Desmond Dekker

“Things will get better if you just hold out long enough.”

“One day, I went to buy something for my dad at the shops, and I heard a song by Nat King Cole called 'Stardust Melody.' It was like I went into a trance or something. I forgot all about my dad sending me to the shop. When I got home, I explained to him what happened. I thought I was going to get a whipping, but he understood.”

“I like to write songs about what's happening, what I see around me and what I hear.”

“The Four Aces asked me if I'd like to sing with them as they didn't really have a lead singer.”

“So, after school, I needed to learn a trade and started to work as a tailor.”

“Sometimes I'd hear things on other people's records and I say I wanted it on my records, but Leslie Kong said, no, it wasn't right and that it wasn't my style.”

“I don't write about the same thing every time, everyday, different things are happening out there and if you take the time to look around, you can see that, then you can put it all together and tell the story.”

“I like to write songs about what's happening, what I see around me and what I hear. Everyday life. Someone may be talking to me and I may take it from that.”

“I was born in St. Andrew's and raised in Kingston then I attended the Alpha Boy's school.”

“Recently, I've been working on anew album of material, which should be out in the new Millennium. I'm not sure which song will be put out as a single, but I'm still hoping to get another record in the charts.”

“Then my mother was taken ill and died and my father took me to St. Mary's.”