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 →

The Morwells

Band. Reggae, dub

Active
1973-1980s
Also known as
Morwells, Morwell Unlimited, Morwells Esquire

The Morwells were a roots group from Trench Town who wrote, sang, played and produced their own records, and whose musicians went on to form the Roots Radics, the session band that defined early dancehall.

Maurice "Blacka" Wellington and Eric "Bingy Bunny" Lamont, childhood friends, formed the Morwells in 1973. Wellington had been performing since 1967 and producing since 1972; Lamont had cut instrumentals with the percussionist Bongo Herman. In 1974 Louis Davis, formerly of the Versatiles, joined and turned the production duo into a vocal trio. They released their records mainly on their own Morwells Esquire label, from 1974, with minor classics such as the instrumental "Mafia Boss," "Got to Be Holy" and, in 1979, "Kingston 12 Tuffy." "Bit by Bit" (1975) was their first success abroad, and the albums Presenting the Morwells and Crab Race followed, along with Dub Me, a King Tubby mix of their debut album. They also recorded for Niney and at Joe Gibbs's studio, and backed Niney on his "Mutiny."

Wellington was also a producer at Joe Gibbs's studio, where he helped run sessions; he found Joseph Hill's group Culture and oversaw their first albums, Two Sevens Clash and Baldhead Bridge. The bassist Errol "Flabba" Holt joined in the late 1970s, and after a couple of years he and Bingy Bunny left to found the Roots Radics, drawing on players from the Morwells and the Revolutionaries. The group broke up in the early 1980s. Bingy Bunny departed in 1993 (the cause was prostate cancer), and Wellington, who had moved to New York and returned to Kingston in 1998, departed in 2000, aged fifty; the cause was cancer.

Last updated October 6, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 204-5, 247.
  2. David Katz, "Maurice Wellington," obituary, The Guardian, November 24, 2000, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/nov/24/guardianobituaries1. The Rough Guide lists the trio as "Eric 'Bingy Bunny' Lamont, Morris 'Blacka' Wellington, Louis Davis." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 204. On Bongo Herman and Bingy Bunny: Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 103, 132.
  3. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 204-5.
  4. Katz, "Maurice Wellington." Bradley calls Presenting the Morwells and Crab Race "two excellent albums" they produced themselves. Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 366. On Dub Me: Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 232.
  5. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 352, 366; Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 180.
  6. Katz, "Maurice Wellington." The Rough Guide notes "Blacka Morwell" among those who "assisted in running and arranging sessions" for Errol Thompson. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 160.
  7. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 205; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 480.
  8. Katz, "Maurice Wellington."

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