March 8th marks International Women’s Day and we can’t think of a greater woman to honor than our very own Patricia ‘Miss Pat’ Chin. Miss Pat, as she is affectionately called, is co-founder of VP Records which began as Randy’s Records in Jamaica.
Miss Pat has worked with and supported just about every producer and musician from Jamaica. Her purview, as one of the few women who began by working behind the counter selling records, to then launching VP Records, the worlds largest Reggae record label, gave her an opportunity to see music from several angles – from the making to the business of selling.
In her book ‘Miss Pat, My Reggae Music Journey,’ Miss Pat describes how she and Vincent were introduced to Bob and his talent. She says ‘Lee Perry would book the studio for a month at a time. This was the case when he was working on early Bob Marley and The Wailers songs. Their albums, Soul Rebels and Soul Revolution were recorded at Studio 17, as well as some of the Wailers’ early self-productions like “Lively Up Yourself” and “Trench Town Rock.”
At that time, Bob Marley was just another singer and not seen as anyone special, but Lee Perry’s ear for a different kind of sound helped to set Bob on his way to fame.
In fact, when Bob first started coming around to Randy’s at fifteen or sixteen, we didn’t even know he was an artist. We knew he sang with a couple other guys, but because he was so quiet, we didn’t know much about him. We also did a few early recordings with The Wailers but were a little late riding that wave because it coincided with Bob’s first few hits abroad. Meanwhile back at Randy’s we were suddenly scrambling to pull out of storage all the old Bob Marley records that had not been sold before.’