Representative Albums: "Tribute to King Tubby Dub," "Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires," "Dub in the Roots Tradition"
Biography
Overton Brown was only 16 years old when producer/performer Errol "Don" Mais discovered and used the considerable talents of this adolescent dub whiz. Born in Kingston in 1960, the Scientist learned basic electronics from his TV repairman father, skills that made him very popular with the mobile DJs and their not-always-functioning sound systems. A friend suggested he visit the legendary dub producer/mixer King Tubby, not to remix records, but to get some transformers by which Scientist could build his own amplifiers. Soon the Scientist was an employee of Tubby's, fixing transformers and televisions, when one day, after an animated conversation about mixing records, Tubby challenged the Scientist to take a shot at remixing a record. Brimming with adolescent bravado, Scientist took Tubby's challenge, and that led to an extended apprenticeship in dub experimentation under Tubby's guidance. It was while at Tubby's that the Scientist developed his idiosyncratic dub style, playful and very psychedelic, loaded with echo explosions and blasts of feedback, a sound that caught the attention of Don Mais, who overheard the Scientist at the mixing board during a visit to Tubby's studio. With Mais supervising the production, Scientist, now all of 18, cut some wicked dub sides for the Roots Tradition label. At the end of the '70s, Scientist (now also referred to as "The Dub Chemist") left Tubby's to become the main engineer at Channel One Studios, and working with Henry "Junjo" Lawes, cut some best-selling dub LPs, only to leave for the greener pastures of Tuff Gong in 1982. In 1985, Scientist moved to Silver Springs, Maryland, where he lives and works as a recording engineer. ~ John Dougan, All Music Guide
Scientist, born Hopeton Brown in Kingston, Jamaica, 1960 (sometimes known as Overton Brown),[1] was a protégé of King Tubby (Osbourne Ruddock), one of the originators of dub music.
Brown was introduced to electronics by his father, who worked as a television and radio repair technician.[1] He began building his own amplifiers and would buy transformers from Tubby's Dromilly Road studio, and while there would keep asking Tubby to give him a chance at mixing. He was taken on at Tubby's as an assistant, performing tasks such as winding transformer coils, and began working as a mixer in the mid-1970s, initially creating dubs of reworked Studio One rhythms for Don Mais' Roots Tradition label, given his chance when Prince Jammy cut short a mixing session for Mais because he was too tired to continue.[1] The first hit record that he mixed was Barrington Levy's "Collie Weed".[1]
His name originated from a joke between Tubby and Bunny Lee. Having noticed Brown's forward thinking ideas and technical aspirations, Tubby remarked "Damn, this little boy must be a scientist."[2]
He left King Tubby's studio at the end of the 1970s and became the principal engineer for Channel One Studio when hired by the Hoo Kim brothers, giving him the chance to work on a 16-track mixing desk rather than the four tracks at Tubby's.[1][3]
He came to prominence in the early 1980s and produced many albums, his mixes featuring on many releases in the first part of the decade. In particular, he was the favourite engineer of Henry "Junjo" Lawes, for whom he mixed several albums featuring the Roots Radics, many based on tracks by Barrington Levy.[1][3] He also did a lot of work for Linval Thompson and Jah Thomas.[1] In 1982 he left Channel One to work at Tuff Gong studio as second engineer to Errol Brown.[1] He then emigrated to the Washington, D.C. area in 1985, again to work in studios as a sound engineer.[1]
He made a series of albums in the early 1980s, released on Greensleeves records with titles themed around Scientist's fictional achievements in fighting Space Invaders, Pac-Men, and Vampires, and winning the World Cup.[1]
