In the years before reggae or even ska was known outside of the Caribbean, Byron Lee was the first bandleader to achieve an international following playing Jamaican music, and he played a vital role in popularizing it around the world. And when Bob Marley was a struggling young musician of the little-known Wailers, Byron Lee was probably the most well-known Jamaican bandleader in the world.
Lee was 20 years old when he formed his band the Dragonaires in 1956. They began making a name for themselves almost immediately, as a kind of big-band equivalent to the solo Calypso singi...