Winston Jarrett

Winston Jarrett was born in 1944 in Lime Tree Gardens in the parish of Saint Ann, Jamaica. By 1949, at age five, he was living in the Jonestown section of Kingston's notorious Trenchtown. By the early sixties, he had moved to Fourth Street a yard shared by Alton Ellis who, with Eddie Perkins, had recorded many sides for Sir Coxsone during the earliest years of the Jamaican recording industry. When Eddie left for America in 1965, Alton recruited Winston Jarrett and Eggar Gordon to form a new group, Alton & the Flames. After several months of intense practice they auditioned at Duke Reid's studio and won the endorsement of Leroy "Cuttings" Cole, Reid's number one selector. They were soon recording a series of classic rock steady anthems, and went on to score an extraordinary number of chart hits with songs like "Cry Tough", "Dance Crasher", "The Preacher", and "I Have Got a Date". After recording nearly forty tunes for Duke Reid, the group was lured away by Sir Coxsone (one of Bob Marley's first producers) who produced "I'm Still in Love" and other hits. In 1969, Alton Ellis toured England and decided to move there. With Alton's departure, Winston reformed the group as the 'Righteous Flames'.