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Artist
Joe Gibbs & The Professionals
12+ albums
dubreggaeroots reggaejamaicanroots
about
Joe Gibbs worked as an electronics engineer in the United States before his career in music started. Gibbs eventually returned to Kingston, Jamaica and opened an electrical repair shop with television repairs and sales as its main concern. It was in this shop that he first started to sell records. The fast growth of the local music scene encouraged him to get more involved in the music business, and in 1967 he started to record some artists in the back of his shop with a two-track tape machine, working with Lee Perry who had just ended his association with Clement "Coxsone" Dodd. In 1968, with the help of Bunny Lee, he launched his Amalgamated record label, and had his first success with one of the earliest rocksteady songs, Roy Shirley's "Hold Them" When Perry decided to leave to start his own record label, Upsetters, Gibbs enrolled the young Winston "Niney" Holness (later known as Niney The Observer) who helped Gibbs maintain his productions at the top of the charts. During the rocksteady period until 1970, he had hit records with numerous artists including The Pioneers, Errol Dunkley, and Ken Parker. He also worked with backing bands such as Lynn Taitt and the Jets (including the organist Ansel Collins, and horns players Tommy McCook, Johnny "Dizzy" Moore, Bobby Ellis and Vin Gordon), or The Hippy Boys (featuring the Barrett brothers as the rhythm section). He concentrated exclusively on the production of the then new reggae sound after his first international success "L
