Surrounded by the burgeoning bluebeat music scene and a desire to sing, Millie entered the Vere Johns Opportunity Hour talent contest at the Palladium Theater in Montego Bay. Barbie Gaye's "My Boy Lollypop," which exemplified this new genre, became particularly popular on Jamaican sound systems in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The new ska sound, composed of off-beat guitar, upbeat tempo, horns, and piano, permeated airwaves during Millie's formative years in Kingston.
By the late 1950s, right around the time 12-year-old Millie moved to Kingston, the sound morphed away from American blues and R&B genres to become what is now known as ska. Music producers such as Sir Coxsone Dodd and Prince Buster began recording their own versions of the genres they loved with the help of local musicians. In the 1950s, as radios became commonplace in Jamaica, the influences of New Orleans artists such as Fats Domino and Barbie Gaye (which would eventually become the backbone of ska and reggae), led to a demand for more music. The area is in the heart of Kingston, the largest city in Jamaica, and a hub for notable jazz musicians in the early 20th century. Millie Small Won 10 Shillings In A Talent Contest At The Age Of 12ġ2-year-old Millie Small left home to live with some relatives in Love Lane in Kingston, Jamaica. "I would say she's the person who took ska international," legendary producer Chris Blackwell told the Jamaica Observer the day after Small's death, at age 73. Her biggest hit, "My Boy Lollipop," topped charts in 1964, managing to hold the number two spot behind the Beach Boys' "I Get Around." Her greatest gift to the international music community, however, is bringing the sound of Jamaican ska to the world.
Only a few years later, at 16, Millie's star began to rise in the Jamaican pop style known as bluebeat, which was named after the Blue Beat record label.
At the age of 12, she started performing song and dance routines for her seven brothers and five sisters, before that she showed no interest in singing, according to her brother Leebert.
Born in Clarendon Parish, Jamaica, on October 6, 1946, Millie was the daughter of an underpaid sugar plantation overseer. Millicent Dolly Small never wanted to be a star, but she always knew she was destined to be a singer. Small, who died May 5, 2020, did so as the most internationally successful female Jamaican pop artist. Teenager Millie Small was the first success story for Chris Blackwell's Island Records, which would later introduce the world to reggae stars Toots and the Maytals, and Bob Marley. Millie came out of the bluebeat scene, which evolved into ska, a musical style that remains popular to this day in the U.S. "My Boy Lollipop" was an international hit for Millie Small in 1964, as well as an introduction to the musical culture of Jamaica.
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