Rocksteady is a music genre that originated in Jamaica around 1966. A successor of ska and a precursor to reggae, rocksteady was the dominant style of music in Jamaica for nearly two years, performed by many of the artists who helped establish reggae, including harmony groups such as The Techniques, The Paragons, The Heptones and The Gaylads; soulful singers such as Alton Ellis, Delroy Wilson, Bob Andy, Ken Boothe and Phyllis Dillon; musicians such as Jackie Mittoo, Lynn Taitt and Tommy McCook. The term rocksteady comes from a popular (slower) dance style mentioned in the Alton Ellis song 'Rocksteady' that matched the new sound. Some rocksteady songs became hits outside Jamaica, as with ska, helping to secure the international base reggae music has today. Despite the name, rocksteady is not directly related to rock.
Alton Nehemiah Ellis was a Jamaican singer-songwriter. One of the innovators of rocksteady who was given the informal title "Godfather of Rocksteady". In 2006, he was inducted into the International Reggae And World Music Awards Hall Of Fame.
Studio One is one of Jamaica's most renowned record labels and recording studios; it has been described as the Motown of Jamaica. The record label was involved with most of the major music movements in Jamaica during the 1960s and 1970s, including ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub and dancehall.
Ernest Ranglin is a Jamaican guitarist and composer who established his career while working as a session guitarist and music director for various Jamaican record labels including Studio One and Island Records. Ranglin played guitar on many early ska recordings and helped create the rhythmic guitar style that defined the form. Ranglin has worked with Theophilus Beckford, Jimmy Cliff, Monty Alexander, Prince Buster, the Skatalites, Bob Marley and the Eric Deans Orchestra. He is noted for a chordal and rhythmic approach that blends jazz, mento and reggae with percussive guitar solos incorporating rhythm 'n' blues and jazz inflections.
Bob Marley and the Wailers were a Jamaican reggae band led by Bob Marley. It developed from the earlier ska vocal group, The Wailers, created by Peter Tosh, Marley, and Bunny Wailer in 1963. By late 1963 singers Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, and Cherry Smith had joined on. By the early 1970s, Marley and Bunny Wailer had learned to play some instruments, and brothers Aston "Family Man" Barrett (bass) and Carlton Barrett (drums), had joined the band. After Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh left the band in 1974, Marley began touring with new band members as Bob Marley and the Wailers. His new backing band included the Barrett brothers, Junior Marvin and Al Anderson on lead guitar, Tyrone Downie and Earl "Wya" Lindo on keyboards, and Alvin "Seeco" Patterson on percussion. The "I Threes", consisting of Judy Mowatt, Marcia Griffiths, and Marley's wife, Rita, provided backing vocals.
Israel Vibration are a reggae harmony group, originating from Kingston, Jamaica. Lascelle "Wiss" Bulgin, Albert "Apple Gabriel" Craig, and Cecil "Skelly" Spence all suffered from childhood polio, and went on to be a Jamaican roots reggae group in the 1970s. The trio initially met as children at a rehabilitation center.
The Congos are a reggae vocal group from Jamaica which formed as the duo "Ashanti" Roy Johnson (tenor) and Cedric Myton (falsetto), later becoming a trio with the addition of Watty Burnett (baritone), and have been active on and off from the mid-1970s until the present day. They are best known for their Heart of the Congos album, recorded with Lee "Scratch" Perry.
Trench Town is a neighbourhood located in the parish of St. Andrew, part of which is in Kingston, the capital and largest city of Jamaica. In the 1960s, Trench Town was known as the Hollywood of Jamaica. Today Trench Town is the location of the Trench Town Culture Yard Museum, a National Heritage Site presenting the unique history and contribution of Trench Town to Jamaica.
Lynn Taitt was a guitarist born in San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago, who later moved to Jamaica and became a pioneer of rocksteady music.
Dennis Emmanuel Brown CD was a Jamaican reggae singer. During his prolific career, which began in the late 1960s when he was aged eleven, he recorded more than 75 albums and was one of the major stars of lovers rock, a subgenre of reggae. Bob Marley cited Brown as his favourite singer, dubbing him "The Crown Prince of Reggae", and Brown would prove influential on future generations of reggae singers.
Clancy Eccles was a Jamaican ska and reggae singer, songwriter, arranger, promoter, record producer and talent scout. Known mostly for his early reggae works, he brought a political dimension to this music. His house band was known as The Dynamites.
Heartbeat Records is an independent record label based in Burlington, Massachusetts. The label specializes in Jamaican music.
Culture Press is an independent record label from UK specialized in Jamaican music.
Michael George Henry OD, better known as Ras Michael, is a Jamaican reggae singer and Nyabinghi specialist. He also performs under the name of Dadawah.
Kerrie Byles, also known as "Junior Byles", "Chubby", or "King Chubby", is a Jamaican reggae singer.
Earl "Chinna" Smith, a.k.a. Earl Flute and Melchezidek the High Priest, is a Jamaican guitarist active since the late 1960s. He is most well known for his work with the Soul Syndicate band and has recorded with many reggae artists, appearing on more than 500 albums.
The Meditations are a reggae vocal harmony group from Jamaica formed in late 1974. They have released several studio albums and are still performing in the 2000s and today.
Mr Soul of Jamaica is an album by Jamaican rocksteady singer Alton Ellis. It contains twelve tracks recorded between 1967 and 1970 at Duke Reid's Treasure Isle Recording Studios in Kingston, Jamaica and was produced by Reid and released on his Treasure Isle label in 1974. Although this was his only album for the label, Ellis had already been a star musician in Jamaica from the early 1960s onwards, having recorded for Coxone Dodd's Studio One label before moving to Treasure Isle, and the album is a compilation of some of his Treasure Isle singles, although some of his biggest hits including "Rock Steady", "Girl I've Got a Date" and "Cry Tough" were left off it.
This Is Reggae Music: The Golden Era 1960-1975 is a reggae retrospective anthology issued as a 4-CD box set in 2004 by Trojan Records. The anthology, which was compiled by Colin Escott and Bas Hartong, is arranged in chronological order and features tracks by various artists, starting with mento and ska from the first half of the 1960s, then progressing to the slower rhythms of rocksteady and reggae, which both emerged later in the decade, continuing into the 1970s. Several of the acts featured are Derrick Morgan, Desmond Decker & the Aces, Toots & the Maytals, Jimmy Cliff, and Bob Marley and the Wailers.
Clifton "Jackie" Jackson is a Jamaican bass player, who was an important session musician on ska, rocksteady and reggae records in the 1960s and 1970s, and later a member of Toots and the Maytals.
