Lynford Anderson
Engineer. Rocksteady, reggae
- Active
- 1959-1977
- Sunrise
- 1941, Clarendon, Jamaica
- Sunset
- March 16, 2020
- Also recorded as
- Andy Capp
- Also known as
- Linford Anderson
Lynford Anderson was one of the most gifted recording engineers ever to work in Jamaica, in the Rough Guide's judgment, and an undervalued pioneer of the remix.
He joined the radio station RJR in 1959, where he recorded Prince Buster's "Thirty Pieces of Silver." In the mid-1960s he moved to the WIRL studio and learned the two-track Ampex board under Graeme Goodall. He engineered most of Leslie Kong's hits; "I cut everything for Kong," he told David Katz, and he recalled recording or mastering almost a hundred songs a day.
As Andy Capp he produced and engineered "Pop a Top" for his own Upset label at the start of 1968. Its rhythm, noticeably faster than rocksteady, was one of the first signs of reggae; its catchphrase came from a Canada Dry advertisement, and Anderson called it the first "talking" record in Jamaica. By his account the rhythm adapted Dave Bartholomew's "South Parkway Mambo" and took its bubbling organ from Lloyd Charmers, and it eventually ran to about thirteen versions. His further versions of the riddim, which also carried Derrick Morgan's second cut of "Fat Man," were groundbreaking experiments in remixing, and Bradley pairs him with Joe Gibbs as the first to use the mixing desk as an instrument. In mid-1968 he worked with Lee Perry on the still faster "People Funny Boy," and his voice can be heard urging King Stitt on in "Herbman Shuffle." "Pop a Top" and "The Law" became skinhead favorites in Britain.
At Byron Lee's Dynamic Sounds he said he cut the bass and drum track used on Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly with His Song." He later moved to the United States and departed in 2020.
Last updated October 15, 2026
Connections
- Leslie Kong (employer)
- Byron Lee (employer)
- Graeme Goodall (mentor)
- Lee "Scratch" Perry (collaborator)
- Prince Buster (collaborator)
- Gladstone Anderson (session work)
- Lloyd Charmers (session work)
- Derrick Morgan (collaborator)
- King Stitt (collaborator)
- Dynamic Sounds (workplace)
Notes
- Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 91, 217.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 82, 91.
- Lynford Anderson, interview by David Katz, in Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 91.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 87; Lynford Anderson, interview by David Katz, in Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 91.
- Anderson to Katz, in Solid Foundation, as quoted by Augustyn: "Lloyd Charmers stated [sic] playing 'pup pup pup pup pup pup' [on the organ], so I said: 'Oh, Pop A Top!'" and "eventually we had about 13 different versions of it." Derrick Morgan told Augustyn that Anderson "got Ansel Collins doing the organ shuffle style." Heather Augustyn, "Pop-a-Top Part Deux," SkaBook (blog), March 18, 2017, https://skabook.com/2017/03/18/pop-top-part-deux/.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 91, 217; Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 314.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 87, 91, 122. King Stitt recalled Anderson shouting "Drag it! Crab it!" during the session.
- Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 242.
- Lynford Anderson, interview by David Katz, in Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 91.
- "Linford Anderson," obituary, West Cobb Funeral Home, accessed October 6, 2026, https://www.westcobbfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Linford-Anderson, which gives July 8, 1941, to March 16, 2020. Wikipedia says he emigrated to New York in 1977 and worked as an audio engineer at the United Nations. "Lynford Anderson," Wikipedia, accessed October 6, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynford_Anderson (thinly sourced).
