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Soulful Sundays: Phyllis Dillon

On this lovely Sunday, I’d like to share two songs from ska and reggae singer, Phyllis Dillon, who made her first recording, Don’t Stay Away, for producer, Duke Reid, in 1967. She was at 19. Dillon did a lot of covers of popular songs from the U.S.

Phyllis Dillon, photo from the Internet
Phyllis Dillon, photo from the Internet

Take a listen to Perfidia and One Life to Live.

Dillon, who was born in St. Catherine in 1948, moved to New York in 1967 and, for a while, would travel back to Jamaica to record. She ended her recording career in 1971 but resumed it twenty years later, touring Japan, Germany and the UK. In 1998, she returned to the studio with former Duke Reid session guitarist, Lynn Taitt, who had discovered her. She continued to perform until she became ill. Dillon died in New York in 2004. She was 56 years old.