After Jamaica’s most popular ska group, the Skatalites, broke up in the mid-’60s, trombonist Don Drummond and keyboardist Jackie Mittoo became the core of Studio One’s house band. When ska yielded to rocksteady’s bubbling, electric basslines, soulful group harmonies, pop-idol balladry, and rude-boy attitude, Studio One elevated singer Alton Ellis and groups like the Heptones into the national spotlight and onto the charts. And when, around 1968, a new style evolved — a style which, with its popping organs, echo-laden guitars, and hard “one-drop” drums, seemed to embody the ragged, rugged character of the place that produced it — Studio One remained at the forefront, producing some of the earliest recordings now identified as reggae.
Dodd passed away in May of 2004 (just days after seeing Brentford Road re-christened Studio One Boulevard). But his sounds are being resurrected by Heartbeat — a new beginning for an old relationship. Heartbeat began re-releasing Studio One material shortly after Dodd moved his operations, including a record shop, to Fulton Street in Brooklyn in the ’80s. Since ’83 more than 250 reggae albums have had the Heartbeat imprint, including more than 60 from Studio One. At the helm of the reissue series is the same person who has overseen all of the label’s Studio One releases, Chris Wilson, a Jamaican-born Boston transplant.
Thanks to his long-time relationship to Dodd, Wilson has access to original tapes and even the machines on which they were recorded. As a result, Heartbeat’s remasters retain the strength of the originals. And, having played for years with Boston’s I-Tones, Wilson knows how big the bass should be, how crisp the percussion, how clear the voices, how warm the sound.
He also has a keen sense of what the key material is: the tracks on The Best of Studio One and Full Up: More Hits from Studio One are not largely obscurities. There is unreleased material here, but Wilson’s aim is to affirm Studio One’s legacy as the Motown of Jamaica.
Anyone whose exposure to classic reggae remains limited to Legend and The Harder They Come will be surprised by the versatility of Jamaican pop presented here. Studio One’s ’60s output centered around sweet, sophisticated songs, more akin to mid-century American pop standards than the repetitive vamps that would follow in James Brown’s wake. Bridges nestled between choruses, extended chord progressions, and intricate band arrangements support group harmonies that draw on doo-wop and American gospel as much as on Jamaica’s own Afro-Christian hymnal traditions. There are love songs, sad songs, and songs about songs — politics and ganja had yet to become primary topics. And then of course, there’s the unparalleled sound: the drums crack, the bass pounds, and the horns and voices, guitars and keyboards mingle in the mid-range, all bathed in a unique analog warmth that owes as much to the room on Brentford Road itself as the tape and amps and microphones and studio-engineer wizardry.
