Totlyn Jackson
Artist. Ska
- Active
- 1950-2016
- Sunrise
- c. 1931, Port Maria, St. Mary, Jamaica
- Sunset
- June 15, 2016, London, England
Totlyn Jackson was a jazz and cabaret singer of the 1950s, sometimes called the first lady of Jamaican jazz, who sang with the big bands of the years just before ska and later made a long career on the stage in London.
Born in a village near Port Maria, St. Mary, she sang in her church choir and taught herself organ and piano, and at nineteen moved to Kingston on a scholarship to Lincoln College. She won Vere Johns's Opportunity Hour with "With a Song in My Heart" and then a contest at the Colony Club, where Eric Deans led the orchestra. She sang with Deans's band, including its Friday residency at the Bournemouth Club, with Lester Hall's orchestra, whose players included Don Drummond, and with Baba Motta, the Zodiacs, Sonny Bradshaw's orchestra and Herman Lewis's Glass Bucket band; in 1956 she sang for Norman Manley's birthday. She was also a cabaret singer in the north-coast hotels of the tourist boom, and later at the Jamaica Hilton, Round Hill and the Kingston Sheraton; Myrna Hague-Bradshaw remembered her as "classically trained," a singer who could sing straight from the sheet music put in front of her. Her only Jamaican record was "Island in the Sun," with "Yellow Bird" on the B-side, made in 1963 with the Audley Williams Combo for WIRL.
She moved to London in 1960, and after Independence turned to musicals, touring the United States, Britain, Europe and the Soviet Union; in London she sang at the Royal Albert Hall, Quaglino's Allegro and the Playboy Club, and appeared in Catch My Soul. In 2002 she produced Boonoonoonus at the Battersea Arts Centre for the fortieth anniversary of Independence, and she sang on Basement Jaxx's Kish Kash (2003). She came home to sing at the Ocho Rios Jazz Festival as late as the early 2000s, and departed in London after a short illness.
Last updated October 21, 2026
Connections
- Don Drummond (bandmate)
- Sonny Bradshaw (bandleader)
- Eric Deans (bandleader)
- Vere Johns (discovered by)
Notes
- Heather Augustyn, "Totlyn Jackson: First Lady of Jamaican Jazz," SkaBook (blog), November 20, 2015, https://skabook.com/2015/11/20/totlyn-jackson-first-lady-of-jamaican-jazz/. Heather Augustyn, "Tribute to Totlyn Jackson," SkaBook (blog), June 23, 2016, https://skabook.com/2016/06/23/tribute-totlyn-jackson/, quoting the Voice: "Once described as Jamaica's first lady of song."
- Augustyn, "Totlyn Jackson," which gives her birth in 1930; the Voice, quoted in the 2016 tribute, says she died "one month short of her 85th birthday," which implies 1931. Augustyn, "Tribute to Totlyn Jackson."
- Augustyn, "Totlyn Jackson."
- Augustyn, "Tribute to Totlyn Jackson." "Jamaica's 'First Lady of Song' Totlyn Jackson Dies at 84," Jamaica Gleaner, June 22, 2016, http://past.jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20160622/jamaicas-first-lady-song-totlyn-jackson-dies-84, from the Voice. Simone Morgan-Lindo, "Remembering Totlyn Jackson," Jamaica Observer, June 25, 2016, https://jamaicaobserver.com/entertainment/remembering-totlyn-jackson, quoting Hague-Bradshaw.
- Augustyn, "Totlyn Jackson," which calls it her only Jamaican record. Wikipedia lists her singing "Old Devil Moon" on Lance Hayward at the Half Moon Hotel, Volume 2, a 1960 Island album by the Bermudian pianist. "Lance Hayward at the Half Moon Hotel, Volume 2," Wikipedia, accessed October 21, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Hayward_at_the_Half_Moon_Hotel,_Volume_2.
- Augustyn, "Tribute to Totlyn Jackson." "Jamaica's 'First Lady of Song,'" on the London venues. Morgan-Lindo, "Remembering Totlyn Jackson," on the festival. On the move to London and Kish Kash: Augustyn, "Totlyn Jackson."
