Chart Sounds

Profile on Keith Wint

Keith Wint, better known as Jah Benji Maccabees (Keith Wint, Born March 1955, in the Parish  of Coleyville, Manchester Jamaica]), is a Jamaican/British record producer and singer who was a key figure in the creation of many classic reggae recordings dating from the early 1980s. Wint gained his nickname "Jah Benji" after the twelve tribes Rasta, as one of the twelve brothers of the tribe of Israel. In the latter half of the 1970s he worked as mechanical engineer at Hawker Sydley Aero Space, he began playing music when he was just five years old by playing the Violin, at Woodbury Down Primary School. He started producing music at the age 0f 23, his first release being "Children of the Forth Generation by Imru Asher", issued on his own Maccabees label. While working at Easy Street Studio he produced Dennis Brown and played a major role in re launching his career, his first major success as a producer was "Ole Man River" in March 1983, initially released in a pressing of 500 on his Maccabees label, but reissued the following year on his Chart Sounds label under licence to EMI records through Jet Star Phonographic, and going on to sell over 80,000 copies in Jamaica and the Caribbean. Around the same time he released a song with John Holt singing Lean on me, a cover version of Lionel Ritchie’s song, which was very popular through out Europe and America.   In the early 1990s, Keith Wint became one of UK's most in-demand producers, with the likes of Dennis Brown, John Holt, Junior Delgado, Sugar Minott, Philip Fraser, Alton Ellis, Tyrone Taylor, Trevor Walters, Jackie  Mitto, Jean Rondo, Colour Man, Tuxedo, Ernest Wilson, Hughie Izaachar, Jean Adebambo, Christine McNabb, Bobby Blue, Pablo Diamond, Sly & Robbie, Darbaz Band, Roots Radics, and more recently Freddie McGregor, Determine and Demolition Man, all using his services. He also continued to record himself. Singing songs like (Stepping over Shadows,) written by his childhood friend Fitzroy Hughes, whose father was a musician with a band. Keith used to go to Fitzroy’s home and listen to Fitzroy's father while he rehearsed with his band. The sounds of the three piece horn sections , the Drum and the Bass left a lasting impression on Keith and the music bug was in his blood, as if his life depended on it.  The late 1990s saw him still very active as a producer, but his output in the late 1990s was significantly less He began to build his own studio and is working on reissues of much of his back catalogue, as well as new recordings. He continues to produce new material.