Alton Ellis grew up in Trenchtown, the part of Kingston which gave birth to nearly every first generation reggae artist. He has been singing since the late 50s or early 60s, when he recorded his first record as 1/2 of the duo Alton & Eddie. This was "Muriel" which was done for Coxsone Dodd's Worldisc label, and was a rhythm & blues sound, before the invention of ska. In the ska days, around 1963, he formed the group Alton & The Flames with Winston Jarrett and Baby G. This group recorded many great ska & rocksteady tunes for Duke Reid's Treasure Isle label, the biggest hit & most famous from this period being "Dance Crasher" & "Cry Tough". He also recorded some obscure but good sides for Randy's in the ska vein. At some point around 1967(?) Alton became a solo artist and cut hit after hit in the rocksteady/early reggae style for both Duke Reid and Coxsone Dodd (Studio One). It is these classics from the late 60s which really made his reputation, and they are probably his most well-known songs, titles like Rocksteady, Why Birds Follow Spring, Remember That Sunday, True Loving, I'm Just A Guy, Live And Learn, Let Him Try and many other... Jamaicans who were living when these were popular hits will always remember these songs I'm sure. Alton continued into the reggae era in the early 70s, recording for virtually every major producer in Jamaica, Clancy Eccles, Prince Buster, Phil Pratt, Bunny Lee, Lee Perry, Lloyd "Matador" Daley, Keith Hudson, Randy's, and so on. He also got into record producing himself, releasing cuts on his own All-Tone and Royal Crown label. At some point in the late 70s(?) Alton emigrated from JA to England, and his career sort of lagged from that point on. Also, reggae styles changed in the 70s to more consious lyric material, and Alton lover's songs weren't appreciated so much by the new foreign audience for reggae, who mostly prefered the music of Bob Marley and other "roots" artists. Alton is considered a classic artist Jamaica, and still gets plenty of respect wherever there is a Jamaican community, along with his contemporaries like Ken Booth, Pat Kelly, Desmond Dekker etc. If you've just discoverd him, check out his older material from when he really was at his peak as a singer & writer. Al Allen Kaatz highnote@eskimo.com