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 →

Winston Wright

Artist. Rocksteady, reggae

Active
1960s-1993
Sunrise
1943 or 1944, May Pen, Clarendon, Jamaica
Sunset
1992 or 1993, Kingston, Jamaica

Winston "Brubeck" Wright was the Hammond organ player on a great many of the records that define rocksteady and early reggae, and is named on almost none of them.

He was born in May Pen and learned organ at Glenmuir High School on an old Clavonette. While still at school he joined the Mercury Band, which had a residency at the town's Capri Theatre, against his father's wishes. Tommy McCook saw him there and brought him to Kingston, where he played with McCook's Supersonics at Treasure Isle, his "lush, infectious tones" in Bradley's phrase a large part of Reid's success, beginning session work for Duke Reid in the rocksteady years and then for most of the island's producers.

He is the uncredited organist on the Harry J All Stars' "The Liquidator" (1969), which reached the British top ten and became a standard of the skinhead reggae era; the opening bars turn up at the start of the Staple Singers' "I'll Take You There" two years later. The riddim had first appeared as Tony Scott's "What Am I to Do."

Like Jackie Jackson, Hux Brown, Gladstone Anderson, Dougie Bryan, Winston Grennan and Paul Douglas, he worked in a pool of session players billed according to whoever was paying: the Dynamites for Clancy Eccles, the Crystalites for Derrick Harriott, the Beverley's All Stars for Leslie Kong. His work with Eccles's Dynamites in 1969 is among his best. Lloyd Bradley notes that Harry Johnson built a sound around Wright's keyboards for the run of instrumentals issued as the Harry J All Stars and the Jay Boys.

Under his own name he had several instrumental hits, among them "Top Secret," in 1970, and "Heads or Tails" for Green Door, a version of a Booker T. and the MGs track slowed into a reggae groove with the Hammond soaked in reverb. Through the 1970s he was part of the house group at Dynamic Sounds, and from 1975 he toured with Toots and the Maytals, taking sessions when he was home. He returned to Dynamic late in his life as an arranger and mixer, and departed in Kingston.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. The Rough Guide says his session work "graced hundreds of records for practically every important Jamaican producer of the late 1960s and the 1970s." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 455. It lists his death under 1992; the bio's March 18, 1993, follows Wikipedia, which cites Larkin and the Black Echoes memorial page. "Winston Wright," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Wright.
  2. Wikipedia gives May Pen, Glenmuir, the Clavonette, the Mercury Band at the Capri Theatre and "his father's ire." "Winston Wright."
  3. Bradley says Wright, "as one of Tommy McCook's Supersonics," was "a significant factor in Duke Reid's ruling of the rocksteady roost," before going freelance. Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 201. The Rough Guide names him among Reid's organists and as a Supersonics soloist. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 64-65. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 201.
  4. Bradley calls the record a "Winston Wright-organ workout" and says it reached the British Top 10 in November 1969. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 241. Wikipedia gives number nine and says the Staple Singers used its bass line and introduction for their 1972 hit "I'll Take You There." "Liquidator (Instrumental)," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Liquidator_(instrumental).
  5. Wikipedia, citing Carlton Barrett, adds that Alton Ellis heard his own "Girl I've Got a Date" in it. "Liquidator (Instrumental)."
  6. Wikipedia names the same players and bands. "Winston Wright." The Rough Guide places him with Derrick Harriott's Crystalites, and Bradley calls him the organist of "the Crystalites." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 102; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 225.
  7. The Rough Guide says that on the Clancy Eccles set Fire Corner, "Winston Wright, the man at the Hammond, particularly impresses." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 110.
  8. Bradley names "Winston Wright and Winston Blake (aka Blake Boy)." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 226.
  9. "Top Secret" appeared on Winston Riley's Techniques label in 1970, and "Heads or Tails," a Booker T. & the MGs composition produced by Lynford Anderson, on Green Door in 1971. "Winston Wright - Top Secret / Crazy Rhythm," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/13057684; "Winston Wright - Heads Or Tails," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/6695403. The Rough Guide says "several instrumentals gave him hits under his own name (or that of the studio band)." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 455.
  10. Wikipedia says he played for Toots and the Maytals "from 1968" with the Dynamites and toured with them through the 1970s and 1980s. "Winston Wright." The International Archives for the Jazz Organ lists him on Dynamic Sounds' Reggae Blast Off (1970). "Winston Wright," International Archives for the Jazz Organ, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.iajo.org/iajo04/jamaica/wright.htm.
  11. The Rough Guide says he "dies of natural causes." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 455. Wikipedia specifies a heart attack. "Winston Wright." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 455, lists his sunset under 1992; Wikipedia gives September 5, 1943 to March 18, 1993, and other biographies give 1944 for his birth.

World of Jamaican Music: the whole map