Wayne Jarrett
Artist. Reggae, roots
- Active
- 1970s-present
- Sunrise
- 1956, Kingston, Jamaica
Wayne Jarrett is a roots singer with a high, clear tenor, best known for "Youthman" on one of Glen Brown's most enduring rhythms and for the sides he made in New York for Lloyd "Bullwackie" Barnes.
Born in Kingston, he moved with his parents to Hartford, Connecticut, in 1973, and went down to New York to record. In Jamaica he was one of the roots singers Glen Brown turned to in the mid-to-late 1970s, with Sylford Walker; the rhythm the Rough Guide knows best as Jarrett's "Youthman" (or Glenroy Richards's "Wicked Can't Run Away") was Brown's most enduring. For Bunny Lee he cut "Satta Dread," whose version turns up on a Lee dub compilation the Rough Guide singles out.
Barnes, who by the end of the 1970s was producing on his own in the Bronx, recorded him among New York's Jamaican singers, and the 1982 Wackies sides, issued with their dubs as Showcase, Vol. 1, have often been reissued as Bubble Up. He also recorded for Junjo Lawes, his album Chip In came out on Greensleeves in 1982, and his voice is on Scientist's Scientist Wins the World Cup.
Last updated October 21, 2026
Connections
- Bunny "Striker" Lee (producer)
- Henry "Junjo" Lawes (producer)
- Glen Brown (producer)
- Scientist (engineer)
- Lloyd "Bullwackie" Barnes (producer)
- Sylford Walker (labelmate)
Notes
- Steve Leggett, artist biography, Shazam, accessed October 21, 2026, https://www.shazam.com/artist/-/5322798, which calls him "criminally unsung." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 181.
- "Wayne Jarrett," Wikipedia, accessed October 21, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Jarrett, which says he still lives in Hartford.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 180-81, 228.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 425. "Wayne Jarrett." Leggett, artist biography.
- Leggett, artist biography. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 243.
