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 →

Hopeton Lewis

Artist. Rocksteady

Active
1966-2014
Sunrise
October 3, 1947, Kingston, Jamaica
Sunset
September 4, 2014, Brooklyn, New York (kidney failure)

Hopeton Lewis sang "Take It Easy," the record most often named as the first rocksteady side. Howard Campbell writes of his "distinct baritone," and the producer Winston Blake called him "an excellent singer, very versatile."

He was raised by relatives after his mother departed, sang in church from six, and formed a group called the Regals. After some sessions at Studio One he moved to Ken Khouri's Federal, and it was there in 1966 that "Take It Easy" was cut with Lynn Taitt and the Jets and released on Winston Blake's Merritone label. The often-told account is that Lewis could not fit his words into the ska tempo, that he asked Taitt's band to slow down, and that Gladstone Anderson remarked at the piano that the new feel was rock steady. The record was a substantial hit and the tempo did not go back up.

He had further hits through the late 1960s, including "Cool Collie," usually described as the first Jamaican record openly about ganja, and worked as a duo with Glen Brown. He arranged and sang backing vocals for Duke Reid, and won the Festival Song Competition in 1970 with "Boom Shacka Lacka," released on Treasure Isle. He then sang lead for several years with Byron Lee and the Dragonaires and recorded for Lee's Dynamic Sounds, where "Grooving Out on Life" was a hit in 1971 and gave its name to an album.

He founded his own label, Bay City Music, in the late 1980s, and after a Christian conversion recorded gospel almost exclusively, beginning with This Is Gospel and continuing through a long series of albums. He departed in September 2014.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. The Rough Guide calls "Take It Easy" Lewis's "pivotal rocksteady" record of 1966. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 89. In Bradley, Derrick Harriott says that "nothing didn't really happen until Hopeton Lewis come with" "Sound and Pressure" and "Take Your Time Take it Easy." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 162. Wikipedia gives his dates as October 3, 1947, to September 4, 2014. "Hopeton Lewis," Wikipedia, accessed October 1, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopeton_Lewis.
  2. Howard Campbell, "Hopeton Lewis Grooved on Life," Jamaica Observer, September 6, 2014, https://jamaicaobserver.com/2014/09/06/hopeton-lewis-grooved-on-life.
  3. Wikipedia says he sang in church from an early age and formed the Regals. "Hopeton Lewis."
  4. The Rough Guide dates the session to late 1966 and says it was "at Federal Studios for club owner Winston Blake's Merritone label." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 63.
  5. The Rough Guide says Lewis "asked the band led by Lynn Taitt to play the rhythm slower, because he was having difficulty fitting the lyrics over the ska-style rhythm," and that "pianist Gladstone 'Gladdy' Anderson remarked on the 'rock steady' nature of the slowed-down rhythm. The new name stuck." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 63. Lewis's own account, as Augustyn quotes it: "And then I hear Gladdy Anderson who was on piano say, 'this one rocksteady, you know.'" Heather Augustyn, "Hopeton Lewis Dies, Leaves Legacy," SkaBook (blog), September 5, 2014, https://skabook.com/2014/09/05/hopeton-lewis-dies-leaves-legacy/, which also reproduces a Daily Gleaner advertisement of April 28, 1967, billing Lewis as the originator of rocksteady.
  6. Harriott told Bradley the Merritone tunes "were so popular for so long" that a wider circle then took up "the new beat." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 162.
  7. The Rough Guide calls "Cool Collie" "the first 'herb' song ever recorded in Jamaica." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 63. Katz notes earlier records with coded ganja titles, such as Don Drummond's "Cool Smoke," and calls "Cool Collie" "probably the earliest instance" of a singer tackling the subject "head-on." David Katz, "Marijuana in My Brain," Red Bull Music Academy Daily, June 5, 2015, https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2015/06/marijuana-in-my-brain.
  8. The Rough Guide says Glen Brown "recorded duets with Hopeton Lewis, Lloyd Robinson and Dave Barker." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 119.
  9. The Rough Guide says Duke Reid "attracted Hopeton Lewis to the studio while he was still under contract to Federal," where he "contributed many arrangements and backing vocals" uncredited, and that he won the 1970 Festival Song Competition with "Boom Shacka Lacka" for Treasure Isle. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 64-65, 98. Bradley lists it among Reid's few hits of the period. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 224.
  10. Campbell, "Hopeton Lewis Grooved on Life."
  11. Wikipedia says he began singing with Byron Lee & the Dragonaires and had a hit with "Grooving Out on Life" in 1971, and lists the album on Dynamic Sounds and Trojan. "Hopeton Lewis."
  12. Wikipedia says This Is Gospel came out in 1996 on his own Bay City Music label, founded in the 1980s, and that much of his later work was gospel. "Hopeton Lewis."
  13. Wikipedia says he died of kidney failure at his home in Brooklyn, at sixty-six. "Hopeton Lewis."

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