Peter Anthony Morgan, the lead singer of the reggae band Morgan Heritage, a Grammy-winning group formed by singer Denroy Morgan’s children that became known for its diverse influences and tight vocal harmonies, died Sunday.
He was 46, the Associated Press reported. Mr Morgan’s family confirmed his death in a statement on the band’s social media platforms. The statement did not give his age or give a cause of death.
Mr. Morgan, known as “Peetah”, started with Morgan Heritage seven of his brothers in 1994. The group later became a quintet.
For some early albums, including “Protect Us Jah” (1997) and “Don’t Haffi Dread” (1999), Morgan Heritage collaborated with Bobby Digital, one of Jamaica’s most influential producers. Before a show at New York’s Irving Plaza in 1999, a New York Times music critic wrote that the band “holds to 1970s reggae traditions in harmony singing and thoughtful messages.”
But Morgan Heritage was more than a throwback to an earlier era of reggae. AllMusic.com described his sound as a mix of “elements of roots reggae, lovers rock, soul, R&B, calypso, gospel, dub and, occasionally, funk and dancehall”.
Several Morgan Heritage albums were highly successful on the Billboard reggae charts. One of them, “Strictly Roots” won best reggae album of the year at the 2015 Grammy Awards. The band’s album “Avrakedabra” won the same award two years later, but lost to “Stony Hill” by Damian Marley, his son Bob Marley.
Information about Mr. Morgan’s survivors was not immediately available. His family’s statement described him as a husband, father, son and brother.
Peter Anthony Morgan was one of more than two children of Denroy Morgan, a Jamaican-born reggae star who died in 2022. Peter Morgan and some of his siblings were educated in Springfield, Massachusetts, where their grandmother lived, the Hartford Courant newspaper reported in 1999. Their father was living in New York at the time.
“We’d go to school during the week, then Friday night we’d come to New York and rehearse with my dad all weekend, come back Monday in time for school,” Peter Morgan’s brother Mojo told the Courant .
Morgan Heritage began touring in the early 1990s and released their first album, “Miracle,” on MCA Records in 1994, according to VP Records, a reggae label that released many of the band’s other albums.
Their latest album, ‘The Homeland’, released in 2023, highlighted reggae’s African roots and featured collaborations with Jamaican and African musicians. The project came about after the band played a show in Kenya in 2015 and began spending time there and in Ghana, and realized how connected Jamaica remained to Africa, Peter Morgan told Kaboom Magazine. He said he hopes the album, delayed by the pandemic, will shine a light on the band’s legacy.
“The body of work, the catalog – you want to be remembered as some of the best music ever made over the years,” he said, adding that he hoped the music would “inspire generations to come”.
