Welcome to Season Seven! In this episode, we bring you…the woman known as the "Mother Theresa of Reggae! Sister Mary Ignatius, a white Jamaican Catholic nun dedicated her life to the Alpha Boys' School in Kingston, where she taught football, cricket, boxing, table tennis and dominoes – but most importantly, music. A lover of jazz and blues, she inspired hundreds of "wayward boys" to become professional musicians, including future Skatalites Tommy McCook and Don Drummond, trombonist Rico Rodriguez and Leslie Thompson, the first black conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. Without Sister Mary Ignatius, who died at the age of 81 in 2003, we might never have had reggae. DLS co-founder Katy Derbyshire tells the story of the woman known to her young charges as "Sister Iggy." And she joins host/producer Susan Stone to introduce this episode, the first of Season Seven of the Dead Ladies Show Podcast, and to wish you all a happy International Women's Day on March 8th! Go see some fun images of Sister Mary Ignatius Davies and explore our delightful info links on our episode page: deadladiesshow.com/podcast/2024/03/08/podcast-69-sister-mary-ignatius Definitely give a listen to the internet radio site for the Alpha Boys School here: https://www.alphaboysschoolradio.com/ Our theme music is "Little Lily Swing" by Tri-Tachyon. Don't forget, we have a Patreon! Thanks to all of our current supporters! Please consider supporting our transcripts project and our ongoing work: www.patreon.com/deadladiesshowpodcast You can see us in Berlin on March 27th. Tickets here:

https://tinyurl.com/DLSMarch27

If you're in New York, you can go to a show March 19th. Tix: https://tinyurl.com/DLSNYCMarch19 Drop us a line [email protected] or find us on social media @deadladiesshow Thanks for listening! We'll be back with a new episode next month. **** The Dead Ladies Show is a series of entertaining and inspiring talks about women who achieved amazing things against all odds, presented live in Berlin and beyond. This podcast is based on that series. Because women's history is everyone's history. The Dead Ladies Show was founded by Florian Duijsens and Katy Derbyshire. The podcast is created, produced, edited, and presented by Susan Stone.