Steely & Clevie

The rhythm battery of keyboardist Wycliffe "Steely" Johnson and drummer Cleveland "Clevie" Browne emerged as the dominant production team of the contemporary dancehall reggae era, lending their skills to records from acts including Shabba Ranks, Maxi Priest and Gregory Isaacs. Steely first attracted attention during his tenure with Sugar Minott's Youth Promotion collective, playing keyboards on the 1978 classic Ghetto-ology before joining the ranks of the Roots Radics, the quintessential band of the early 1980s dancehall boom. At the time, Clevie ? a veteran of Studio One sessions as well as an alumnus of his family group the Browne Bunch ? was beginning to explore the possibilities of drum machine technology, a subject of much derision from other drummers in the reggae community; he and Steely first played together at Lee "Scratch" Perry's... Read More...