Queen of Reggae, Marcia Griffiths Awarded Order of Jamaica

by Howard Campbell

KINGSTON, Jamaica – Marcia Griffiths, whose enduring profession earned her the Queen of Reggae title, has been awarded the Order of Jamaica, the nation’s fourth-highest honor. The singer, who’s certainly one of 5 recipients for that award, will obtain it on October 16, celebrated in Jamaica as Nationwide Heroes Day.

“I’m so grateful that God has preserved me and I’m getting my flowers whereas I’m right here. This is likely one of the biggest emotions for me,” Griffiths advised South Florida Caribbean Information from Germany.

She was beforehand awarded the Order of Distinction, Jamaica’s sixth-highest honor.

Griffiths‘ profession began within the early Sixties as a teen, acting at reveals all through Kingston with bands like Byron Lee and The Dragonaires. Later that decade, with singer/songwriter Bob Andy as a mentor, Griffiths had a string of hit songs for producer Clement “Coxson” Dodd at his Studio One label.

They included Really feel Like Leaping, Mark my Phrase and Actually Collectively (with Bob Andy). She had an enormous hit in the UK with Andy throughout the early Nineteen Seventies with a reggae rendition of Nina Simone’s Younger, Gifted And Black.

For a lot of the Nineteen Seventies, Griffiths recorded and toured as a member of The I Three, Bob Marley’s concord trio, which additionally included his spouse Rita and Judy Mowatt.

After Marley’s loss of life in 1981, Griffiths scored an enormous hit with Electrical Boogie, which sparked a dance craze of the identical title in the USA. She loved a renaissance within the Nineties as a part of producer Donovan Germain’s Penthouse Information alongside Beres Hammond, Buju Banton, Wayne Marvel and Cutty Ranks.

2023 Leisure Trade Order of Distinction Winners

Seven members of Jamaica’s leisure business will obtain the Order of Distinction. They’re pioneer ska singer Owen Grey, Neville Garrick, who designed a number of of Marley’s album covers, Justine Henzell, founder/organizer of the Calabash Literary Pageant, singers Tarrus Riley and Wayne Marshall, playwright/actor Lenford Salmon and Clive “DJ Kool” Herc, the Jamaica-born sound system maestro extensively thought to be the daddy of hip hop.