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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Tyrone Downie

Artist. Reggae

Active
1974-2022
Sunrise
May 20, 1956, Kingston, Jamaica
Sunset
November 5, 2022, Kingston, Jamaica

Tyrone Ralph Downie, known as Organ D, was the keyboard player in Bob Marley and the Wailers from the mid-1970s until Marley's sunset, and the musician who gave that band much of its harmonic color.

He was a prodigy. He made his first session in 1971, while he was still at Kingston College, and he plays on Eric Donaldson's "Cherry Oh Baby." He passed through the Impact All-Stars at Randy's and Aston Barrett's Youth Professionals, which he joined while still at school.

He joined the Wailers before he was twenty and made his recording debut with the band on Rastaman Vibration (1976), having already played organ as a guest on Catch a Fire. He stayed through Exodus, Kaya, Survival, Uprising and the posthumous Confrontation, and was on stage for the touring years. He was in the rehearsal room at 56 Hope Road when gunmen attacked it on December 3, 1976, and sheltered in a bathroom with the Barretts and the horn players until they left. He sang backing, played percussion and, on Rastaman Vibration, bass.

After Marley's sunset he worked constantly and widely: with Peter Tosh, Burning Spear, Black Uhuru, Junior Reid, Steel Pulse, the Abyssinians, Beenie Man, Buju Banton, Sly and Robbie, Ian Dury and the Tom Tom Club, and on tour with Jimmy Cliff. Grace Jones wrote "My Jamaican Guy" (1982) about him. He settled in France in the 1990s, producing and working closely with Youssou N'Dour, and later returned to Kingston. His one solo album, Organ-D, appeared in 2001, and at the end of his life he was playing with the French band Jahzz.

He departed in Kingston, aged sixty-six, on the way to the University Hospital of the West Indies after falling ill at home.

Last updated October 21, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. The Observer says he played on six of Marley's Island albums. "Tyrone Downie: From North Street to beat street," Jamaica Observer, May 17, 2022, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2022/05/16/tyrone-downie-from-north-street-to-beat-street/.
  2. The Observer says he made "his recording debut as a 15-year-old on Cherry Oh Baby, the 1971 Festival Song Contest winner," while at Kingston College. "From North Street to beat street."
  3. Quattro says Augustus Pablo introduced him to Aston "Familyman" Barrett, who formed the Youth Professionals, playing "this sleazy little club called the Green Mist," when Downie was thirteen. M. Peggy Quattro, "Tyrone Downie: No Ordinary Wailer," Reggae Report, November 8, 2022, https://reggaereport.com/tyrone-downie-2022/. Wikipedia names the Impact All Stars. "Tyrone Downie," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrone_Downie. Katz says Barrett formed the Youth Professionals, "resident at a downtown striptease club," after the Upsetters' British tour of 1969, and that Downie "joined while still at school"; he counts Downie among the younger musicians Barrett mentored: David Katz, "Aston 'Family Man' Barrett Obituary," Guardian, February 4, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/feb/04/aston-family-man-barrett.
  4. Wikipedia says he made his recording debut with the band on Rastaman Vibration; the Observer says his six Island albums with Marley began "with Live! in 1975." "Tyrone Downie." "From North Street to beat street." Quattro dates his first live show as a Wailer to the 1975 Kingston concert with Marvin Gaye. Quattro, "No Ordinary Wailer." The 1973 Island pressing of Catch a Fire does not list him. "The Wailers - Catch A Fire," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/416733.
  5. Downie: "At the moment when the gunmen broke in, we were rehearsing 'I Shot the Sheriff.'" He recalls hiding in the bathtub, "like four or five of us," with Family Man, Carly, Glen DaCosta and Dave Madden, and then walking to Half Way Tree: Roger Steffens, "The Night Bob Marley Got Shot," Rolling Stone (Australia), July 10, 2017, https://au.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-night-bob-marley-got-shot-1877, an excerpt from Roger Steffens, So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley (New York: W. W. Norton, 2017).
  6. The 1976 album credits him on "Keyboards, Bass, Percussion, Backing Vocals." "Bob Marley & The Wailers - Rastaman Vibration," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/844464.
  7. Wikipedia lists the Abyssinians, Beenie Man, Black Uhuru, Buju Banton, Peter Tosh, Junior Reid, Tom Tom Club, Ian Dury, Burning Spear, Steel Pulse and Sly & Robbie. "Tyrone Downie." The Rough Guide notes him in the band on a 1984 album and on a Freddie McGregor set. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 211, 321.
  8. Wikipedia says the single was released in 1983 and that Downie was its subject. "Tyrone Downie."
  9. Quattro says he lived for nearly twenty years in the Hérault, around Montpellier, before returning to Jamaica. Quattro, "No Ordinary Wailer." Wikipedia says he produced Youssou N'Dour's Remember. "Tyrone Downie."
  10. "Tyrone Downie."
  11. The Observer says that "at the time of his death, he played with the France-based reggae band called 'Jahzz'." "Bob Marley and The Wailers pianist Tyrone Downie is dead," Jamaica Observer, November 6, 2022, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/latest-news/bob-marley-and-the-wailers-pianist-tyrone-downie-is-dead/.
  12. The Observer reported that he "died last night in Jamaica on the way to the University Hospital of the West Indies." "Bob Marley and The Wailers pianist Tyrone Downie is dead," Jamaica Observer, November 6, 2022, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/latest-news/bob-marley-and-the-wailers-pianist-tyrone-downie-is-dead/. Quattro gives November 5, 2022. Quattro, "No Ordinary Wailer."

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