The fans who pushed Desmond Dekker's "Israelites" to the top of the pop charts in 1968 and 1969 had no firsthand experience with the social conditions in Jamaica that gave rise to the lyrics.
They did not quite understand the island patois Dekker used in the song. And the musical style, ska, a precursor of reggae, was foreign to them.
Yet, the song, an ode to the troubles of the poor, sold millions of copies, became the first purely Jamaican song to top the charts in the U.S., and opened the ears of the world to the music of the island.
"I just got lucky," Dekker told the Boston Globe in 1996. "It was the right song at the right time.... Many people didn't understand it, but it had a nice vibe."
Dekker, the revered king of ska, whose international success set the stage for Bob Marley and other artists, died Thursday of a heart attack at his home in London. He was believed to be 63, though accounts of his age vary.
"He was a breakthrough artist," said Roger Steffens, chairman of the Reggae Grammy committee and former co-host of "Reggae Beat" on KCRW-FM (89.9). "He was one of the very earliest local artists in Jamaica in the ska period and was a pioneer in using patois in his lyrics."
Writer Laurence Cane-Honeysett called Dekker "reggae music's first superstar" and described him as a pivotal figure "in the successful globalization of reggae."
Dekker, born Desmond Adolphus Dacres, grew up in Kingston and loved singing ever since he was "about knee-high."
He was sent one day to buy something for his father, and on the way he heard Nat King Cole singing "Stardust."
"It was like I went into a trance or something," he told a reporter in a 2000 interview. "I forgot all about my dad sending me to the shop. When I got home, I explained to him what happened. I thought I was going to get a whipping, but he understood."
The influences of his early years read like a who's who of African American artists: Otis Redding, Ray Charles, Count Basie, James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Jackie Wilson, Louis Armstrong.
Dekker was working as a welder at a shop in Kingston when his co-workers heard his falsetto singing and convinced him to try out with a record company. Eventually he was signed with Leslie Kong, who was then a music producer in Jamaica.
