Mikey Dread
| Mikey Dread | |
|---|---|
Mikey Dread performing at the 2006 Winnipeg Ska and Reggae Festival.
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Michael George Campbell |
| Born |
4 June 1954 Port Antonio, Jamaica |
| Died | 15 March 2008 (aged 53) Stamford, Connecticut, United States |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, author, composer, record producer, and broadcaster |
| Years active | 1978–2008 |
| Associated acts | The Clash |
| Website | mikeydread |
Michael George Campbell (4 June 1954 – 15 March 2008), better known as Mikey Dread, was a Jamaican singer, producer, and broadcaster. He was one of the most influential performers and innovators in reggae music.
Born in Port Antonio, one of five children, from an early age, Campbell showed a natural aptitude for engineering and electronics. As a teenager he performed with the Safari and Sound of Music sound systems, and worked on his high school's radio station.
He studied electrical engineering at the College of Arts, Science and Technology, and in 1976, started out as an engineer with the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC). Campbell wasn't impressed that the JBC's playlists mainly consisted of bland, foreign pop music at a time when some of the most potent reggae was being recorded in Jamaica. He convinced his JBC bosses to give him his own radio program called Dread at the Controls, where he played almost exclusively reggae. Before long, Campbell (now using the DJ name Mikey Dread) had the most popular program on the JBC. Well known for its fun and adventurous sonic style, Dread at the Controls became a hit all over Jamaica. Examples of Mikey Dread's distinctive radio chatter can be heard on the US release of the RAS label LP African Anthem Dubwise.
He also began working as a recording artist, Lee "Scratch" Perry producing his signature tune "Dread at the Controls", also recording for Sonia Pottinger and Joe Gibbs, and performing with the Socialist Roots sound system. Inevitably, JBC's conservative management and Campbell clashed, and he quit in protest in 1978, becoming an engineer at the Treasure Isle studio, where he began an association with producer Carlton Patterson. They co-produced Dread's own work (e.g. "Barber Saloon") and that of others.
By the late 1970s he had started his own DATC label, working with artists such as Edi Fitzroy, Sugar Minott, and Earl Sixteen, as well as producing his own work. The label released Dread's albums Evolutionary Rockers (released in the UK as Dread at the Controls), and World War III.
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