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Danny Sims. (Born November 9, 1936) was a music entrepreneur best known for discovering and signing reggae legend Bob Marley, to Marley's first major Record Label JAD Records.

Music Career

Sim’s entry into the music business came with the opening of Sapphire, the first black midtown Manhattan supper club. This followed by the formation of a promotions company at the behest of his business partner Johnny Nash. The company, Hemisphere, was responsible for all the top stars of the day – Sammy Davis, Brook Benton, Ben E. King, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding. Sims worked with everyone from Mohammed Ali to Malcolm X. Hemisphere became one of the biggest African-American agencies of the time when it absorbed Dinah Washington’s Queens label into the fold.

In 1964, Sims formed a record company JoDa Records and a music publishing company And Music Co, Inc with Johnny Nash in New York. JoDa’s first signing where the then unknown Gloria Gaynor and The Cowsills.

In 1965, Sims successfully engineered Johnny Nash a top five hit in the U.S. R&B chart with the ballad "Let's Move and Groove Together." That year, Sims and Nash moved to Jamaica. At that time he started a new music publishing business, Cayman Music, backed by then business partner Paul Castellano. Around 1966 or 1967, Neville Willoughby took Sims to a Rastafarian party where Bob Marley & The Wailing Wailers were performing. Members Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh and Rita Marley introduced Sims to the local music scene. Sims signed all four to an exclusive publishing contract with Cayman Music. In 1967 Sims co-founded JAD Records with Johnny Nash and producer Arthur Jenkins. It was to this record label that they signed Bob Marley & the Wailers to an exclusive recording contract. JAD released Nash's rocksteady single "Hold Me Tight" in 1968; it became a top-five hit in both the U.S. and UK. In 1971, Sims propelled Nash to another UK hit with his cover of Marley's "Stir It Up". From 1968 to 1972 Sims focussed his time between NYC and Jamaica signing artists as varied as The Coasters, Howard Tate, Lloyd Price and Byron Lee. In 1972 Sims felt he had taken Marley’s career as far as he could and created a situation whereby they sold his contract to Chris Blackwell’s Island Records so that he could be successfully marketed to the rock market Island had built. Sims continued to publish Bob Marley and Peter Tosh (until 1978) and had a huge influence in creating the song writing vision that propelled their careers meanwhile retaining the largest recordings of Bob Marley repertoire in existence – some 300 records. Danny said of his relationship with Bob, “I guess I was his godfather – that is in the street sense – I looked out for him.”

Sims parted ways with Nash in 1978 following which Nash retired from the industry. Sims then formed a music publishing company with Betty Wright (Namphuyo Publishing named after Wright’s daughter and Dan-Bet Publishing). The company’s first published song All This Love sung by Gwen McCrae has become most notable for being sampled by various artists across the decades most recently in the smash hit Rain on Me (Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande song).

In 1980 Sims returned to manage Marley arranging a large $10m advance on a new record deal and organised Marley to open for the Commodores at Madison Square Garden. The day after the concert, Marley collapsed while jogging in Central Park. Sims and another friend carried him to the hospital, where he was found to have terminal cancer. Marley died less than a year later at Sims residence in NYC. In 1992 following the much publicised Marley estate dispute between the Marley family Sims decided to sell many of his Cayman Music publishing titles written by Bob Marley back to the Marley Estate and Island Logic to give the estate a continued benefit of Marley's legacy. Sims remained close to the Marley family up until his death in 2012. In the 1990's, following a spell living in South Africa working with Hugh Masakela, Sims set up a project to document Marley's pre-Island catalogue of more than 300 tracks. In 1996 he worked with the Marley children, Cedella and Stephen, and the producer Junior Gong on the No1 Euro hit What Goes Around Comes Around.

Sim subsequently returned to music management, representing artists such as British R&B singer Mark Morrison, Brian Harvey and the Haitian rapper Wyclef Jean.

At that time of Sims death Sims had negotiated his life story to be told in a Hollywood Movie.

Biography

Born Danny Drew Sims, November 1936 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and educated at the University of Illinois. After service in the Army, where he played football with a team that traveled throughout Europe, he moved to New York in the late 1950s opening Sapphire the first black-owned super club in Manhattan. A friendship with then-struggling singer Johnny Nash led Sims into show business. Sims met Beverly Johnson in 1975 and married in 1977 fathering a daughter (Anansa Sims). In 1977 they divorced. Sims was then introduced to Betty Wright whom he had a relationship with until 1985. Sims spent his later years between South Africa, London, the Dominican Republic and finally Los Angeles where he was diagnosed with colon cancer and subsequently passed away in October 2012.