Augustus Pablo

As any business person will tell you, the way to success is through the discovery of a niche or a previously unexploited market. Still, few business people, and even fewer musicians, would have believed that there was a market for the sound of the melodica. What next, they would have sniggered, a kazoo? Yet Augustus Pablo would take this child's toy and launch a revolution in Jamaican music. Not only was Pablo's melodica unique, it would sweep the entire island's scene and become an integral part of the music of the era. But Pablo was no one-trick pony, he was also a virtuoso keyboardist and his playing permeated the island across myriad of his own releases and as a session man for others. He was equally talented on the other side of the recording desk and his production work was as inspired as his playing. Augustus Pablo was born Horace Swaby on June 21, 1954, in St. Andrew, Jamaica. He attended Kingston College (not a college in the American sense, but a high school), sneaking into the school's chapel with other musically inclined friends to practice on the organ. It was here at Kingston College where Swaby also made the connections that would help launch him into the music industry. Amongst his classmates was Clive Chin, whose family ran Randy's, Kingston's premier record store. The Chin clan included Herman Chin Loy, a cousin of Leslie Kong, and who started his own career in the music industry by working for his famous cousin. Like many small ethnic enclaves around the world, Jamaica's vibrant Chinese community often intermarried and thus businesses and families often intertwined. Chin Loy had struck out on his own in 1969, setting up his own record store and label, both called Aquarius. Thus in 1970, when the 15- year-old Swaby decided the time was ripe to begin...