Moodisc Records was founded by Harry A. Mudie
In the late 1950s, Mudie began his career in Jamaica, working with the legendary Rasta drummer Count Ossie on “Babylon Gone” and “So Long,” both of which featured the drummer alongside the great saxophonist Wilton Gaynaire.
Mudie, one of the unsung pioneers of Jamaican music, was born in Spanish Town. He developed his interest in music while a pupil at St. Jago High School in the mid-fifties and later developed his own sound system, Mudies Hi-Fi. He studied electronics and photography in the United Kingdom. In 1959 he opened the renowned nightclub, Scaramouche Gardens, in Spanish Town.
By the end of the decade he had produced some of the heaviest, yet still sweet reggae music of the time which were released on his various record labels, “Moodisc”, “Jungle”, “Afro”, “HAM”,”Jukebox” and in most recent times “Moods.”
He was one of the first to use strings in reggae music, a practice he continued to brilliantly effect with one of John Holt’s best-ever albums, “Time Is The Master.”
Mudie was active throughout the 1970s, releasing productions like “Drifter” and “Heart Don’t Leap” featuring Dennis Vassel (“Dennis Walks”); “Rome” featuring Lloyd Jones; “Let Me Tell You Boy” featuring the Ebony Sisters; “Run Girl” featuring G.G. Grossett; “Push Me In The Corner” and “Let’s Start Again” featuring Cornell Campbell and The Eternals; “Love Without Feeling” featuring The Heptones; and instrumental albums such as “Groovy Jo” featuring Jo Jo Bennett, including the monster hit “Leaving Rome”; “It May Sound Silly” and “Glady Unlimited” featuring Gladstone Anderson; three great dub albums, “Harry Mudie Meet King Tubby in Dub Conference I, II, and III”; then later in the decade albums on nightclub singer Bunny Maloney and sax veteran Ossie Scott.
He also produced multiple various artist compilations, such as “Mudies Mood”, “Quad Star Revolution Volumes I & II” and “Reggae Jamboree” to name a few, featuring deejays such as Big Joe, Prince Heron, and the late I. Roy. Other legendary artists recorded by the producer include some late greats such as instrumentalists Tommy McCook, Lennie Hibbert, Winston Wright; vocalists Freddy McKay, Cecil Wellington (“Nicodemus”); and legends Ernest Rangling (instrumentalist), Owen Gray and Gregory Isaacs (vocalists).
Mudie often uses his favorite rhythms again and again, but when they are of the caliber of “Drifter”, “Let Me Tell You Boy”, “Heart Don’t Leap”, or “Gone Is Love” it is no surprise these and others are capable of repeated “versioning” of today and tomorrow. For instance, more recent “versioning” feature artists such as Horace Andy, Glen Washington, Desi D, and the Honorable Apache, just to name a few. It would seem only logical, if you are a producer who has several good rhythms, to cut organ, trombone, vocal, deejay, and dub versions of those rhythms on the theory that you cannot get enough of a good thing.