The name Carl Harvey conjures up images of the guitar virtuoso for the legendary Toots and the Maytals band but Carl is also a master musician, engineer, and producer in his own right with a 40-year portfolio, ranging from Reggae and Jazz to Funk and Hip Hop. He is a two-time Grammy Award winner, three-time Canadian Grammy-equivalent Juno Award winner, and has shared the stage with musical giants like The Rolling Stones, Dave Matthews, and Sheryl Crow and has toured the world extensively.
Carl was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and moved to Toronto, Canada with his family at a young age where the multicultural environment exposed him to a vast variety of different music genres. Inspired by the likes of Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley, Funkadelics, Price, James Brown, Miles Davis, Marvin Gaye, John Coltrane, Otis Redding, and, in particular, by the genius of Jimi Hendrix he picked up the guitar at the tender age of 13 and soon joined Crack of Dawn, Canada’s seminal black funk band, a group he still works with. The 1970s saw him joining Bunny Lee’s house band The Aggrovators and recording with Reggae greats such as Jackie Mittoo and Willi Williams before joining Toots and the Maytals in 1980 as the lead guitarist, where he has remained ever since. His prodigious musical umbrella boasts productions with various artists such as Messenjah, Kim Richardson, and Sway and also critically acclaimed solo projects such as Ecstasy of Mankind, The Times, and Unleashed.
Following the untimely and unfortunate death of Toots Hibbert in 2020, Carl has busied himself with the marketing of the sublime ‘Rastacasta’ by Carl Harvey Instruments Inc, a guitarist’s guitar born in 2012 out of the precise demands of the studio and stadiums. The global pandemic has not slowed him down as he has stayed producing, playing, and mixing projects for The Maytals Band, Crack of Dawn, Jason Wil-son, Pee Wee Ellis, and his own brother Rupert Harvey. Musically, he is still very much sought after for his innovative and creative approach to producing, soundscaping, and playing. After some 40 years in the business, and ever the musical omnivore, Carl has just begun scratching the surface of what is to come.
