Pat Kelly possesses one of the great soul voices to come out of Jamaica. Influenced by the fantastic American singer Sam Cook, Pat Kelly could ride over any tune that came his way and with his outstanding falsetto voice always added a little magic to each recording.
Pat Kelly (born 1949,Kingston, Jamaica) began his singing career in 1967 when he replaced Slim Smith as lead singer of the Techniques, his voice working so well with the impeccable harmonies of Winston Riley and Bruce Ruffin. Their first hit for the mighty Duke Reid stable was a version of Curtis Mayfield's tune 'You'll Want Me Back' retitled 'You Don't Care' which held the Number 1 position in Jamaica for six weeks. Their next hit was another Curtis Mayfield cover of the Impressions 'Minstrel and Queen' again retitled for the Jamaican market as 'Queen Minstrel'. Further hits followed with such cuts as 'My Girl' and 'Love is Not a Gamble' before in 1968 Kelly decided to become a solo artist and hooked up with producer Bunny Lee. Bunny decided not to break the tried and tested formula and put Kelly on another Curtis Mayfield track 'Little Boy Blue' a style that suited his voice so well. This paid dividends and was followed with 'How Long' (will I love you)' which gave them the biggest selling Jamaican hit of 1969.àA track which broke the mould in that often used tradition where Jamaican tracks are sweetened for the foreign markets by adding string arrangements. This was reversed on this occasion as the tune had already been released in the UK and dubbed over with strings so came back to the Jamaican shores and released there. Another string to Pat Kelly's bow was his engineering skills. Having already spent a year in America studying electronics he put this to good use and became little known to many one of the chief engineers at Channel 1 studios in the late 1970's and early 1980's.