King Tubby

As the originator of dub, one of the most important developments not only in reggae, but in all of contemporary music, King Tubby is a towering historical figure. Born Osbourne Ruddock, the Kingston pioneer started out as an electronics repair man. By the late '60s he was working as a recording engineer and DJ, and the die was cast when he began playing his first instrumental dub mix of a record he'd just engineered. By the early '70s, Tubby had his own studio where he became a master at the art of transforming reggae recordings through creative, often spontaneous remixing. Throughout the '70s he collaborated with a stunning cast of producers (Bunny Lee, Augustus Pablo, Lee "Scratch" Perry) and artists (John Holt, Horace Andy, Delroy Wilson), making reggae history in the process.

• reggae
• dub
• 1970s