Millie Small, a Jamaican ska singer who rocketed up the pop charts in 1964 with “My Boy Lollipop,” died Tuesday in England. She was 73.
Small died after suffering a stroke, Chris Blackwell, her longtime friend and founder of Island Records, told the Jamaica Observer.
“My Boy Lollipop” reached No. 2 in the U.S. and British pop charts. The song remained on the Billboard Hot 100 for 12 weeks during the summer of 1964. The song had more than 7 million sales, which makes it one of the top-selling ska songs of all time, according to the BBC.
Jamaican singer Millie Small, best known for smash hit My Boy Lollipop, has died aged 73 following a stroke. RIP. pic.twitter.com/U0GnL8HP4J
— Lorna Cooper🏴🇯🇲🇬🇾 (@Coops_tv) May 6, 2020
Small, who was 17 when her biggest hit was released, made three albums during her career.
“I hadn’t planned on being a star, but I always wanted to be a singer, and I felt like it was my destiny to go to England," Small said years later, according to New Music Express.
Millicent Small was born Oct. 6, 1946, in Clarendon, Jamaica. She was one of seven brothers and five sisters and was raised on a sugar plantation, where her father was an overseer, the BBC reported.
She won a talent contest in Montego Bay when she was 12 and was recording in her teens for the Studio One label in Kingston, according to the network.
Blackwell took an interest in Small after releasing some of her records in the United Kingdom and brought her to London in 1963, the BBC reported.
'My Boy lollipop' 1964 led the way for Jamaican SKA music, her track made Global making history & developed the structures of Reggae Music.
— Andy Watson (@andywatson8) May 6, 2020
Millie Small also wrote the lyrics for a protest song she recorded in 1970, called “Enoch Power”.
Goodnight and rest in power Millie Small. pic.twitter.com/PvawhNpVD4
She toured in the UK before recording “My Boy Lollipop,” a song whose catchy, infectious hook wedged itself in between hits recorded by The Beatles and the Rolling Stones in 1964.
“I went with her around the world because each of the territories wanted her to turn up and do TV shows and such, and it was just incredible how she handled it," Blackwell told the Observer. "She was such a sweet person, really a sweet person.”
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