Judith Veronica Mowatt, OD
(born 1952)
Jamaican reggae artist, Producer, Songwriter
the first female singer nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of reggae music
She was also a member of the I Threes, the trio of backing vocalists for Bob Marley & The Wailers
Mowatt was born in Gordon Town, St. Andrew Parish, Jamaica. At the age of 13, she became a member of a dance troupe that toured Jamaica and other islands in the Caribbean. Her initial ambition was to become a registered nurse. Her earliest musical influences were Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Curtis Mayfield, Dionne Warwick, Bob Marley, Marcia Griffiths, The Staple Singers, and The Soulettes. A coincidental meeting with two teenage girls who were earlier in her dance troupe led to the formation of the Gaylettes, in 1967. In 1974, Mowatt got her big break by joining Bob Marley’s backing vocal trio the “I Threes”.
Her Black Woman album (Ashandan, 1979) came out the same year as I Three member Marcia Griffiths’s album At Studio One. It is considered by many critics to be the greatest reggae album by a female artist. It was also the first reggae album recorded by a woman acting as her own producer.
She became the first female singer nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of reggae music when her Working Wonders album was nominated in 1985.
Formerly a member of the Rastafari movement, in the late 1990s she converted to Christianity and now sings Gospel music.
In 1999 the Jamaican government made her an Officer of the Order of Distinction for “services to music”.