Little Roy Returns Home at 73, Re-Records Classics and Plans New EP

Little Roy, born Earl Alexander Lowe, made the trip back to Jamaica recently to re-record "Fight for Jah Love" and begin reintroducing his catalogue to a wider audience, with a new EP and album both in progress. The visit marked a significant moment for the veteran singer, who has spent most of the past three decades living in England after settling in the United Kingdom in the early 1990s.

"Coming home was good, as some things got to be known to the wider public about my original songs," the "Tribal War" and "Prophecy" entertainer said. He confirmed he is assembling a new EP that he intends to master and release himself, a deliberate choice informed by long-standing battles over royalties and catalogue control. "Currently, I'm putting an EP together. I will master and release them as I've learned my lesson in terms of the business of music. Though I haven't gotten most of what is due to me in terms of royalties, some are slowly trickling in, so I am good and determined to continue to live my life without any regrets."

At 73, he is simultaneously working on a new album, and he said he still has a knack for writing good songs. The royalty situation, while unresolved in full, has shifted enough that he described himself as finally receiving some of what he is owed.

His story in music goes back to Kingston's studios in the 1960s, when he was recording before most people his age had finished primary school. "The first song I did when I was 12 years old was for Coxsone Dodd. I was going to St Francis Primary then. By the time I started high school, I sang for Prince Buster and by 1969, I was working with a producer named Lloyd Matador who had an electronics shop on Waltham Park Road. So I would walk from school to his place in the evenings after school."

It was Prince Buster who gave him the stage name that stuck, despite the fact that "Roy" appears nowhere in his birth name, Earl Alexander Lowe. "I guess he looked at me and thought I was royal," Little Roy said.

His path out of Jamaica came through touring. After hitting the road with Gregory Isaacs and Glen Browne in the late 1980s, he decided to make London his permanent base, spending a few years in America before settling in the UK in the early 1990s. Jamaica, he said, is still where the heart is.

With "Fight for Jah Love" freshly re-recorded and both an EP and album in the pipeline, Little Roy at 73 is making his claim to his own catalogue on his own terms.