Short but hard to beat

Two years of rocksteady, the most productive in Jamaican music history

The beginning of the rocksteady era in the mid-1960s heralded the dawn of one of the brightest, most soothing, yet dynamic periods of Jamaican popular music.

Acting as a forerunner to reggae, rocksteady showcased some of the best singers, music and musicians in the land, including Alton Ellis, Ken Boothe, Delroy Wilson, Marcia Griffiths, The Heptones, Melodians, Techniques, Gaylads singing groups, and backing bands Tommy McCook and the Supersonics, Lynn Taitt and the Jets, and The Soul Vendors, to name a few.

Many thought that the rocksteady beat was born out of a desire by some musicians of the day to slow the ska beat down to a manageable pace to allow for greater experimentation and improvisation with certain chords and rhythms.

Others thought that musicians were looking for a new rhythm with new dance steps, while there were those artistes who found the frantic pace of ska too fast for them to keep timing with the lyrics they had.

Regardless of the theories that have been advanced concerning rocksteady's birth, the undeniable fact remains that the genre came straight from the ska beat.

Apart from the slowed-down tempo of the beat, a major switch brought rocksteady's bold bass and drum lines into the forefront of the music in a somewhat laid-back fashion, replacing ska's predominant horns, percussive instruments and catchy guitar riffs.

As it was with the creation of the reggae beat, so it was with rocksteady in so far as it relates to who started the phenomenon and which was the first recording from the genre.

Hopeton Lewis seems to have the most credible claim to being the father of the genre.

He claimed that he was having difficulty while rehearsing in October 1966, to fit his lyrics over an uptempo song titled Take It Easy. He found himself singing too slowly and requested through the producer - Richard Khouri, that the pace of the rhythm be slowed.

ROCKED STEADY

The backing band Lynn Taitt and the Jets, acceded to Lewis's wish. At this point it was said that one member of the band was heard to remark, "That one rocked steady." The name stuck and the rest was history.

In any event, Take It Easy was the first rocksteady hit, and the recording that really established that beat.

It is nevertheless true to say that the winds of change were already blowing, when a number of recordings were made with a rocksteady feel, but the predominant beat was never clearly evident.

These are what I would choose to call 'transition ska', or 'transition rocksteady' if you please.

They were somewhere between ska and rocksteady. Some that come readily to mind are Peter Tosh's I'm The Toughest, Bob Andy's I've Got To Go Back Home, and Delroy Wilson's I'm In A Dancing Mood, Riding For A Fall, and Impossible.

The transitory 1966 Clement 'Coxson' Dodd-produced recording The Train Is Coming, which was on the lips of everyone, probably came closest to the real thing.

Apart from Hopeton Lewis, there were no less than five other artistes/producers who laid claim to doing the first rocksteady recording. Roy Shirley's Hold Them, done for producer Joe Gibbs's Amalgamated record label, was one such recording. Shirley, affectionately known as The High Priest of reggae and whose real name was Roy Rushton, told me in an interview that he got the inspiration long before, from a Salvation Army band as they passed through downtown Kingston one afternoon.

From that experience, he managed to get the beat to 'drop' on the recording Hold Them and so for all intents and purposes he created the 'one drop', beat which he said is similar to rocksteady.

FIRST ROCKSTEADY BEAT

On the other hand, fans and supporters of ska king Derrick Morgan claim that his recording of Tougher Than Tough, a pro-rudeboy recording done for producer Leslie Kong's Beverley's label, was the first to have a rocksteady beat. Claims for a rocksteady first have also been forwarded for Alton Ellis's triple Girl I've Got A Date, Cry Tough and Get Ready Come Do The Rocksteady.

Producer Bunny Lee also claims that his rhythm on People Get Ready, done by the Uniques, was the first rocksteady song.

The confusion seems to have been created because the recordings were done in quick succession over a short time frame, and there is no clear documented evidence to support all the contenders.

The number of recordings that have contributed to making rocksteady a dominant musical force are too numerous to mention.

They spread across four main producers: Coxson's Studio One, Duke Reid's Treasure Isle's, Leslie Kong's Beverley's labels, and Sonia Pottinger, the only female producer in the business at the time, putting out her recordings on the Gay Feet and Tip Top labels.

Of the lot, Duke Reid seemed to have had the bulk of the work during rocksteady's short reign, which lasted from late 1966 to about the middle of 1968.

Utilising the services of arguably the best rocksteady band in the land and resident house band Tommy McCook and the Supersonics, supported by master tactician guitarist and rocksteady genius, Lynn Taitt, hits poured out of the Treasure Isle Studios in a consistent superfluous deluge.

Vocalists and recordings that were backed by this aggregation included Ellis, the Godfather of reggae.

The Paragons, with John Holt at the helm, also had a string of rocksteady hits backed by Tommy McCook's band.

The Techniques vocal group stuck mainly to the theme of love and held their own at Treasure Isle.

The Melodians - Brent Dowe, Tony Brivett, and Trevor McNaughton, as melodious as ever, and also backed by Tommy McCook and the Supersonics, also came good.

Other hits at Treasure Isle Studios were recorded by The Jamaicans.

Dobby Dobson also showed his class, while Phyllis Dillon and Joya Landis also had notable efforts.

Over at Studio One, the albums Heptones On Top, and Songbook by Bob Andy took centre stage as far as the rocksteady beat was concerned.

Andy, however, told me in an interview that he never made an album at Studio One.

He made 12 singles, which were placed in an album and titled Songbook.

Producer Leslie Kong held his own with the likes of the Maytals, whose 54-46 Was My Number gave a scathing social commentary on some of the ills of society, combined with personal experience Toots Hibbert had while serving time in a penal institution for alleged ganja possession.

Morgan recorded for Kong, while Desmond Dekker and the Aces had the album Action.

Sonia Pottinger stamped her class as the only female producer with some resounding rocksteady hits by The Melodians, The Gaylads and Ken Boothe.

The rocksteady era will long be remembered as one of the most productive periods in Jamaica's music history.

With its slowed-down-rock tempo and its own accompanying dance moves, it had dancehalls rocking to its infectious beat between 1966 and 1968. One writer described the phenomenon in glowing terms, "Never before was music at the same time so melodically sweet, rhythmically engrossing and lyrically interesting." The biggest irony of all was its short lifespan compared to the quality and quantity of the musical output.