World of Jamaican Music

Discover artists and hear songs from everyone on the site! Log in to Spotify in this browser to hear full songs. SourcesYour Voice

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 →

Clue J

Artist. Ska

Active
1958-1961
Sunset
Montego Bay, St. James, Jamaica
Also known as
Cluett Johnson, Clue J & His Blues Blasters, Clue J and the Blues Blasters, The Blues Blasters

Cluett "Clue J" Johnson was a double bassist and bandleader whose Blues Blasters were, for the Rough Guide, the most consistently distinguished and prolific of Jamaica's shuffle-boogie groups of 1958 to 1961; Bradley thinks them perhaps the most storming dance band in Jamaica at the time.

The Blues Blasters recorded exclusively for Coxsone Dodd, with Roland Alphonso a core member and Rico Rodriguez a frequent contributor. Their "Shuffling Jug," made as an exclusive acetate for Dodd's Downbeat sound, is often cited as the very first post-mento record, though it was released only much later. The band also recorded tributes to Kingston locations such as "Milk Lane Hop" and "Five Minutes on Beeston Street."

By Ernest Ranglin's account, Johnson was one of the two musicians, with Ranglin himself, whom Dodd called to a Sunday-morning meeting to make the music more Jamaican by moving the stress of the shuffle onto the afterbeat. The next day Ranglin, Johnson, Drumbago, Rodriguez and Theophilus Beckford cut soft waxes at the JBC studio, the best received of which became "Easy Snappin'"; the released version was credited under Johnson's name. Ranglin later named the men instrumental in forming the ska rhythm as "Coxsone, myself and Cluett Johnson." One account of the word "ska" derives it from "Skavoovie!", Johnson's exclamation of greeting or enthusiasm.

Last updated October 15, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 24; Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 42.
  2. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 24.
  3. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 20. Katz calls it "influential" and names Rico Rodriguez on it. David Katz, "Rico Rodriguez Obituary," Guardian, September 6, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/06/rico-rodriguez.
  4. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 28.
  5. Ernest Ranglin's account in Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 52, 53, 55. Katz instead credits Beckford's own piano with moving the stress to the afterbeat, and names Clue J and the Blues Blasters as the backing band on "Easy Snapping." David Katz, "Theophilus Beckford," Guardian, March 19, 2001, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/mar/19/guardianobituaries1. Augustyn gives the label credits as "Theophilus Beckford, Clue J and His Blues Blasters." Heather Augustyn, "Easy Snappin' Theophilus Beckford," SkaBook (blog), April 4, 2014, https://skabook.com/2014/04/04/easy-snappin-theophilus-beckford/.
  6. Ranglin's account in Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 26.
  7. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 49, which gives several competing accounts of the word's origin, including Theophilus Beckford's.

World of Jamaican Music: the whole map