Edi Fitzroy Roots Reggae Singer Is Dead

Jamaican Roots Reggae Music singer Edi Fitzroy, best known for songs like The Gun and Princess Black, died Saturday March 4, 2017 at the May Pen Hospital in his native Clarendon.

His nephew Linval Edwards told the [OBSERVER ONLINE] that Fitzroy had recently taken ill but did not give a cause of death. He was 61-years-old. 

Born Fitzroy Edwards, Fitzroy broke through in 1978 with the song Miss Molly Colly. At the time, he was an accountant at the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation.

The song was produced by Michael Campbell, who hosted the Dread At The Controls show on JBC Radio.

Fitzroy had a number of hit songs in the 1980s with The Gun, Princess Black and Check For You Once.

Source: Jamaica Observer.

Edi Fitzroy Biography

Edwards was born in Chapelton, Clarendon Parish, Jamaica and attended Chapelton All-Age and Clarendon College. He was exposed to music from an early age via his father Vasco Edwards' sound system. 

After studying at the West Indies Commercial Institute, he took a job as an accounts clerk with the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation while also singing in his spare time. His recordings came to the attention of Mikey Dread, a radio presenter at the station, and with Dread's assistance he released his first single, "Miss Molly Colly", which was a top ten hit in Jamaica in 1978.

Further hits followed and Fitzroy toured the United Kingdom with Dread in 1978, supporting The Clash. In the early 1980s, Fitzroy worked with producers such as Lloyd Norris, and Trevor Elliot (who produced the singer's debut album Youthman Penitentiary (1982)).Check For You Once (1982) topped the Jamaican albums chart for four weeks. He performed at Reggae Sunsplash in 1984, returning in 1986, 1988, 1991, and 1993, and also performed at Sunsplash USA in 1988.

Fitzroy's lyrics led to him becoming renowned as one of Jamaica's most socially conscious singers, with themes including equality for women, and he won a Rockers Award in 1984 for Most Conscious Performer for his "Princess Black" single (which he wrote for his mother). He enjoyed a major Jamaican hit with "The Gun", and he contributed to the "Land of Africa" charity single in aid of the Ethiopia famine appear, along with Gregory Isaacs, Freddie McGregor and others, and Fitzroy became a director (along with Rita Marley, Judy Mowatt, Michael "Ibo" Cooper, and Orville Tyson) of the Music Is Life organization, with the aim of making a more lasting contribution toward's Africa's plight.

After the release of his 1993 album Deep in Mi Culture, Fitzroy toured the United States with backing band Massawa. In the mid-1990s he started his own Confidence label to release his own material. He has been a regular performer at annual Peter Tosh memorial concerts in Jamaica. Only in the mid-1990s did he give up his day-job to pursue music as a full-time career.

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