Roman Stewart: An Appreciation

When you're a serious reggae fan, you discover many artists who have made a lot of great music over the years but remain obscure. Everybody knows the world-famous reggae singers such as Desmond Dekker and Jimmy Cliff, and there is a plethora of their music available. Then you get the not so famous singers like Junior Byles, Dave Barker, and Cornell Campbell; these artists are well-known to reggae fans and generally speaking their music is quite easy to find.

And then you have singers like Winston Jarrett, Edi Fitzroy, George Faith, Hortense Ellis, Leo Graham, Keith Rowe and dozens of others who -- despite creating a solid body of work over the years -- remain names that are only known to serious reggae fans, and to find their music takes a lot more work.

Which brings us to Roman Stewart. Roman Stewart had a career that lasted for more than 30 years which included several big hits. He was well known and respected on the reggae scene in Jamaica and the United States. And yet, there has never been a Roman Stewart anthology or a "best of" collection; his work is scattered across dozens of hard to find records and a handful of CD compilations.

As a "reggaeologist", I find this concept interesting: that there are many great artists whose work is really terrific, but their music remains obscure and elusive. Even with all of the excellent reggae compilations that have come out in the past 10 years, more work needs to be done.

Sadly, even if someone put out a Roman Stewart anthology tomorrow, Roman wouldn't be around to appreciate it. He died in 2004 after a heart attack. And true to his tune "Natty Sing Hit Songs", he was singing when the heart attack happened.

Mick Sleeper