How The Who’s Zak Starkey—Son Of The Beatles’ Ringo Starr—Went From Rock To Reggae

Zak Starkey’s move to Reggae isn’t exactly shocking, but it is interesting.  The now 56-year-old English rock musician is the son of The Beatles drummer Ringo Starr and has served as the drummer in two legendary rock bands, The Who and Oasis.

Starkey has detailed how covering a Peter Tosh song led him to launch and helm a Grammy Award-winning Reggae label. “If you said five or six years ago, ‘You’re gonna be living in Jamaica and making records with Sly & Robbie…’ I would’ve just thought, ‘No, you’re crazy, man!’”

In 2015, Starkey and his partner (now wife) Sharna “Sshh” Liguz began recording tracks for Issues, a covers album premised on playing new versions alongside the original musicians. The project was intended to raise funds for the U.K.-based Teenage Cancer Trust—a charity backed by Starkey and his fellow members of The Who. During a recording session with American drummer Gil Sharone, Starkey began praising Peter Tosh and, a few moments later, found himself speaking with the Stepping Razor’s former bandmate.

“Gil handed me the phone and I went, ‘Hello.’ And the guy goes, ‘It’s Santa!’ Wow. Wow,” he recalled with Donovan Watkis on World Music Views last week. Carlton “Santa” Davis ’ reputation as a top-ranking Reggae drummer preceded him; Starkey was starstruck. The next day, Starkey and Sshh headed to an L.A. studio to record with Soul Syndicate members Santa Davis, George “Fully” Fullwood, and Tony Chin – all stalwarts of Jamaican music.

During that first session, the group cut renditions of two Peter Tosh tracks: Mystic Man, and Get Up, Stand Up. They injected the latter with rock-heavy production as Sshh belted out the Marley and Tosh-penned lyrics. Though Mystic Man still hasn’t surfaced, the release of Get Up, Stand Up cranked this flow of events into full spate.

A few concerts and a music video for the track followed. Later in 2016, that visual made its way to Kingsley Cooper, a Jamaican entrepreneur and curator, who invited the musicians to play at the grand opening of the Peter Tosh Museum in Kingston. They agreed, performed, and were asked to return the following year. In the interim, Starkey and Sshh discussed plunging further into the Reggae scene: “We just had a thought about making a record since we were going back to Jamaica. We thought of the title Red, Gold, Green and Blue.”

They returned to the island in 2017 and brought their ideas to bassist Robbie Shakespeare. Starkey recalled: “We got a good relationship going and then I said to Robbie, ‘Hey, look, man, we’re gonna make this record.’ And he goes ‘We’ll do it.’” They assembled an all-star cast of musicians including Toots & the Maytals, Freddie McGregor, and Sly Dunbar, among others. The result was a 13-track compilation filled with blues songs re-interpreted in a reggae style.

In March of 2019, Starkey and Sshh premiered the Mykal Rose-sung roots rendition of I Put A Spell On You, the first release issued through their new imprint, Trojan Jamaica. The name is a direct reference to the eminent but now defunct British record label Trojan Records UK, as Starkey reflected: “We put it to everyone. Why don’t we call it Trojan Jamaica and sort of bring it back?” With backing from UMG through a distribution deal and license for the name, the stage was set for their first wave of releases.

Trojan Records UK, which went into liquidation in 1975 without paying royalties to its artists, had a catalog of over 10,000 songs including early cuts from Jimmy Cliff, Bob Marley, and Desmond Decker.

“It took 2 years to convince Jimmy Cliff that we weren’t those guys,” Starkey said of the skepticism he and his wife experienced in Jamaica at first.  “Because of the Trojan stigma and the license came through BMG, so we change the name and now we are kinda free and that feels good.”

Since Red Gold Green and Blue debuted in 2019, Trojan Jamaica’s subsequent releases include Solid Gold, a U-Roy tribute album featuring Ziggy Marley and Jesse Royal, among others; Red Gold Green and Blue RMXZ, a remixed version of their debut; Got To Be Tough, Toots Hibbert’s final album before passing and the one that scored a Grammy for Best Reggae Album in 2021.

Still, like any other business, Trojan Jamaica, now rebranded as Jamaica Sound System, needs to turn a profit to survive. Prompted on how Reggae and Dancehall can flourish in the current music economy, Starkey reflected: “Reggae represents 5% of the music market so the big music companies see it as a niche market.” He continued: “If you see it as a niche market, then it’s gonna be a niche market.”

“The people that end up controlling the music are judging it, not on the music, they’re judging it on the numbers. They’re not judging it on art. They’re not judging it on the musical worth. They’re judging it on likes.”