Mikey Dread (Born Mike Campbell)
January 1, 1954 – March 15, 2008
Mikey Dread started his career in music as an engineer at the JBC, the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation. At the time, the station was broadcasting mostly foreign pop songs, so Dread convinced the higher-ups to give him his own program which he called Dread At The Controls. It eventually became the most popular show on the network. One group of fans of the show were the Clash who invited Dread to England to produce some tracks on their 1980 release, Sandinista! as well as to tour with them through Europe and beyond. Throughout this time he was building his own audience as a respected singer and performer. In his later years, Dread grew disillusioned with the record industry so he quietly retired and went back to school to study electronics and business in his new home city of Miami. This paid off as he was able to regain the rights to his music which he began re-releasing on his own label. In October of 2007, it was announced that he was being treated for a brain tumor. He passed away surrounded by his family at his Connecticut home on March 15, 2008.
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