Born in Jamaica on January 29th 1949, Leroy Sibbles has become an accomplished reggae musician and producer. After beginning to sing and perform on guitar in the 1950s, he rose to prominence in the 1960s as the lead singer of the reggae trio The Heptones. Sibbles and Heptones co-founder, Barry Llewellyn met in the mid 1960s, later recruiting Ken Lack to the trio, and began recording with undeniable chemistry. The group became prolific during the “rocksteady” era, which became the dominant musical genre in Jamaica in the 60s. Beyond his work with The Heptones, Sibbles was a session bassist and arranger at Studio One, one of Jamaica’s renowned record labels and recording studios. He left his full-time duties at the studio to arrange sessions, sing harmony, and play bass for the groups such as The Soul Vendors and Soul Dimension. The bass that Sibbles and artists like him played helped define the rocksteady genre, with many of the rhythms and melodies being used to create the roots of the reggae music heard today. Sibbles stationed himself in Toronto in 1973, leaving the Heptones in 1976, before rejoining the group in 1991. Sibbles won the 1987 Juno Award for Reggae Recording of the Year for his track “Mean While”, has won multiple Canadian Reggae Music Awards, and was honored with an Order of Distinction from the Jamaican government in 2002. He is featured in the 2009 documentary Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae, and continues to produce, write, and collaborate with up-and-coming artists from his studio in Kingston.