Osbourne Ruddock was born on January 28, 1941, in Kingston Jamaica, where he grew up to become a radio repairman in the late 1950s. At the time the Sound-systems were becoming extremely popular, having developed into quite an enterprising business. As a radio repairman, Tubby found frequent work for the sound systems, since the Jamaica’s tropical weather, combined with sabotage by rival sound system owners, led to malfunctions and equipment failure. In the course of time, Ruddock opened his own electrical repair shop on Drumalie Avenue, in Kingston, providing repairs to televisions and radios. In response to the growth of the sound systems in and around Kingston, he ventured into the building of built large amplifiers for the local sound system operators. Eventually Ruddock formed his own sound system which he named Tubby's Hometown Hi-Fi, in 1958. The high quality of his equipment made Tubby’s Hometown Hi-Fi extremely popular, backed by the exclusive quality of the releases and Tubby's own echo and reverb sound effects which at that time were novelties that were unheard of outside the studio setting. The sound also launched the career of Ewart Beckford aka U-Roy, who was its its featured toaster.
In 1968 Ruddock began working as a disc cutter for producer Duke Reid, one of the major figures in early Jamaican music and owner/operator of Treasure Isle recording studios, one of Jamaica's first independent production houses, and a key producer of Ska and Rock-Steady recordings. Before the advent of dub, most Jamaican 45s featured an instrumental version of the main song on the flipside, which was called the "version". When Tubby was asked to produce versions of songs for sound system MCs or Toasters, he initially worked to remove the vocal tracks with the faders on Reid's mixing desk, but soon discovered that the various instrumental tracks could be accentuated, reworked and emphasised through the settings on the mixer and early effects units.In time, Tubby began to create wholly new pieces of music by shifting the emphasis in the instrumentals, adding sounds and removing others and adding various special effects, like extreme delays, echoes, reverb and phase effects. Partly due to the popularity of these early remixes, in 1971, Tubby's sound system consolidated its position as one of the most popular in Kingston and Tubby decided to open a studio of his own in Waterhouse in 1971, initially using a 4-trackmixer purchased from Byron Lee's Dynamic studio.
By 1972, Tubby's legendary prowess as a mxing engineer had spread. He achieved creative fame previously only reserved for composers and musicians, and was influential across many genres of popular music. He is often cited as the inventor of the concept of the remix that later became ubiquitous in dance and electronic music production. King Tubby's production work during the 1970s made him one of the best-known celebrities in Jamaica, and generated interest in his production techniques from producers, sound engineers and musicians around the world. Tubby built on his knowledge of electronics to repair, adapt and design his own studio equipment, which made use of a combination of old devices and new technologies to produce a studio capable of the precise, atmospheric sounds which would become Tubby's trademark. With a variety of effects units connected to his mixer, Tubby "played" the mixing desk like an instrument, bringing instruments and vocals in and out of the mix to create an entirely new genre known as dub music. By the end of 1971 he was already providing dub mixes for producers such as Lee “Scratch” Perry, and Glen Brown. According to Ainger Mikey Dread, “King Tubby truly understood sound in a scientific sense. He knew how the circuits worked and what the electrons did. That's why he could do what he did.”
Tubby engineered/remixed songs for Jamaica's top producers such as Lee Perry, Bunny Lee, Augustus Pablo, and Vivian "Yabby-U" Jackson, that featured artists such as Johnny Clarke, Cornell Campbell, Linval Thompson, Horace Andy, Delroy Wilson and Jah Stitch. In 1973, he added a second 4-track mixer, and built a vocal booth at his studio so he could record vocal tracks onto the instrumental tapes brought to him by various producers. This process is known as "voicing" in Jamaican recording parlance. Tubbys subsequently worked with hundreds of artistes and producers and his name is credited on hundreds of B-side labels, with the possibility that many others were by his hand yet uncredited, due to similarities with his known work. Several albums of Tubby's dub mixes were released, among the earliest the Perry-produced Blackboard Jungle and Bunny Lee’s Dub from the Roots, both of which were released in 1974.
His most famous dub and one of the most popular dubs of all time was "King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown" from 1974. The original session was for a Jacob Miller tune alled "Baby I Love You So", which featured the then Wailers drummer Carlton "Carley" Barrett playing a traditional one drop rhythm. When Tubby completed the dub, which also featured Augustus Pablo on melodica, Barrett's drums regenerated several times and created a totally new rhythm which was later tagged "Rockers". This seminal track later also appeared on Pablo's 1976 album King Tubbys Meet Rockers Uptown.
King Tubby was shot dead on 6 February 1989, outside his home in Duhaney Park, Kingston, upon returning from a session at his Waterhouse studio. His death which was believed to be the outcome of a robbery, to this day remains unsolved.
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