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Artist News Obituaries
Prince Buster 1938-2016
By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 12 September 2016
Ska pioneer Prince Buster died at his Miami home last Thursday. He was 78.
Born Cecil Bustamante Campbell in Kingston, Jamaica in 1938, he helped shape the then burgeoning new ska sound in the early 1960s as Prince Buster – a combination of the nicknames he picked up as a gang member and a boxer. Dubbing himself the ‘King Of Ska’, his influence spread far beyond Jamaica and the genre itself – with him becoming the first Jamaican to have a top 20 hit in the UK, with ‘Al Capone’ in 1965.
Much of his influence came as a recording studio owner and producer, in particular thanks to his work on the Folkes Brothers’ ‘Oh Carolina’. But he was equally known as a performer himself. As the popularity of ska began to wane in the late 60s, he helped to develop a new genre, rocksteady, and began recording songs as his own fictional creation Judge Dread.
His influence and popularity dipped in the 70s, and he relocated to Miami where he ran a series of businesses. He was given a boost by the British ska revival a few years later though, with Madness naming themselves after his song ‘Madness In Gladness’. He was referenced in their debut single, ‘The Prince’, and they also made the charts with their version of his song ‘One Step Beyond’.
Buster made occasional, though generally short-lived, returns to performance, returning to the UK charts in 1998 with the single ‘Whine And Grine’, after the song was used in a Levi’s advert.
