For this Soul Revivers Special, David Hill looks at the soulful rocksteady productions of Coxsone Dodd at Studio One, one of the most important and prolific producers of the time.
In October 1966, Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions were booked to play a series of live shows in Jamaica by Byron Lee. The two years that directly followed saw the music slow from the frenetic Ska that had dominated the JA music scene for over five years, to become a Jamaican interpretation of American group harmony soul. Rocksteady was often performed by vocal harmony trios, as per The Impressions, and during this magical period, well-over five thousand rocksteady tracks were recorded.
The heavy influence of US soul led to many rocksteady versions, and the show includes covers of songs first sung by The Impressions, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Billy Stewart Howard Tate, and Brenton Wood.
