunny Lee produced, King Tubby mixed, and Lee's studio crew played. The title track answered the treatment Rastafarians met on account of their hair.

I Love Marijuana (1978), which Thompson produced himself with his assistant Henry "Junjo" Lawes, was cut at Channel One with Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace on drums and Aston "Family Man" Barrett on bass, and issued with a dub counterpart, Negrea Love Dub. Its success brought other singers to him. He chose them, he said, by reading the audience: "I have to see the vibes and listen to the sound." He built the production business on a barter arrangement: he would sing for a producer in exchange for a cut of the riddim, then voice it himself or hand it to someone else. He ran two labels, Thompson Sound and Strong Like Sampson, keeping the heaviest riddims for the latter, with overseas releases through Greensleeves and Trojan.

Around the turn of the 1980s he worked at Channel One with the Roots Radics and sent the tapes to Scientist to mix; the resulting dub albums, including both volumes of Dub Landing, are among the best known of that period, and he cut his own dub sets as well, among them Negrea Dub, Green Bay Dub and Outlaw Dub. He produced the Wailing Souls, Barrington Levy, Eek-A-Mouse, Johnny Osbourne, Cornell Campbell, Dennis Brown, the Viceroys, Trinity, Ranking Dread, U Brown, Big Joe and Mystic Eyes, and Freddie McGregor's Big Ship in 1982. Lawes left to set up Volcano. Steve Barrow and Mick Hucknall's Blood and Fire label collected the Bunny Lee-era vocal and dub discomixes as Ride On Dreadlocks 1975-77, and Thompson has continued to record and to reissue his catalog through Thompson Sound.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. The Rough Guide calls him "a veteran from the Bunny Lee camp of the mid-1970s" who "arguably proved a more interesting producer than singer." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 286. Wikipedia, citing Claude Mills in the Sunday Gleaner (1998), gives his birth name and date. "Linval Thompson," Wikipedia, accessed October 2, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linval_Thompson.
  2. Wikipedia. "Linval Thompson."
  3. Wikipedia. "Linval Thompson." Katz names "Linval Thompson's 'Kung Fu Man'" among the records on which Perry used the flying cymbal. David Katz, "The (Not So Clear-Cut) History of the Flying Cymbal," Red Bull Music Academy Daily, July 31, 2013, https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2013/07/flying-cymbal-feature.
  4. The Rough Guide calls him "Producer Bunny Lee's most prolific artist (after Johnny Clarke) during the mid-1970s," Clarke's friend, whose "first big hits" for Lee were "Cool Down Your Temper" and "Ride On." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 153, 156. Bradley lists him among the Bunny Lee singers who rode the "flying cymbal" sound. Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 351. Wikipedia dates the album to 1976. "Linval Thompson."
  5. The Trojan LP credits Thompson as producer and arranger, records it at Channel One with mixing at King Tubby's, and names Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace and Sly Dunbar on drums and Aston "Family Man" Barrett and Robbie Shakespeare on bass. "Linval Thompson, I Love Marijuana," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/12651144. The Jamaican single on Thompson Sound credits Henry "Junjo" Lawes and Thompson as producers. "Linval Thompson, I Love Mariguana / Jamaica Collie," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/6531409. The Rough Guide says "the first time Lawes's name appeared on a record was as co-producer with Linval." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 266, 286.
  6. Rafael Konert and Angus Taylor, "Interview: Linval Thompson Still Moving Strong," Reggaeville, September 30, 2019, https://www.reggaeville.com/artist-details/linval-thompson/news/view/interview-linval-thompson-still-moving-strong/.
  7. The Rough Guide covers the Thompson Sound label and the Greensleeves issues of his productions. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 286-88. Wikipedia names the Strong Like Sampson and Thompson Koos labels and Trojan. "Linval Thompson."
  8. Discogs credits Thompson as producer of Dub Landing (1981), mixed by Scientist, and of Dub Landing Vol. 2 (1982), mixed by Scientist and Prince Jammy at King Tubby's. "Scientist, Dub Landing," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/645306; "Scientist and Prince Jammy, Dub Landing Vol. 2," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/598707. The Rough Guide notes Scientist mixing for Thompson and describes him as one of Junjo Lawes's "strongest rivals in the early 1980s" with Roots Radics rhythms. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 240, 244.
  9. The Rough Guide names the Wailing Souls, Freddie McGregor, the Viceroys, the Meditations, Eek-A-Mouse, and Johnny Osbourne among his artists, and praises Big Ship. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 184, 286-88. Discogs dates Big Ship to 1982 on Thompson Sound. "Freddie McGregor, Big Ship," Discogs, accessed October 2, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/1719858. Wikipedia adds Dennis Brown, Cornell Campbell, Barrington Levy, Trinity, and Ranking Dread. "Linval Thompson." Katz says Thompson "had them back the Viceroys and Freddy McGregor," meaning the Roots Radics, and names him first among the producers for whom the Radics provided "countless hits" between 1979 and 1985. David Katz, "RIP Style Scott, Roots Radics Drummer," Red Bull Music Academy Daily, October 14, 2014, https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2014/10/style-scott-rip; David Katz, "Style Scott Obituary," Guardian, October 30, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/30/style-scott.
  10. Wikipedia dates the Blood and Fire collection to 2000. "Linval Thompson." The Rough Guide notes his "well-received reissue programme" at the close of the twentieth century. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 286.

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