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 →

Ruddy Redwood

Producer. Ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub

Active
1957-1970s
Also known as
Mister Midnight, Rudolph Redwood, Ruddy's the Supreme Ruler of Sound, Ruddy's Supreme, SRS

Rudolph "Ruddy" Redwood was a Spanish Town soundman who ran a record shop and the sound system Ruddy's the Supreme Ruler of Sound, and is credited with the accident that led to the instrumental version and, in time, to dub.

He opened his shop around 1957 and built a small sound with four speaker boxes for friends' parties before taking it to dances and competitions. Through his friendship with Duke Reid he received exclusive Treasure Isle acetates, and his reports on how they went down outside West Kingston helped Reid choose releases. Ruddy's played Spanish Town venues such as Prison Oval and Ackee-Wackee Lawn against Seymour Williams's Stereo and Son's Junior, and by 1967 it was the dominant set in the town. In the ska years it had used Tommy McCook's "Exodus" as a dubplate to see off rivals. I-Roy deejayed for Ruddy's before moving on to V-Rocket and King Tubby's, and the set's own deejay, Wicked, introduced Redwood as "Mister Midnight," because he came on at twelve to play fifteen or sixteen new tunes nobody knew.

Late in 1967 Reid's engineer Byron Smith cut him an acetate of the Paragons' hit "On the Beach" without the vocal track. Redwood played the vocal and then the instrumental at his next dance, cut down the sound, and the whole lawn sang along. He told Reid, "you can put the riddim on the other side." Lynn Taitt then made instrumental cuts of many Treasure Isle classics for his sound, Reid began issuing instrumental versions in 1968, and soon nearly every producer followed. King Tubby, noticing how Ruddy's crowds loved the plain instrumentals, began the experiments that became dub. Redwood also produced, among other records, I-Roy's version of McCook's "Sidewalk Killer."

Last updated October 7, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 55, 216; Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 311, 312.
  2. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 216; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 311, 312.
  3. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 44, 216. U-Brown later claimed he "ran them out of town." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 190.
  4. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 126; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 299; Redwood's account in Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 216.
  5. Redwood's account in Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 216, 217; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 312. Bradley calls the engineer "a disc cutter called Smith."
  6. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 217; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 312.
  7. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 315.
  8. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 192, 193.

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