Willi Williams

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Willi Williams
Background information
Born	Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica
Genre(s)	Reggae, Dub
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter, producer
Instrument(s)	Singer
Years active	1960s-present
Label(s)	Studio One, Soul Sounds, Heartbeat, Black Star, Jah Shaka, Drum Street
Website	www.williwilliams.com

Willi Williams (also Willie Williams) is a Jamaican reggae and dub musician and producer. He is known as the "Armagideon Man" after his hit, "Armagideon Time", first recorded in 1978 by Coxsone Dodd at Studio One in Kingston. It was covered by The Clash as the flipside of their "London Calling" single.

[edit] Biography

Williams was born in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica. He attended Trenchtown Comprehensive Hight School, where he was a classmate of Sly Dunbar. He first recorded at Studio One in the late 1960s, while he was still in school. In 1969 he started his own record label called Soul Sounds and among the artists he recorded was Delroy Wilson. He moved to Canada in 1974 and split his time between Toronto, Ontario and Kingston.

He worked with keyboardist Jackie Mittoo and producer Coxsone Dodd on "Armagideon Time", which was the title track of an album released in 1978. The song was later covered by The Clash, featured in the film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai and on the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas soundtrack (is featured on the Reggae radio station K-JAH Radio West but not on the soundtrack album). Another of Williams' songs is Messenger Man, the title track of a 1980 album.

In 2003, he released the career-spanning anthology album, From Studio One to Drum Street, on his own Drum Street label

Willi is currently working on an album with an up-and-coming Toronto artist named Visionary. The pair are said to be doing wonders in the reggae scene there.