Glen Adams

Glen Adams
Glen Adams performing with The Slackers in 2002
Background information
Born	(1945-11-27)27 November 1945
Origin	Jones Town, Kingston, Jamaica
Died	17 December 2010(2010-12-17) (aged 65)
Genres	Ska, Rocksteady, Reggae
Occupation(s)	Record producer, instrumentalist
Instruments	Keyboard
Years active	1960s–2010
Associated acts	Ken & Glen, The Upsetters, The Hippy Boys, The Pioneers

Glen Adams (27 November 1945 – 17 December 2010) was a Jamaican musician, composer, arranger, engineer, producer, based since the mid-1970s in Brooklyn, New York City.

Adams' mother was from Kingston and his father from St. Vincent; the two met while working in Curaçao. Adams' first break in the music business came as a teenager, when he appeared as a singer in a vocal group on Radio Jamaica's Opportunity Knocks show hosted by Vere Johns. Later performing on the same show as a solo singer which led to appearances on cabaret shows and performances in Kingston and St. Andrews at weekends. Adams' older sister Yvonne was also a popular singer and he was spotted by Clement "Coxsone" Dodd while rehearsing a song that she had written called "Wonder Thirst". Coxsone took him into the Federal Recording Studio to record the track in 1960. Although not officially released as a single at the time, the song became a popular dub plate on sound systems, and the title of the song became his nickname.

Adams formed a duo, Ken and Glen, with Ken Boothe and they came second place in the 1966 Festival Song Competition with "I Remember". The duo also backed Stranger Cole on his number one single "Uno Dos Tres". He co-founded The Heptones before moving on to The Pioneers, appearing on the latter's "Shake It Up" and "Good Nanny". While continuing to earn a living as a tailor, he moved on to work with Duke Reid's Treasure Isle set-up as an informal musical director, introducing singers such as Joe White to Reid.

Adams also worked with Bunny Lee from around 1967 as a solo singer, backing singer and A&R man, in exchange for studio time. At a recording session in October 1968, when several musicians failed to turn up due to a dispute about payment for a previous session, Adams was asked to play piano, despite not being proficient on the instrument. Unhappy with the results, he switched instruments with organist Lloyd Charmers (although he had never played the organ before). He played organ on eight tracks in that session, which included Lester Sterling's "Bangarang" and Slim Smith's "Everybody Needs Love" and he has stuck with the instrument ever since, becoming a regular session player. Along with other musicians such as the Barrett brothers (Aston and Carlton), he performed in sessions for a range of producers under a variety of group names notably The Hippy Boys for Bunny Lee, where Adams did some of his most memorable work accompanying Slim Smith, The Reggae Boys and The Upsetters for Lee "Scratch" Perry. Adams also worked for Herman Chin Loy, where he was one of a number of keyboard players to record under the name Augustus Pablo, before Horace Swaby adopted that identity.