MICHAEL 'Mikey Dread' Campbell, the maverick broadcaster who introduced underground reggae to mainstream radio in the late 1970s through his Dread At The Controls programme, died last Saturday in the United States.

Campbell, who was 54 years old, died six months after he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. A posting on his website, dreadatthecontrols.com, said he passed away at his sister's home in Connecticut.

Dread At The Controls aired for two years on the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) where Campbell began working as a transmitter engineer in 1976.

Cutting-edge music

He played the cutting-edge music of producers King Tubby and Augustus Pablo and dancehall singers like Linval Thompson.

In a 2003 interview, the Portland-born Campbell listed Dread At The Controls as one of his biggest achievements.

"Before that show come along, people at the JBC wanted to play classical music which had no relevance to Jamaican people," he said.

Campbell joined the JBC at a time when the hot jocks were the established Errol 'E.T.' Thompson and a rising Barry 'Barry G' Gordon. He said he was given the go-ahead to start Dread At The Controls in 1977 by Ossie Harvey and Rupert Linton who were senior members of the JBC production department.

The show's time slot was a novelty. It started at midnight on Sundays and ran for four and a half hours; before Dread At The Controls, the JBC signed off at midnight.

Two years later, Campbell and the JBC parted ways after the station declined his request to give Dread At The Controls a prime time slot. He went into record production full time, working with the influential British punk band The Clash and later Guns 'N' Roses guitarist Izzy Stradlin.

Michael Campbell is the second noted Jamaican music personality to die in three weeks. Producer Joe Gibbs died on February 21.