Derrick Harriott, who has died aged 87 following a long illness, was an influential figure in Jamaican popular music.
A singer-songwriter who began his career in 1958 leading the pioneering harmony group the Jiving Juniors, Harriott had an intrinsic feel for music and an ease with tackling diverse styles.
His distinctive productions helped artists such as Keith and Tex, the Kingstonians and Junior Murvin to come to prominence in the late 1960s, and the Ethiopians, Big Youth and Scotty in the 70s.
An early mentor to Dennis Brown, Harriott was also one of the first to collaborate with King Tubby, commissioning the experimental engineer to mix the captivating dub B-sides to singles such as Brown’s Concentration and the Crystalites’ Blacula in 1973.
The youngest of six children, of whom a sister died in infancy, Harriott spent his formative years in a staunch Seventh-day Adventist household on Duke Street in downtown Kingston. His parents both worked at the nearby Excelsior College, where Harriott’s uncle, Wesley Arthur Powell, was headteacher, and after his mother emigrated to New York, Harriott’s father ran a small commercial school.
Music was an important part of daily life, since his father was a clarinettist, his uncle, Samuel Powell, a singer and his brother, Winston, a professional saxophonist. He discovered jazz balladeers such as Billy Eckstine and Nat King Cole, doo-wop harmony group the Ink Spots and local spiritual singer Jimmy Tucker through radio broadcasts, all of which influenced his approach to singing, as did Donnie Elbert’s forlorn ballad What Can I Do, which he heard on a local sound system.
While attending Excelsior in 1957, Harriott entered a talent contest held by the journalist Vere Johns at the Palace theatre with a rendition of the Turbans’ When You Dance, and subsequently formed the duo Sang and Harriott with fellow Excelsior student Claude Sang Jr, whose brother, Herman, led a popular session band, the City Slickers.
Sang and Harriott won a series of talent contests with original ballad You’re Mine, All Mine, and after Sang moved to New York to further his education, Harriott formed the Jiving Juniors with fellow Excelsior student Eugene Dwyer and Dwyer’s friend, Maurice Wynter, with Herman Sang joining on the piano.
In August 1959, Harriott joined his mother in New York but frequently returned to Jamaica to record and perform with the Jiving Juniors. The group’s Lollipop Girl was the breakthrough hit recorded for Duke Reid in 1960 and the spiritual Over the River was a big hit for Clement Dodd in 1961; recordings were also made for Chris Blackwell.
Back in New York in 1962, Harriott formed a new Jiving Juniors with Claude Sang, Valmont Burke, and Winston Service of the Downbeats. Sessions with the Teacho Wiltshire Orchestra yielded the hit Sugar Dandy, which Harriott produced and issued on the newly formed Crystal label.
Harriott then launched his solo career with his popular cover of What Can I Do, which, like Sugar Dandy, was delivered in a convincing falsetto, his ability to switch between tenor and the higher register giving Harriott an edge on his rivals.
The wide range enabled Harriott to subsequently broaden his repertoire, his solo successes of the mid-60s including the mento John Tom, the soul ballad I’m Only Human and edgy rock-steady tearjerker Walk the Streets, as well as the Murvin-penned biblical allegory, Solomon. But Harriott will always be best remembered for The Loser, a 1967 landmark recounting romantic missteps that was expertly arranged by bassist Boris Gardiner, the song framed by Joe Isaacs’ offbeat drum rolls and Lloyd Delprat’s choppy piano chords.
Soon after, Harriott opened Derrick’s One Stop, a record shop on King Street in Kingston. Focusing more on record production, he scored with Rudy Mills’ John Jones, a tale of romantic betrayal that was popular with skinhead audiences in Britain, as was the Kingstonians’ Sufferer; Keith and Tex’s adaptation of the Temptations’ Don’t Look Back and the Spanishtonians’ Stop That Train were also successful, as was the Ethiopians’ Rastafari-themed No Baptism.
Scotty’s Riddle I This was a chart topper in 1971 and his Draw Your Brakes appeared on the soundtrack of The Harder They Come; Big Youth’s Cool Breeze charted in 1973, just as Harriott moved his shop to larger premises at Twin Gates Plaza in the Half Way Tree business district.
During the 70s and 80s, Harriott’s greatest solo successes came through adaptations of soul, funk and disco: Psychedelic Train was partly inspired by the Temptations’ Psychedelic Shack and there were hit adaptations of the Chi-Lites’ weepy ballad Have You Seen Her?, Ronnie Jones’ funky disco foray Soul Sister and Don Covay’s jealousy track Checkin’ Out, as well as the sensual soul-influenced original Skin to Skin and a funky reggae adaptation of Dazz Band’s futuristic disco-funk track, Let It Whip.
Although his output waned from the mid-80s, Harriott continued to perform to audiences internationally, his appearances at the Legends of Ska festival in Toronto in 2002 and at the London International Ska festival in 2015 among the most memorable.
He was awarded the Order of Distinction in 2009 for his services to the Jamaican Music Industry and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jamaica Reggae Industry Association in 2019.
Harriott is survived by his eight children, his sister, Loy Shegog, and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Derrick Clifton Harriott, singer, songwriter and record producer, born 6 February 1939; died 24 October 2026
