Doctor Bird

About

Label Code: LC 04037. Doctor Bird is a label; for the company use Doctor Bird Records. Revived by Trojan Records in 1970 for just 3 releases (DB 1501 - DB 1503). The label was relaunched in 2017 as a division of Cherry Red Records (2), specialising in vintage Jamaican sounds licensed from the catalogue of Trojan Records. Doctor Bird was founded in the UK by Australian sound engineer and original Island Records shareholder Graeme Goodall. Goodall was sent to Jamaica in 1954 to set up the first FM radio network in Kingston, Radio Jamaica Rediffusion, or RJR. He then began engineering sessions in RJR's studio such as Lance Hayward At The Half Moon for Island Records (1959). In 1961 he built Federal Studio for Lebanese-Jamaican Ken Khouri, already in the recording business, and assisted Coxson Dodd with the construction of Studio One in 1963. Goodall produced and engineered countless recordings at Federal in the ska era and developed close relationships with Leslie Kong of Beverley's Records and musician/bandleader Byron Lee. In 1966 Goodall relocated to the UK where he formed Doctor Bird records, named after Jamaica's national bird, a double long-tailed hummingbird (the biggest in the world), which issued numerous Jamaican rocksteady releases throughout 1967. In the same year he launched Pyramid Records for the dissemination of Leslie Kong's Jamaican productions exclusively. He was also the man behind JJ and Rio. In 1969 Pyramid scored a massive hit with Desmond Dekker's "Israelites," which sold two million copies. In the same year he created the Attack label for UK-based reggae groups, and signed, produced and managed UK-Jamaican artists Laurel Aitken and Symarip (aka The Pyramids). In the 1970s Goodall relocated to Atlanta, Georgia but continued to do engineering work at Dynamic Sound such as Goat's Head Soup by The Rolling Stones. He died from natural causes in 2014.