Ranking Joe (born Joe Jackson) began his long microphone career DJ’ing on El Paso Sound, giving him the classic live sound-system education so crucial to fine-tuning a DJ’s art. His recording debut came like many courtesy of Coxsone Dodd who voiced the classic “Gun Court” on the “Mean Girl” rhythm for Studio One Back then he was know as Little Joe but promotion was to come when Prince Tony rechristened him Ranking Joe to reflect his new found status in the reggae world. A debut set for Prince Tony was eagerly snapped up by DJ fans in 1977 and a year later Greensleeves s released the classic “Weakheart Fadeaway” set, produced by Joseph Hoo Kim at Channel One it captured an in-form Joe over a crucial set of Revolutionaries rhythms including “Fade Away”, “Rockfort Rock” and “Answer”.
Ranking Joe was now in the big league voicing hit after hit for a variety of top producers and joining up with selector Jah Screw to chat pon King Stur-Gav now the biggest sound on the Island his career really went into overdrive. The system was a tragic casualty of the violent 1980 Jamaican election campaign but by the end of the year he was experiencing another high as resident DJ on the legendary Ray Symbolic Hi-Fi tour of the UK. The tour gave Joe yet another push and that same year he dropped a second album for Greensleeves “Saturday Night Jamdown Style” this time over a crucial set of Junjo rhythms.
With the tragic demise of Ray Symbolic, Joe moved operations to New York and went on to shape the Big Apple reggae scene playing on sound-systems like Downbeat and African Love. Now, with more than five decades years in the business, his star is truly outernational always in demand from Europe to Australia to entertain fans old and new
