Steve Barrow, a major player in turning folk on to Jamaican music, died on 30 May 2026.
Here, Lloyd Bradley, himself a knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide to the art form, pays tribute.
I first met Steve when he was behind the counter in Honest Jon’s record shop in its legendary original manifestation – they were the first shop in London to see the sense in selling reggae and punk side by side. Steve was one of the two resident reggae experts, and as such would guide prospective customers through a maze of little labels, pre-releases, versions and interchangeable artist names. He clearly knew a massive amount about Jamaican music from the ska days onward, but was never show-offey in his knowledge or condescending to customers who wandered in and said “I want to buy some reggae but I don’t really know much about it” or “I heard this reggae record that sort of goes …” Helping people – often tourists – to either find the reggae they wanted or the reggae they didn’t yet know they wanted was what he did and the notion of promoting Jamaican music to a wider audience was what he was in it for. A kind of ital quid pro quo for all the joy it had brought him.
Exactly the approach Steve brought to the next phase of his reggae life as what began as a side hustle blossomed into a full time job – putting together reggae, ska and rock steady compilation albums for Island and Trojan record companies. When I say “job” this was more an indispensable service to Jamaican music enthusiasts on every level of investment than a mere employment opportunity.
Jamaican music was always essentially a song-by-song medium meaning albums were seldom more than collections of disparate singles – through the 1970s and early-1980s I can’t recall more than a dozen reggae long players recorded around a central thread making compilations incredibly important, either single artist anthologies or multi-artist collections, In terms of accessibility and affordability, from the Tighten Ups of the late 1960s the compilation album has been the way forward for so many reggae fans. Especially the younger end of the market.
Banged out at less than fifteen bob (75 pence) for a dozen tunes, a few of which might have made it into the charts, these collections weren’t to be sniffed at, but there was never too much effort involved on the part of the companies: with hindsight, selections seemed random, mastering spotty and the sleeves were usually somebody’s girlfriend doing her best to look sexy, although for a 14 year-old lad that was a bit of a bonus.
While a solid commercial proposition – minimum effort for maximum return – they did nothing to help reggae get taken seriously. Enter Steve Barrow, an in-demand compiler who proposed the radical idea that it cost no more to put out a product everybody could be proud of than it did to redefine the term “bare minimum”.
He threw himself into his work, following the same guidelines he set himself when behind the counter at Honest Jon’s – don’t patronise your listeners and don’t use the track listing as the chance to boast how big your record collection is. Steve’s compilations were put together with love, care and expertise – he knew the tunes, he knew what they stood for and he knew how they related to the audiences they were intended for. Once again, it was “give ‘em what they want and some of what they didn’t know they wanted too, but make sure it’s all in an order that will keep ‘em listening.”
The same with the sleeve notes he would write, they were never the pointless, aren’t-I-clever missives you often get on such albums – “and I believe King Tubby was wearing green underpants when he mixed these riddims” – they were informative, contextually rich accompanying essays that never failed to enhance the music. You came away from them enjoying how much more you now knew, and never with the feeling you’d been lectured. While as a bonus, Steve’s background in graphic design saw to it the reggae album sleeve elevated from an afterthought to actual artwork.
Setting up his own label, Blood & Fire, in collaboration with musician Bob Harding and with the backing of Mick Hucknall and Simply Red’s management team of Elliot Rashman and Andy Dodd, was a natural progression, freeing him up to present what reggae he liked in a manner he believed it deserved.
Blood & Fire specialised in deep roots material mostly from the second half of the 1970s, usually ignored by the mainstream when they dipped a toe into Jamaican music, and never straightforward to discover, collect and collate. But here Steve was in his element, unearthing long forgotten tapes, following songs down dubwise rabbit holes, making lost classics available again and educating an eager audience to the music’s true potential. Indeed the remastering of so much of the Blood & Fire catalogue was such that it was often like hearing the records you’d owned for years for the first time.
The packaging was fantastic as well, a 1990s take on 1970s Jamaican roots culture that presented the music in a way that was forward facing while never losing sight of the past. The sleeve notes too were more Steve Barrow Masterclass that meant you didn’t merely understand what they music was, but why it was as well.
With these standards set in every area of their process, Blood & Fire by itself went an long way to advancing and maintaining the cause of roots reggae in a post-Bob Marley world, and the high profile involvement of Mick Hucknall did it no harm at all. I journeyed up to Manchester, the label’s base, to write a feature for Q Magazine about the company’s aims and ideology and was pleasantly surprised by the level of commitment from the guys Steve had chosen to partner with – not that I should have been. Although it’s no longer with us, the label remains an entirely appropriate legacy for Steve Barrow.
I lost contact with Steve towards the end of the 1990s, although of course I bought a copy of his seminal Rough Guide to Reggae encyclopaedia. I heard he started a sound system and showed his skill as a selector extended from the compilation tracklist to the dance hall, instigated a Reggae Archive film collection capturing reggae artist interviews on film with the help of Don Letts and Rick Elgood, then launched another record label, Hotpot, which I imagine continued the standards set by Blood & Fire for reggae reissues.
Steve Barrow was never the easiest man in the world to get along with, but it was his strength of opinion and determination to stick to his principles that meant he did not rest in his mission to bring Jamaican music to the attention of a mainstream audience by demonstrating its depth and cultural heritage. He will be greatly missed by everybody that has had anything to do with the last 70-odd years of Jamaican music, although his musical choices, his writings and what he did to elevate reggae mean he will live on forever.
Lloyd Bradley is the author of the essenential Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King and Sounds Like London: 110 Years of Black Music in the Capital. His latest book, Funk Is Its Own Reward, was published by Constable on 28 May, 2026.
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