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STORY · REGGAE

Rocksteady slows it down

Probable

When the tempo dropped, harmony and bass moved to the front.

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In short

Rocksteady cooled ska's pace, foregrounding vocal groups and basslines and setting the stage for reggae.

The fuller picture

Ska's reign was short. By around 1966, several studios were independently slowing the tempo down: one account credits Studio One drummer Joe Isaacs, who at fifteen replaced Skatalites drummer Lloyd Knibb and couldn't yet keep ska's pace, prompting musical director Jackie Mittoo to ease the beat back. A separate account credits guitarist Lynn Taitt, who said he told pianist Gladstone Anderson to slow things down while recording Hopeton Lewis's "Take It Easy." Whichever came first, the new sound took its name from Alton Ellis's song "Rocksteady" - and with the tempo down, vocal harmony groups and a heavier, more melodic bassline moved to the front of the mix, briefly defining Jamaican music before reggae took over by 1968.

What the sources say

Rocksteady's origin and "first record" claims: Wikipedia; Jamaica Gleaner ("Many claim to be rocksteady's first"); jamaicans.com. Multiple competing origin accounts exist (Joe Isaacs/Jackie Mittoo at Studio One; Lynn Taitt on "Take It Easy") - the atlas treats this as an open historical question, not a settled fact.

discusses · genre · Well supportedRocksteady

The music Jamaica made between ska and reggae, roughly 1966 to 1968. The tempo dropped, the horns receded, the bassline stepped forward and singing — especially harmony singing — took the space the pace had opened. Alton Ellis's "Rock Steady" gave it a name; the Techniques, the Paragons, the Heptones and Slim Smith gave it a repertoire that the whole of reggae has drawn on since. Brief as it was, more foundational rhythms come from these two years than from any comparable stretch.

discusses · group · ProbableThe Paragons

The Paragons were a Jamaican rocksteady vocal trio, led by John Holt, best known for "The Tide Is High" (1967), produced by Duke Reid for his Treasure Isle label. The song became an international standard well beyond reggae after Blondie's 1980 cover topped both the US and UK charts, and it returned to UK number one again in 2002 in a version by Atomic Kitten.

discusses · person · Well supportedAlton Ellis

Alton Ellis was a Jamaican singer closely associated with the birth of rocksteady - his own song "Rocksteady" (1966) is one source of the genre's name - recording for both Coxsone Dodd's Studio One and Duke Reid's Treasure Isle. His ballad "I'm Still in Love," released in 1967, became one of the most repeatedly re-voiced and sampled rhythms in Jamaican music, covered and versioned across reggae and dancehall for decades after.

discusses · studio · Well supportedTreasure Isle

Arthur "Duke" Reid's studio above his liquor store at 33 Bond Street, Kingston, and the label of the same name. If Studio One owned ska, Treasure Isle owned rocksteady: from 1966 Reid's productions with Alton Ellis, the Techniques, the Paragons, Phyllis Dillon and John Holt defined the slower, sweeter, bass-forward form, and those rhythms became a second foundation catalogue — the basis of countless later versions, not least through U-Roy toasting over them in 1970.

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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.

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A running thread through Jamaican song: elders who hand the microphone directly to the next generation.