World of Jamaican Music

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An illustrated map of the creators of Jamaican music and how they are connected.

Remembering Derrick Harriott (1939-2026), rocksteady singer and producer. Read his story →

The Beltones

Band. Rocksteady, reggae

Active
1967-1970s

The Beltones were a Kingston vocal trio whose 1968 single "No More Heartaches" is one of the two records most often named as the first reggae recording. The other is "Nanny Goat," by Larry and Alvin, produced by Coxsone Dodd the same year. Neither claim can be settled, and the musicians involved were not conscious of inventing anything.

Trevor Shields sang lead, with Donovan Adams, who also recorded solo, and Carl Marsh. The group had already recorded rocksteady for Dodd, including "Dancing Time" and "Smile Like an Angel," and were dissatisfied with how little he was doing for them. A member of the Cables took them to Harry Johnson, then an insurance salesman and former bass player with the Virtues who had never produced a record. Johnson had an arrangement with Dodd that let him book Studio One, and "No More Heartaches" was cut there in 1968 as the first release on his own Harry J label. It reached number one in Jamaica and stayed there roughly four weeks, and Trojan issued it in Britain, where it sold steadily to the skinhead audience.

What separated the record from rocksteady was, by Johnson's account, the combination of a stabbing organ chord, a conventional guitar stroke, and a more percussive bass pattern, which gave it a faster and more insistent pulse. Johnson's background as a bassist may account for how prominent the bass sits in the mix, a feature that became standard as reggae developed.

Later Beltones sides included "Home Without You" and "Mary Mary." The group never repeated the success of its first record.

Last updated October 23, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Barrow and Dalton call these the two records "most frequently cited" but point to Lynford Anderson's "Pop A Top," from the start of 1968, as earlier still: Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 87. Bradley credits "Nanny Goat" to Larry Marshall and says the distinction "would have to be shared" between the two records, though he judges Johnson's "the primary example": Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 200-201.
  2. Trevor Shields recalled, "we were like outsiders starting something new but didn't know it at the time": quoted in Kieran K. Meadows, "R.I.P.: Legendary Reggae Producer Harry J," LargeUp, April 11, 2013, https://www.largeup.com/2013/04/11/r-i-p-legendary-reggae-producer-harry-j/.
  3. On the group's earlier name, Bob & the Beltones, and its Studio One records, Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 113. Campbell writes that they had recorded for Dodd and Duke Reid "with little success": Howard Campbell, "The Beltones' Trevor Shields Dies," Jamaica Observer, October 2, 2025, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2025/10/02/beltones-trevor-shields-dies/.
  4. On Johnson as an insurance salesman and former bassist with, then manager of, the Virtues, Meadows, "R.I.P.: Legendary Reggae Producer Harry J." See also Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 113.
  5. Barrow and Dalton date the session to early 1968 at Dodd's Brentford Road studio and say Johnson used the record "to launch his own successful Harry J label": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 113. Bradley notes that Johnson "had no studio of his own at this point, and booked a room at Coxsone's": Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 201.
  6. Meadows writes that it topped the Jamaican chart for approximately four weeks: Meadows, "R.I.P.: Legendary Reggae Producer Harry J."
  7. Campbell writes that, distributed by Trojan in the UK, it "became a minor hit there": Campbell, "The Beltones' Trevor Shields Dies."
  8. Bradley summarizes Johnson's account and judges the record "essentially a rocksteady record dressed up in some flashy new clothes," crediting the echoed guitar effect to Dodd's "Nanny Goat" instead: Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 200-201. Barrow and Dalton describe its "fast and assertive rhythm": Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 113.
  9. Meadows makes the same suggestion about Johnson's background as a bassist: Meadows, "R.I.P.: Legendary Reggae Producer Harry J."

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