About Herman Chin Loy
Born
July 11, 1948
Genre
Reggae
Of Chinese-Jamaican extraction, Herman Chin-Loy’s earliest involvement in the music business came when he worked for his famous record-producing cousin, Leslie Kong, in his Beverley’s record shop in the 60s. In 1969 he opened up his own Aquarius Record Store in Half Way Tree and moved into record production via instrumentals such as ‘African Zulu’ and ‘Shang I’. To this end he utilized the talents of Lloyd Charmers and the Hippy Boys, rhythm section Carlton Barrett and his brother Aston ‘Familyman’ Barrett. On his later productions he is credited with being the first to use the highly influential Now Generation. He was also responsible for the debut recordings of Augustus Pablo: it was Chin-Loy, in fact, who gave Pablo his name. Chin-Loy had been releasing instrumentals, mainly organ-led affairs by Upsetter acolyte Glen Adams, and crediting them to an invented name, Augustus Pablo. When the young Horace Swaby (Pablo’s real name) arrived on the scene, Chin-Loy saw no reason to change the credit, and so Horace Swaby became Augustus Pablo. In return, Pablo made a number of records for the producer between 1971 and 1973, including ‘Higgi Higgi’, ‘East Of The River Nile’, ‘Song Of The East’ and ‘The Red Sea’. Chin-Loy worked with a number of other artists in the early 70s, including Dennis Brown (‘Song My Mother Used To Sing’, ‘It’s Too Late’) and Alton Ellis (‘Alton’s Official Daughter’). In May 1971 his production of Bruce Ruffin’s ‘Rain’ became a crossover hit and secured the number 19 position in the UK pop charts. According to his own testimony, Aquarius Dub, one of the first ever dub albums, emerged from a half-hour mix-and-go session at Dynamics studio with Chin-Loy himself at the controls. He built his own 24-track studio, the first in Jamaica, in the mid-70s, which was used primarily for the recording of non-reggae music. In fact, Chin-Loy’s own productions were largely absent from the reggae scene until 1979. It was then that he began to score local hits once more with a number of 12-inch mixes on the cusp of the burgeoning dancehall style, including material by Little Roy (‘Long Time Rock Steady’, ‘Skanking On The Banking’) and Ernest Wilson (‘Truth & Rights’). Largely absent from the scene throughout the 80s, there were hints of activity in the 90s but nothing concrete has emerged as yet.
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