Co-Convener & Founding President
Working with people, serving others and helping the poor and needy have been Roy’s life-long calling. Music has been an integral part of his life, ever since he was born in the hills of Montego Bay, Jamaica, to a father that was a renowned master guitarist and vocalist. Roy grew up playing the guitar, singing, making music and entertaining crowds of people, with his brothers, all of whom are talented musicians. As a young impressionable teenager in 1963, he had a front-row view and involvement when Ska was born and evolved into Rocksteady and Reggae.
Roy is a reggae pioneer in the sense that he helped to plant the music in various places in the early days of its development. In his early 20’s he helped to plant reggae music in New York City, to which he migrated in 1971. In his late 20’s (1978/79) he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and helped to plant reggae there in the city of brotherly love. He moved to the Washington, DC area in his early 30’s and helped to plant reggae here in 1982, by establishing the Club Montego Bay in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia (Click for April 13, 1982 Washington Post article). All this at a time when most people had never heard of Bob Marley or Reggae and often asked him “what kind of music is this?
From the mid 1980’s to the mid 1990’s Roy was involved with the planning and successful staging of some of the larger annual Caribbean-themed festivals in the Washington, DC area, including JAMFEST, which was staged at Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House (click here for thank-you letters).
Roy’s involvement in the business of the music deepened when, following eighteen months of internship with George & Julie Michailow at Fastlane Booking Agency in Washington, DC, he went on to establishing his own agency in 1997, through which he successfully booked dozens of U.S. cross-country tours for various artists, including the Itals, Meditations, Ronnie Davis, Justin Hinds and several others. This, at a time when only a handful of Reggae artists were touring the U.S.
Beginning in 1998 and continuing for several years hence, Roy studied the music copyright business with one of the most knowledgeable professionals in the field and has gone on to become a very knowledgeable and competent Music publishing administrator in his own right, representing a few of the larger catalogues in all of Reggae music.
Given his lifelong involvement and interest, Roy considers himself blessed to be a co-founder and President of the Reggae One Love Movement. He is equipped and more than capable of leading this worthwhile effort and is energized by the opportunity of working with others for the common good.