[2] He attended Central Branch Conservatorium and then Kingston Technical High School, and was a regular reader of Popular Mechanics magazine, which led to him building his own radio, allowing him to listen to music from Cuba and the United States.
He left in 1950 to form the Sonny Bradshaw Seven (he claimed seven was his lucky number),[4] which became renowned for recreating the sound of a 14-piece orchestra with only seven musicians,[2] and later also led the Jamaican Big Band (aka the All Stars Band), which included some of Jamaica's top musicians including Joe Harriott, Dizzy Reece, Ernest Ranglin, "Little G" McNair, Dwight Pinkney, and Monty Alexander.
[5] His career also saw him work as a journalist, teacher (his pupils included saxophonist Dean Fraser and drummer Desi Jones), and broadcaster, with his Teenage Dance Party radio show on the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) (for which he was director of musical programmes, and leader of the JBC Orchestra) playing a key role in giving greater exposure to Jamaican music in the 1960s and 1970s.
[8] Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding paid tribute by calling Bradshaw "a pioneer whose contribution to Jamaica's music industry could not be quantified".
[8] Jamaica's High Commissioner to London, Burchell Whiteman, stated "It is almost impossible to imagine modern Jamaican music without the presence of Sonny Bradshaw.