Phyllis Dillon

One of the first women to ever take a leading role on a Jamaican release, Phyllis Dillon recorded rocksteady songs with soul and pop influences throughout the late 1960s. Dillon grew up in the Jamaican countryside but in 1965 she moved to Kingston to work for producer Duke Reid. A soprano with sultry undertones, she wrote her first single in 1966, the ballad "Don't Stay Away." That single and others--such as “Rock Steady,” later covered in America by Aretha Franklin--established Dillon as the unabated queen of rocksteady. Tired of the corrupt Jamaican recording business, she left the country and moved to America in 1974. In 2004, Dillon died after a battle with cancer.