ENTITY · STUDIO

Studio One

Well supported

Clement "Coxsone" Dodd's studio and label at 13 Brentford Road, Kingston — the closest thing Jamaican music has to a foundation. From 1963 onward it moved through ska, rocksteady and early reggae, and the rhythms cut in its rooms became the raw material for everything after: the Studio One catalogue is versioned, toasted over and sampled to this day, and a working knowledge of it is effectively a working knowledge of the music.

Its house bands (the Skatalites, later Sound Dimension) and its roll of first recordings — The Wailers, Alton Ellis, Burning Spear, Dennis Brown, Marcia Griffiths, Horace Andy and many more — make it the single most connected node in this archive. Officially the Jamaican Recording and Publishing Studio, it was built out of a former nightclub at 13 Brentford Road in Cross Roads, which Dodd acquired in 1962 and converted with his father's help — the first Black-owned recording studio in Jamaica.

The address served as studio, label headquarters and shopfront at once, which is what earned it the "Motown of Jamaica" comparison. Days before Dodd's death in May 2004 the Jamaican government renamed Brentford Road as Studio One Boulevard.

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At a glance

Type: Studio →
Era: Ska and independence-era culture →
Confidence: Well supported
Sources: Wikipedia (Studio One); Bass Culture; Jamaica Gleaner.

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Connections

Media & sources

Footage

The History of Studio One — the #1 sound of Jamaica (documentary)

YOUTUBE · rights discovery only · documentary

Documentary on Studio One and Coxsone Dodd's Brentford Road operation. Discovery-only external reference pending editorial rights review.

Source link ↗

Articles & sources

Open source ↗

Discogs — Studio One label page

WEB · rights discovery only · source reference

Clickable Discogs source URL for label/catalogue verification; external reference only.

Source link ↗

In stories

Story · Well supportedThe house bands that built the Jamaican sound

Singers and producers changed by the week; the studio band underneath them almost never did.

Story · Well supportedA label map from Studio One to VP

How Jamaica's one-producer labels, London's licensing houses and a family firm in Queens joined into a single map of the music business.

Story · ProbableThe Downbeat and the Trojan: How Two Kingston Rivals Built the Sound System

In 1950s Kingston, Coxsone Dodd's Downbeat and Duke Reid's Trojan turned rival dances into the foundation of an entire music industry.

Story · Well supportedThe producer owned the riddim

In Jamaica's foundation years the man who paid for the session owned the sound - and often the shop, the studio and the label too.

Story · Well supportedReissue labels and the global archive

Archival labels did not make the music, but they decided which of it the world could hear, and their sleeve notes became the first real scholarship the records ever had.

Story · Well supportedBasslines that defined reggae

Reggae is often called bass music; these are some of the hands that made the bassline the lead instrument.

Story · ProbableThe backing singers step out front

Many of reggae's most durable solo careers started in someone else's harmony stack.

Debate & reception

What people argued about this record — two documented positions each time, kept apart from verified fact. Browse every argument in the archive →

Debate

Who authors a riddim? Bass, keys and the credit for the version

One side

Session musicians as uncredited authors

The other

Producers and labels as rights-holders

A long-running, documented industry debate framed from both sides. One position holds that the session musicians who wrote the foundation basslines and keyboard figures - the players behind rhythms like Real Rock and Full Up - are the uncredited authors of the version tradition. The other holds that authorship and rights sit properly with the producers and labels who commissioned, owned and marketed the masters. Neutral; a matter of public discussion, not a claim against any person.

Read the argument →