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 →

Lloyd Charmers

Producer. Ska, rocksteady, reggae

Active
1962-2012
Sunrise
c. 1938, Trench Town, Kingston, Jamaica
Sunset
December 27, 2012, Hackney, London, England
Also recorded as
Lloydie & the Lowbites
Also known as
Lloyd Tyrell, Lloyd Terell, Lloydie and the Lowbites

Lloyd Charmers was a singer, keyboard player and producer whose career ran from the ska duo that gave him his name, through the rocksteady Uniques, to the soulful productions of the early 1970s that took Ken Boothe to the top of the British chart.

Born Lloyd Tyrell in Trench Town, he was one half of the Charmers, with Roy Willis, and he sang in the Flames, Alton Ellis's harmony group; he is the deep voice beside Ellis on "Cry Tough." In 1967 he joined Slim Smith and Jimmy Riley in the reformed Uniques, whose harmonies carried the sides they made for Bunny Lee and Winston Lowe, among them "Watch This Sound," "Gypsy Woman" and "My Conversation." He was also a session organist: Lynford Anderson remembered him adding the organ that finally made the "Pop a Top" rhythm work, and his rude reggae of the skinhead years came out under the name Lloydie and the Lowbites.

In the early 1970s he launched his Splash label, and his productions also appeared on Soul Beat and Wild Flower. The Rough Guide credits him with sophisticated arrangements drawn from Philadelphia soul and with a gift for bringing out the best in the people he worked with: the guitarist Mikey Chung and his Now Generation band, Ken Boothe, B.B. Seaton of the Gaylads and the bassist Lloyd Parks, with Willie Lindo on guitar for some sessions. He made Rastafari-themed records too, "Rasta Never Fails" with Boothe and "Africa Is Paradise" with Seaton, and produced Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus's Dadawah: Peace and Love (1975).

His greatest success came with Boothe: the album Black, Gold & Green, a large seller in Britain, and the cover of Bread's "Everything I Own," which reached number one there in 1974; he also produced hits for Delroy Wilson between 1973 and 1976. The collapse of Trojan, his British licensee, cut short what might have followed. He later settled in London, where he departed in December 2012, at seventy-four, after falling ill at the wheel of his car.

Last updated October 21, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Howard Campbell, "Lloyd Charmers Dead at 74," Jamaica Observer, December 28, 2012, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2012/12/28/lloyd-charmers-dead-at-74/, which says he "established himself as a singer, musician and producer" from the early 1960s.
  2. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 22, 62. Campbell gives his real name as "Lloyd Terell" and mentions the Flames. Campbell, "Lloyd Charmers Dead at 74."
  3. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 76-77.
  4. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 91, quoting Anderson. Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 243.
  5. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 114-16.
  6. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 132, 173.
  7. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 115. Campbell, "Lloyd Charmers Dead at 74," on the British number one.
  8. Campbell, "Lloyd Charmers Dead at 74," which says he "died in London, England Thursday from a heart attack," that is, on Thursday, December 27, 2012; he was pronounced dead at Homerton Hospital, Hackney.

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