Alvin "Seeco" Patterson
Alvin "Seeco" Patterson (born Francisco Willie, 30 December 1930, Havana, Cuba) is a percussionist. He was a member of The Wailers Band.
Biography
Alvin "Seeco" Patterson was the percussionist in Bob Marley and the Wailers, and one of Marley's closest confidants and friends. Although known to the world as "Seeco", he was in fact born Francisco Willie, in Havana, Cuba, on 30 December 1930 to a Jamaican father whom he seldom saw, and a Panamanian mother named Celestina Hardin. He took Alvin Patterson as a stage name, and acquired the nickname "Seeco" as a bastardisation of his birth name Francisco. He was also referred to at times as "Pep", a nickname he had earned at school. As a child, Patterson emigrated to Jamaica with his parents, and lived first in Westmorland, where his father farmed, but then moved on to Kingston with his mother, after his parent's marriage dissolved. As a young man, Patterson found work as a bauxite miner. In 1957, Patterson attempted to emigrate to the United States in search of better work. In the midst of his move, however, the historic Kendal train crash occurred in Jamaica on 1 September, prompting Patterson to return to the island to seek out relatives he feared might have been among the nearly 200 dead and 700 injured. His plans to emigrate were then permanently put on hold, and he returned to Kingston, and to the life of a Bauxite miner.