Audley Rollen Captivates a New Generation of Fans

Music has been a way of life for Audley Rollen for over 50 years. And even though he became an ordained minister of religion nine years ago, he still loves rocking to a reggae beat.

Audley Rollen and his wife, Dawn Marie.Rollen and his wife Dawn Marie are pastors of Wisdom Sabbath Ministry in Plantation, South Florida. Devout Seventh Day Adventists, each Saturday they share the Word with their congregation, but recently fans of a different order have discovered his secular songs from the early 1970s.

Songs like Repatriation, All That Glitters and Oh My Darling were hit songs in the United Kingdom’s reggae community during the 1970s. They have caught the attention of a new generation of fans in that country and Brazil. Rollen, a former Rastafarian, is keen to capitalize on this.

“This year we are planning to make some moves in those places, because Brazil has been going on for a while now and the UK thing turn up. So, we are going to follow through, probably late in the summer,” he said.

Rollen was born in Kingston and migrated to the United States in 1976, settling in Philadelphia where he became part of the reggae scene in the City of Brotherly Love. He toured the US and Canada for several years but never made his way to the UK which is recognized as reggae’s first major market.

“Traditionally, it was one of the first markets to embrace the music because you had quite a bit of Jamaican people living in England, so the music was exposed to different people. There’s a more deep-rooted following for reggae than the US, just like in Brazil,” said Rollen.

A similar case can be made for Brazil where fans are more taken with the music of roots acts like Jimmy Cliff, Israel Vibration, Gregory Isaacs, Dennis Brown and The Pioneers. Through videos sent to him by friends, Rollen has discovered people in the South American country are drawn to his early songs like Babylon System.

The music he made in Jamaica during the late 1960s and early 1970s were done with future greats like Aston “Family Man” Barrett and Carlton Barrett of The Wailers, bassist Robbie Shakespeare, keyboardist Tyrone Downie and producers Keith Hudson and Lloyd “Matador” Daley.

In recent years, Rollen has enjoyed a comeback with feel-good songs like Never Knew Love Till You and Close to You which both topped the South Florida Reggae Chart. His latest single is Hold Me, Thrill Me, a cover of American Mel Carter’s 1965 hit.