by Howard Campbell
KINGSTON, Jamaica – Evergreen singer & Queen of Reggae, Marcia Griffiths will celebrate her 55th anniversary in the music business this year with a tour and new album, according to veteran booking agent Copeland Forbes.
The album, Timeless, is produced by Donovan Germain and is scheduled for release in June by Tad’s International Record.
Forbes said the 70-year-old Griffiths will also perform on “a series of festivals” including Rototom Sunsplash in Spain and Boomtown in London, both in August.
The name of the tour is ‘Marcia Griffiths Celebrating 55 Years Timelessly’. Forbes was also in charge of Griffiths’ ‘Marcia Griffiths and Friends’ 50th anniversary shows in 2014 which played major gigs in Jamaica, the United States and Europe.
He said she remains in demand because of her appeal to mature and young fans.
“She covers the spectrum of reggae. Even on this new album she does collaborations with a lot of younger artists like Romain Virgo and Busy Signal so she is still in demand,” Forbes explained.
Griffiths has been recording since the early 1960s. She had a number of hit songs for producer Clement “Coxson” Dodd including Feel Like Jumping, Truly and Really Together, a duet with Bob Andy.
In the 1970s, Griffiths, Rita Marley and Judy Mowatt comprised the I Three, Bob Marley’s harmony group, but she still had a solid solo career thanks to songs such as Stepping Outa Babylon and Dreamland, followed by the Bunny Wailer-written Electric Boogie in 1983.
She had a remarkable comeback in the 1990s with Germain’s Penthouse Records which had a number of young acts like Buju Banton and Wayne Wonder on its roster. Fire Burning, I Shall Sing and Live On are some of the hit songs she did for that label.
