Contents - Beth Lesser

a leader in that,” Carlton remembered. “Ronnie Virgo [the owner] had a vision.
Sammy Dread was with the sound about two years before I came. He
would come around to certain big dances but there was another sound from
down around where he comes from and he was singing on it * . I think that
Ronnie loved singers. Of all the sound systems, Ronnie treated his singers
pretty good.”
Owner Ronnie Virgo was a businessman who had a little trucking operation
and took on construction and demolition jobs around the island. Even
before he started Virgo, he used to play a little component set for parties. And
he used to play pure soul. But everyone was playing soul back then – Gemini,
Kilimanjaro and the special soul sets like Afrique and Mellow Canary. Virgo’s
future Selector Tony Virgo admits, “I never stop play soul, but I never play as
much like before when Ronnie used to play him office party. Cause he used to
be living in Havendale. He grow in the ghetto, but he was a Havendale guy.
He was wealthy and he love to have his nice parties with the soul.”
When Ronnie started the sound around 1977, Virgo had deejay Ray I.
“Used to start like 100 people, 200 people”, Tony Virgo recalls, “Two night
a week, three night a week. There was some big clash come up now between
[Virgo and] Ray Symbolic with Ranking Joe, then [with] Arrows, Emperor
Faith – so we start to get tough now. We would play every sound you can
think of in Jamaica. Some we lick down, some lick we down.”
It was at a Virgo dance that producer Derrick Harriott spotted Ray I and
started recording him. In fact, Ray I’s 1977 LP, Rasta Revival, on Move and
Groove Records (produced by Derrick Harriott) featured a shot of Virgo
sound in action on the front cover. Tony used to go to Derrick’s record shop
a lot, as he puts it, to “hunt records”, so when Ronnie decided to try his
hand at producing with his own Virgonian label in 1977, he gave the 45s to
Derrick to distribute. The label had a handful of releases, produced and arranged
between Ronnie Virgo and I Roy, including Brent Dowe’s ‘Come On
Pretty Girl’ and ‘Things You Say You Love’, a couple from Cornell Campbell,
‘Confusion and Heartache’, and Tinga Stewart’s cover of soul singer Timmi
Thomas’ ‘Why We Can’t Live Together’. The Brent Dowe LP was popular and
brought a new crowd out to see the sound.
After he had a falling out with Papa Gemini, Welton Irie joined Virgo for
a short time, but he soon returned to share the spotlight with Ringo. “Ringo
was there first [on Gemini],” Welton recalls. “I leave Virgo and left Ranger
alone there, and I went to the country for some time, on Echo Vibration in St
Marys. Then, when I came back in town now, 1982 – on Gemini, again.” And
so began the famous combination of Ringo and Welton that kept Gemini on
top. Ranger remained on Virgo where he was joined by lifelong pal, Carlton
Livingston and later, U Brown and Nicodemus.
Ronnie had to travel for his work, so Tony Virgo was the one keeping the
* He came from Greenwich Farm and sang on Echo Vibration
112 | RUB A DUB STYLE – The Roots of Modern Dancehall