Jamaica’s long-time permanent resident and Trinidad & Tobago’s citizen Lord Creator is no more. Lord Creator died on Friday June 30, 2023, at the age of 87 years.
Lord Creator was a calypso, R&B, ska, and rocksteady artist. Alongside Cuban-born Roland Alphonso, Barbadian Jackie Opel and fellow Trinidadians Lynn Taitt and Lord Brynner, Lord Creator was an important and positive “outside” influence during the early development of the Jamaican music scene.
Kenrick Patrick was born in San Fernando, Trinidad & Tobago on August 21, 1935.
Patrick started as a calypso singer in Trinidad under the stage name Lord Creator and recorded his first hits, “The Cockhead” and “Evening News”, in Trinidad in 1958 and 1959 respectively with Fitz Vaughan Bryan’s big band. Due to the success of his hit “Evening News”, which was released in Trinidad on the Cook label and also in the UK on the Melodisc label, he moved to Jamaica in late 1959 to perform and record and decided to settle there.
In 1962, he recorded “Independent Jamaica” with producer Vincent “Randy” Chin, which became the official song marking Jamaica’s independence from the British Empire on 6 August 1962. That song was also the first record on Chris Blackwell’s newly founded Island Records label in the United Kingdom (Island 001). In 1963, “Don’t Stay Out Late”, produced by Chin, became a hit in Jamaica.