The roll call of the departed continues with the passing of Laurel Aitken. The man nicknamed the "Godfather of Ska" died on the morning of Sunday 18 July of a heart attack, while in Gleinfield Hospital in Leicester, England, where he had been since the end of 2003.
A pioneer of Jamaican music, Laurel Aitken was born in Cuba in 1927. Arriving in Jamaica in 1938, he began singing mentos and calypsos in the mid-1950s. In 1960 his Aitken's Boogie was the first Jamaican record to be released in England. Boogie In My Bones, recorded for Chris Blackwell in 1958, stayed at the top of the charts for thirteen weeks. A host of hits followed, including Mighty Redeemer, Judgment Day and Jericho.
At the height of the skinhead era, Laurel Aitken became one of the most popular artists of the time. He settled in England in 1957 and became a producer there. After a lean spell in the 1970s, he benefited from the ska revival at the end of the 1980s. His status and reputation assured him a loyal following that stayed with him until 2003, the year of his last concerts.