Peter Tosh born 19 October, 1944

 Peter Tosh OM GCOT (19 October, 1944 – 11 September 1987) was a Jamaican musician and reggae singer. He cut a swathe through Jamaican music, both as a founding member of the Wailers and as a solo artist. He helped reggae cross over to mainstream audiences in the late '70s, touring with the Rolling Stones and scoring an international hit with a duet with Mick Jagger.

Tosh was born Winston Hubert McIntosh in Westmoreland, the westernmost parish of Jamaica. He was abandoned by his parents and "shuffled among relatives". When McIntosh was 15, his aunt died and he moved to Trenchtown in Kingston, Jamaica. McIntosh was educated in Bluefields up to age 17, then moved to Kingston to live with another aunt. He began an apprenticeship as a welder. McIntosh first learned guitar after watching a man in the country play a song that captivated him. McIntosh watched the man play the same song for half a day, memorizing everything his fingers were doing. McIntosh then picked up the guitar and played the song back to the man. The man then asked McIntosh who had taught him to play; McIntosh told him that he had.

During the early 1960s, as an aspiring musician, McIntosh went to vocal teacher Joe Higgs, who gave free music lessons to young people. Through his contact with Higgs, McIntosh met Robert Nesta Marley (Bob Marley) and Neville O'Reilly Livingston (Bunny Wailer). He then changed his name to Peter Tosh and the trio started singing together in 1962. Higgs taught the trio to harmonise and while developing their music, they would often play on the street corners of Trenchtown. By 1964, Tosh, Marley, and Bunny had formed the Wailing Wailers, with falsetto singer Junior Braithwaite, and backup singers Beverley Kelso and Cherry Smith. Initially, Tosh was the only one in the group who could play musical instruments. According to Bunny Wailer, Tosh was critical to the band because he was a self-taught guitarist and keyboardist, and thus became an inspiration for the other band members to learn to play. The four, buttressed by backing vocalists Cherry Green and Beverley Kelso, initially joined forces as the Teenagers before eventually settling on the moniker the Wailers.

                                   

Their debut single, "Simmer Down," was an instant hit, and the band's career was off and running. Throughout the remainder of the decade, Tosh lent his nimble guitar playing, singing, and occasional song writing talents to different iterations of the Wailers, as the group evolved from ska into instrumental tracks and eventually took on more of a rocksteady sound. In 1971, Tosh began pursuing a solo career in conjunction with his work with the Wailers. His debut single, "Maga Dog," was cut with producer Joe Gibbs. The single was a major hit and became a DJ favourite, and a series of additional Gibbs-produced Tosh tracks followed. As the Wailers' international breakthrough started, Tosh had less and less time to devote to his solo career. At the end of the Wailers' 1973 touring cycle, amid high tensions with Marley, Tosh quit the Wailers. There would be several reunion concerts over the next few years, but by 1975 the band was effectively over.

Tosh's first post-Wailers solo single, "Brand New Secondhand," was a new version of a song initially recorded by the Wailers for Lee Perry. However, it was Tosh's follow-up, "Legalize It," that packed the greatest punch and swiftly becoming a ganja anthem even though the single was slapped with a radio ban. In 1975, Tosh signed to the Columbia label in the U.S., and began work on his first solo album. Sessions were held in Kingston, at Treasure Isle studio, Miami, and even in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The resulting album, Legalize It, arrived in 1976 to acclaim both at home and abroad. With interest running high, Tosh set off on tour, accompanied by a band comprised of the Sly & Robbie rhythm section, keyboardists Earl "Wire" Lindo and Errol "Tarzan" Nelson, and guitarists Donald Kinsey and American Al Anderson. Sony/Legacy's Live & Dangerous album captured one of the band's steaming shows in Boston during this tour.

Like Marley, Tosh was moving effortlessly into a hybrid style that paid homage to American rock, but was still shot through with strong Jamaican roots. However, Tosh's lyrical vision was much darker than his former bandmate's. Sophomore album Equal Rights was even more uncompromising. Recording began just a few months after its predecessor was completed, and again featured the deep dread rhythms of Sly & Robbie, Earl Lindo's atmospheric keyboards, and Anderson's funky rock guitar, among a host of other guest Jamaican session men. Bunny Livingston also joined his former bandmate on backing vocals; Tosh himself had guest starred on Livingston's own solo album, 1976's Blackheart Man. More focused than Legalize It, Equal Rights revolved around the themes of the plight of Black people around the world, and particularly in South Africa and Rhodesia. This would be Tosh's final album for Columbia.

He signed on with the Rolling Stones' label, and that summer toured the States opening for the band. Mick Jagger and Tosh joined forces on a cover of the Temptations "(You Gotta Walk And) Don't Look Back," a song Tosh had previously recorded with the Wailers. Next album, Bush Doctor, was co-produced with Robbie Shakespeare and featured the Tamlins on backing vocals along with some of Jamaica's top session men and Keith Richards playing guitar on two tracks. Mystic Man arrived in 1979, and again featured a lighter touch, although songs like "Rumours of War" and "Jah Seh No" were as tough as anything Tosh had offered up in the past. 

Tosh returned in 1981 with Wanted Dread & Alive, which shot into the lower reaches of the U.S. chart, and he toured both the U.S. and Europe. After all that activity, the artist took the next year off, returning in 1983 with a cover of "Johnny B. Goode" that landed in the U.S. Top 50. The single was a taster for his new album, Mama Africa, which also arrived that year. Tosh then disappeared from the musical map for the next three years, and it wasn't until 1987 that a new single, "In My Song," appeared. In September, it was joined by the album No Nuclear War.

Staying at Tosh's home during this time was an old friend of the Wailers, Dennis Lobban. He left in a fury, however, after an argument with Tosh's girlfriend, Marlene Brown, returning a few days later on September 11 with a gang of friends. Lobban later claimed he had merely intended to threaten the artist, and perhaps rob him, but panicked. The end result was that Tosh and all six of his friends who were hanging out in the room were shot in the head. Tosh was killed, as was radio DJ Jeff "Free I" Dixon, and a third friend. Marlene Brown, ex-Soul Syndicate drummer Carlton "Santa" Davis, and two other friends miraculously survived. Lobban was arrested and sentenced to death.

Jamaica had forever lost one of its most talented artists and eloquent spokesmen. Tosh's legacy, however, remains undiminished, and since his death a number of compilations have appeared to safeguard his memory. Tosh was posthumously awarded Jamaica's fourth highest honour, the Order of Merit and was a Grand Companion of the Order of Distinction. 

(Edited from AllMusic & Wikipedia)