REGGAE legend Desmond Dekker has died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of just 64.
The original King Of Ska, Desmond was one of the best loved Jamaican musicians of the 1960s paving the way for not only Bob Marley but also British Two-Tone bands like The Specials and Madness.
His influence is still felt today – in the ska tunes of Rancid, The Ordinary Boys and Lily Allen – and Desmond was regularly playing sold-out gigs across Europe.
The singer's most famous songs include 007 (Shanty Town), It Miek, Get Up Edina and the Jimmy Cliff penned You Can Get It If You Really Want.
Bizarrely, to Brits of a certain generation, Desmond will be best remembered for the "Vitalite - that's right" advert which parodied his No1 hit Israelites.
The singer was born Desmond Adolphus Dacres in Kingston, Jamaica, and died in the early hours of Thursday morning at his home in Surrey, England.
His sister Lorna Dekker told the Jamaica Gleaner: "He wasn't sick, he just got a heart attack and died suddenly.
"The last time I spoke with him was last Friday just after he returned from a tour in Germany. At that time, he was saying that he was tired."
Desmond will be sadly missed by his peers on the music scene and joins the likes of Bob Marley, Laurel Aitken and Don Drummond in the great reggae band in the sky.
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Crowd pleaser ... star on stage
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Up until his death, the star would always joke about how his Jamaican accent meant touching lyrics about poverty would be misinterpreted by his Western audiences.
Talking about the success of Israelites – which became the first Jamaican-produced single ever to go to No1 in the UK – he told one biographer: "I was very surprised when that happened, because nobody could really understand what it was about.
"When I sang 'I get up in the morning, slaving for bread, sir', they thought I was saying 'I get up in the morning, baked beans for breakfast!'
"But still people loved it."
