Basslines that defined reggae

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.

Aston "Family Man" Barrett (1946-2024) was the bassist, arranger and bandleader of Bob Marley and the Wailers, whose melodic basslines anchored the group's Island-era catalogue. With his brother Carlton on drums he formed the Wailers rhythm section, having first played together in Lee "Scratch" Perry's Upsetters.

Errol "Flabba" Holt, bass player and anchor of the Roots Radics, the band whose heavy, spacious playing defined early-1980s dancehall and the Junjo Lawes era. The Radics backed Barrington Levy, Yellowman, Gregory Isaacs's Night Nurse period and countless sessions; Holt's basslines are the floor those records stand on.

Robbie Shakespeare (27 September 1953 - 8 December 2021) was a Jamaican bassist and producer who, with drummer Sly Dunbar, formed the celebrated rhythm partnership Sly and Robbie. From the mid-1970s the pair anchored countless sessions and their own Taxi label, backing Black Uhuru, Peter Tosh, Gregory Isaacs and many others while also producing crossover work for Grace Jones and Bob Dylan. Shakespeare, admired for his heavy, melodic basslines, died at age 68 following kidney surgery.

Bassist and singer whose lines run through five decades of Jamaican music. He sang with the Termites and solo — "Slaving" is his — but his deeper mark is as a session and touring bassist, above all leading We the People Band, the backing band of choice for major stage shows and for Dennis Brown's classic period.

The Hoo Kim brothers' studio on Maxfield Avenue, opened in 1972, and the home of the rockers sound: Sly Dunbar's militant drumming with the Revolutionaries as house band drove a harder, four-square feel that displaced the one drop as the dominant rhythm of the mid-1970s. Channel One's recuts of Studio One rhythms were both tribute and commercial rivalry, and its output — with the Mighty Diamonds, the Wailing Souls, Junior Byles and others — defined the sound of roots reggae's peak years.

Clifton "Jackie" Jackson is a Jamaican bassist and prolific 1960s-70s session musician who later became a member of Toots and the Maytals, including on Paul Simon's 1971 "Mother and Child Reunion" recorded in Jamaica. He shared in the group's 2005 Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album.

Val Douglas is a Jamaican bassist who came to Kingston from rural Clarendon and became one of the most in-demand session players of the 1970s, anchoring the Now Generation Band and recording for Duke Reid, Joe Gibbs and Lee "Scratch" Perry behind Bob Marley, Dennis Brown, Burning Spear and Delroy Wilson.

Earl "Bagga" Walker was a Studio One bassist who began as a self-taught guitarist in Trench Town before switching to bass, going on to record with The Gladiators, Augustus Pablo, Dennis Brown, Half Pint and Sugar Minott. He died in December 2023 in Maryland, US, at age 75.

Bertram "Ranchie" McLean began as a Studio One guitarist in the 1960s before becoming the bassist of Skin, Flesh and Bones and then The Revolutionaries, Channel One's house band, laying down bass on classics such as The Mighty Diamonds' "Right Time". With keyboardist Ansel Collins, bassist Lloyd Parks and drummer Sly Dunbar he formed the core of Skin, Flesh and Bones, the band that became the Revolutionaries. His bass is on records including Dillinger's "CB 200". He died in Jamaica on 14 November 2012, aged 64, having been ill for some time and having undergone surgery for prostate cancer two years earlier; his son Antoine McLean confirmed the death. He is survived by eight children and several grandchildren.