Bruce Ruffin is a rocksteady

Rocksteady

Rocksteady is a music genre that originated in Jamaica around 1966. A successor to ska and a precursor to reggae, rocksteady was performed by Jamaican vocal harmony groups such as The Gaylads, The Maytals and The Paragons. The term rocksteady comes from a dance style that was mentioned in the Alton...

 and reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

 artist

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

.

Biography

Ruffin got his start singing with Byron Lee and the Dragonaires

Byron Lee & the Dragonaires

Byron Lee and the Dragonaires are a Jamaican ska, calypso and soca band. The band played a crucial pioneering role in bringing Caribbean music to the world...

 briefly, before in 1967 joining The Techniques

The Techniques

The Techniques were a Jamaican rocksteady vocal group mainly active in the 1960s.-History:The group was formed by Winston Riley in 1962 while still at school, with the initial line-up also featuring Slim Smith, Franklyn White, and Frederick Waite...

, one of the more successful rocksteady vocal groups of the late 1960s. There he sang alongside Pat Kelly

Pat Kelly (musician)

Pat Kelly is a reggae singer whose career began in the late 1960s.- The Techniques :Kelly was born in Kingston in 1949. After leaving school, he spent a year studying electronics in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States during 1966, before returning to Jamaica...

, Winston Riley and Junior Menns. He was one of several talented singers to drift through the Techniques' ranks, but his stay with the group was highlighted by several rocksteady hits that he wrote

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

, the most notable of which was "Love Is Not a Gamble".

Restless, Ruffin left the Techniques a year later, returning in 1969 as a solo

Solo (music)

In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...

 artist with the upbeat reggae song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

, "Long About Now".

His greatest success came in the 1970s as a reggae-pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 solo artist and writer. He continued to record

Sound recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

 with a number of record producer

Record producer

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

s (Leslie Kong

Leslie Kong

Leslie Kong was a Chinese Jamaican record producer.-Career:Leslie and his two older brothers Cecil and Lloyd ran a restaurant, ice cream parlour and record shop called Beverley's in Orange Street, Kingston...

, Herman Chin Loy

Herman Chin Loy

Herman Chin Loy is a Jamaican record producer, best known for his productions from the late 1960s and early 1970s of artists such as Augustus Pablo, Dennis Brown, Alton Ellis and Bruce Ruffin, and for the Aquarius and Scorpio labels that he ran. He is a Chinese Jamaican.-Biography:When Lloyd A...

, Lloyd Charmers

Lloyd Charmers

Lloyd Charmers is a ska and reggae singer, keyboard player and record producer.-Career:...

) and had some success with cover version

Cover version

In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

s, including Paul Simon

Paul Simon

Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...

's "Cecilia". However, it was a José Feliciano

José Feliciano

José Feliciano is a Puerto Rican singer, virtuoso guitarist and composer known for many international hits including the 1970 holiday single "Feliz Navidad".-Childhood:...

 tune, "Rain", that would give his solo career momentum, recorded on Trojan Records

Trojan Records

Trojan Records is a British record label founded in 1968. It specialises in ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub music. The label currently operates under the Sanctuary Records Group. The name Trojan comes from the Croydon-built Trojan truck that was used as Duke Reid's sound system in Jamaica...

, it was a UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 number 19 hit in 1971 - the b-side

A-side and B-side

A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...

 of which was the karaoke

Karaoke

is a form of interactive entertainment or video game in which amateur singers sing along with recorded music using a microphone and public address system. The music is typically a well-known pop song minus the lead vocal. Lyrics are usually displayed on a video screen, along with a moving symbol,...

 favourite "Geronimo".

In 1972 he secured a crossover

Crossover (music)

Crossover is a term applied to musical works or performers appearing on two or more of the record charts which track differing musical tastes, or genres...

 hit with "Mad About You", which featured odd background vocals and strings

String instrument

A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

 arrangement

Arrangement

The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...

. It was released on the Rhino record label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

 (not to be confused with Rhino Records), and gave him his biggest selling hit, reaching number 9 in the UK Singles Chart

UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

 - it ultimately set the direction for his career. For the rest of the decade, Ruffin continued to release polished reggae-pop that had a strong audience in the UK and Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. By the 1980s, Ruffin was concentrating on writing and publishing

Publishing

Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...

. He eventually moved away from music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

 to study law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

, becoming a legal consultant to other reggae artists.

Ruffin is now the CEO of the BRM Music companies.

External links

• [ Bruce Ruffin biography] at Allmusic website
  Website
  A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...