STUDIO ONE MIX - SELECTION ONE🇯🇲

C.S. DODD'S STUDIO ONE - SELECTION ONE

vocal/instrumental/version/dub, selection & mix by Frozenmx

Studio One was founded by Clement "Coxsone" Dodd in 1954, Studio One is one of Jamaica's most renowned record labels and recording studios, having 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.

The first recordings were cut in 1963 on Brentford Road in Kingston. Amongst its earliest records were "Easy Snappin" by Theophilus Beckford, backed by Clue J & His Blues Blasters, and "This Man is Back" by trombonist Don Drummond. Dodd had previously issued music on a series of other labels, including World Disc, and had run Sir Coxsone Downbeat, one of the largest and most reputable sound systems in the Kingston ghettos.

In the early 1960s, the house band providing backing for the vocalists were the legendary Skatalites whose members (including Roland Alphonso, Don Drummond, Tommy McCook, Jackie Mittoo, Lester Sterling, and Lloyd Brevett) were recruited from the Kingston jazz scene by Dodd. The Skatalites split up in 1965 after Drummond was jailed for murder, and Dodd formed new house band Sound Dimension (aka Soul Vendors or Soul Brothers). From 1965 to 1968 they played 9 AM to 5 PM, 5 days a week, 12 rhythms a day (about 60 rhythms a week) with legend Jackie Mittoo as music director, Brian Atkinson (1965–1968) on bass, Hux Brown on guitar, Harry Haughton (guitar), Joe Isaacs on drums (1966–1968), Denzel Laing on percussions, and on horns (some initially and some throughout): Roland Alphonso, Dennis 'Ska' Campbell, Bobby Ellis, Lester Sterling, among others on horns during the era of Rock Steady. Headley Bennett, Ernest Ranglin, Vin Gordon and Leroy Sibbles were included among a fluid line-up, to record tracks directed by Jackie Mittoo at Studio One from 1966-1968.

During the night hours at Studio One from 1965-1968, singers like Bob Marley, Burning Spear, Heptones, Ken Boothe, Rita Marley, Marcia Griffiths, Judy Mowatt, Ethiopians, Ken Boothe, Alton Ellis, Delroy Wilson, Bunny Wailer, Johnny Nash, among others, would put on headphones to sing lyrics to original tracks recorded by the Soul Brothers earlier each day. These seminal recordings: "Real Rock", "Heavy Rock", "Jamaica Underground", "Ten To Ten", "Fattie Fattie", "Puppet on A String", "Drum Song", "Bend Down Low", "Artibella", "Train is Coming", "I'm Still In Love With You", "Dancing Mood", "Creation Rebel"(album, Burning Spear), "Swing Easy", and too many tracks to remember.

The 1970s saw the escalation of political violence and gang warfare in Jamaica, fuelled by the drugs trade, a time reflected in the Willie Williams song Armagideon Time (1979), a powerful, prophetic track which likened the street battles of Kingston to a Biblical Armageddon.

During the 1980 Jamaican election campaign, in which 800 people died, the area round Dodd's studio in Kingston became a war zone. Concluding, reluctantly, that it was time to leave, Dodd relocated his studio and record shop to Brooklyn, New York.

In 2002 he was awarded a Gold Musgrave Medal by the Institute of Jamaica

On 1 May 2004 Kingston's Brentford Road was renamed Studio One Boulevard in a ceremony which paid tribute to his accomplishments as a producer. He died suddenly of a heart attack four days later, aged 72, while working at Studio One.

Dodd was posthumously awarded the Order of Distinction, in the rank of Commander on 15 October 2007, for service to the Jamaica music industry