Ranking Joe
Artist. Dancehall, reggae, roots
- Active
- 1974-present
- Sunrise
- 1959, Kingston
- Also recorded as
- Little Joe
- Also known as
- Joseph Jackson, Joe Jackson
Ranking Joe (Joseph Jackson) was the first graduate of U-Roy's Stur-Gav sound, "in effect the deejay academy," and with Brigadier Jerry the strongest of the U-Roy-influenced deejays of the late 1970s, a model for the dancehall chatters who came after.
He grew up around his father's sound-system dances, practicing through a telephone receiver plugged into the family amplifier, and at fifteen became resident deejay on El Paso Hi-Fi when Dennis Alcapone left for London. His first record, "Gun Court" (1974), was cut for Coxsone Dodd as Little Joe; the same year he was among the young deejays recorded at Bunny Lee's open audition night at King Tubby's, and Little Joe went on to voice Lee's Aggrovators riddims and the Mighty Two's. Prince Tony Robinson suggested the change to Ranking Joe and produced an album that has him sounding like U-Roy's younger brother.
On Stur-Gav he was so close to U-Roy that the crowd often could not tell when the two swapped the microphone. His hits included "Stop Your Coming and Come," over Gregory Isaacs's "Soon Forward," the first deejay success on Sly and Robbie's Taxi label; "Weakheart Fadeaway," on Junior Byles's hit; "Shine Eye Gal," on Bobby Ellis and the Revolutionaries' "Shank I Sheck," for Sonia Pottinger; and "Youthman Promotion" for Sugar Minott. The oriental-sounding scat that Eek-A-Mouse turned into a style began with him on Stur-Gav, and his superfast introductions were the fast chat that the London MCs took further.
He and the selector Jah Screw moved on from Stur-Gav to Ray Symbolic, the champion sound of the late 1970s, and in 1980 they took it to England, one of the first Jamaican sounds to tour there; Bradley notes the view that the fast-talk style came to Britain with that tour. Like Ranking Toyan he changed with the times: the deejay of "Natty Don't Make War" was soon chatting "Lift Up Yuh Frock." He produced too, selecting King Tubby's mixes for a dub album and recording Barry Brown and Tristan Palma, and he settled in New York, later recording with Mad Professor and Clive Chin.
Last updated October 14, 2026
Connections
- Coxsone Dodd (first producer)
- Bunny "Striker" Lee (producer)
- Sly Dunbar (producer)
- King Tubby (engineer)
- Sonia Pottinger (producer)
- Sugar Minott (producer)
- Barry Brown (artist)
- Clive Chin (producer)
- Mad Professor (producer)
- Prince Tony Robinson (producer)
- U-Roy (sound system)
- Dennis Alcapone (same sound system)
- Brigadier Jerry (same sound system)
Notes
- Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 189, 248.
- Angus Taylor, "Interview: Ranking Joe," United Reggae, January 29, 2012, https://unitedreggae.com/articles/n835/012912/interview-ranking-joe.
- Taylor, "Interview: Ranking Joe." Jah Stitch's account of the 1974 audition is in Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 303. On Little Joe's Bunny Lee and Mighty Two versions: Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 153, 156, 162.
- Taylor, "Interview: Ranking Joe." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 190.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 190.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 189, 274. Discogs dates the Greensleeves album Weakheart Fadeaway to 1978. "Ranking Joe: Weakheart Fadeaway," Discogs, accessed October 7, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/master/217951.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 267, 401; Taylor, "Interview: Ranking Joe."
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 189-90, 258; Taylor, "Interview: Ranking Joe." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 506. The Rough Guide dates his Stur-Gav years to 1977-78 in one place and in another ties his and Jah Screw's departure to the 1980 election.
- Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 508.
- Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 243, 412; Taylor, "Interview: Ranking Joe."
