Willi Williams
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Willi Williams (also Willie Williams) is a Jamaican reggae and dub musician and producer best-known for his hit, "Armagideon Time", first recorded in 1978 at Studio One in Kingston. The song was covered by The Clash as the flipside of their "London Calling" single.
Biography
Williams was born in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica. He attended Trenchtown Comprehensive High School, where he was a classmate of Sly Dunbar. He first recorded at Studio One in the late 1960s, while he was still in school. In 1969 he started his own record label called Soul Sounds and among the artists he recorded was Delroy Wilson. He moved to Canada in 1974 and split his time between Toronto, Ontario and Kingston.
He worked with keyboardist Jackie Mittoo and producer Coxsone Dodd on "Armagideon Time", which was the title track of an album released in 1978. The song was later covered by The Clash, featured in the film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai and on the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas soundtrack (is featured on the Reggae radio station K-JAH Radio West but not on the soundtrack album). Another of Williams' songs is Messenger Man, the title track of a 1980 album.
In 2003, he released the career-spanning anthology album, From Studio One to Drum Street, on his own Drum Street label
As of 2007, Willi was working on an album with an up-and-coming Toronto artist named Visionary.
