1965

NIMBLE FOOT * ROLAND ALPHONSO & THE SKATALITES * SKA BEAT 210 * GB

Roland Alphonso was born in Cuba in 1931, to a Jamaican mother and Cuban father, and moved to Jamaica with his mother when he was two years old. As a teenager in the late '40s, he began playing professionally with jazz bands on tenor and alto sax, taking Illinois Jacquet as one of his inspirations. By the early '50s, he was already recording as a session man, playing on sides by calypso artists like Young Kitchener.It is reported that he made his first tracks with producer Coxsone and although those were lost when they were sent to New York to get mastered, he soon became a feature of Dodd's sessions at the Federal Records studio.

See also Back Beat and Phoenix City.

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