Former member of the Wailers Alvin “Seeco” Patterson, has died. He was 90 years old.
He passed away on Monday night. His cause of death has yet to be revealed.
Patterson was born as Francisco Willie in Havana, Cuba, to a Jamaican father whom he seldom saw, and a Panamanian mother named Celestina Hardin.
He took Alvin Patterson as a stage name, and acquired the nickname “Seeco” as a bastardisation of his birth name Francisco. He was also referred to at times as “Pep”, a nickname he had earned at school.As a child, Patterson emigrated to Jamaica with his parents, and lived first in Westmorland, where his father farmed, but then moved on to Kingston with his mother, after his parent’s marriage dissolved. As a young man, Patterson found work as a bauxite miner.
Patterson encouraged Marley as he began to experiment with singing, as Patterson himself had gained experience in the musical realm playing percussion with famed calypso artist Lord Flea, and with other mento-calypso combos, and it was Patterson who would first take the newly formed Wailers group, consisting of Marley, along with Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston, to Coxsone Dodd’s Studio One for their first audition, in July 1964. The resulting recording session, which took place only after Coxsone’s initial rejection of the Wailers, produced the hit single Simmer Down– – the record which launched Marley’s career.
While Patterson’s role in the original Wailers was small, his contributions gradually increased. When the original Wailers went on their first (and only) tour of the UK in 1973, Patterson acted as roadie. In December 1976, Patterson was rehearsing with Marley at 56 Hope Road when gunmen opened fire on the group, injuring Marley, wife Rita, and manager Don Taylor.Following Marley’s death, Patterson continued to play with the Wailers band.
