Barry Biggs
@ the Indigo 02
27 October 2012

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Biography

Born 1947 although 1953 is also claimed, St. Andrew, Jamaica, West Indies. Barry Biggs is a lovers rock specialist, who started his professional career in 1968 with a version of Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour” for his producer Harry J. Previously, he had worked as a backing singer on mid-60s Coxsone Dodd productions at Studio One, and with Duke Reid at Treasure Isle. He also spent six months working with the Crystalites. Biggs subsequently made the local Jamaican charts with “One Bad Apple” for the Dynamic Sounds label, where he also worked as a producer and engineer. However, it took a recording originally completed in 1972, “Work All Day,” to break him internationally. From then on, he was closely identified with the blend of sweet reggae and high-pitched soul vocals the single introduced.

Although he amassed a total of six UK chart entries between 1976 and 1981, he only broke the UK Top 20 once, with the release of “Sideshow,” distinguished by its low-key, distant production, which reached number 3 in December 1976. There were also two albums cut with Bunny Lee that were destined never to see the light of day. However, both “Wide Awake In A Dream” (1980) and “A Promise Is A Comfort To A Fool” (1982) topped the reggae listings.