Steve Barrow (29 September 1945–30 May 2026)  - The Wire (opens in new tab)

Steve Barker gives a personal appreciation of the reggae historian and label runner who has died aged 80. When I moved to London for work in the late summer of 1975, just after that year’s Notting Hill carnival, the streets of North Kensington were still ablaze with the sounds of reggae and dub; it was inevitable that I would become more acquainted with a music that I had only come across previously in the occasional pop hit. By the time I started in radio three years later, I was a convert, ...