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 →

The Skatalites

Band. Ska

Active
1964-1965, 1983-present

The Skatalites were the house band of the ska era, formed from session players who had been working together in Kingston studios since the mid-1950s. Their founding members were Tommy McCook and Roland Alphonso on tenor saxophone, Lester Sterling on alto, Don Drummond on trombone, Johnny "Dizzy" Moore on trumpet, Jackie Mittoo on piano, Jerome "Jah Jerry" Haynes (also spelled Hinds) on guitar, Lloyd Brevett on bass, Lloyd Knibb on drums, and the singers Jackie Opel and Doreen Shaffer. McCook, who led the band, named it.

Accounts of how the band came together disagree, but its first public performance was at the Hi-Hat club in Rae Town, in the spring of 1964, with Opel, Shaffer, Tony DaCosta, and the calypsonian Lord Tanamo singing. It soon had a residency three nights a week at the Bournemouth Beach Club in east Kingston and a Sunday booking at the Orange Bowl on Orange Street. In the studio it was the rhythm and horn section behind most of the ska records of the period, for Coxsone Dodd at Studio One, Duke Reid, King Edwards, Randy's, and Justin Yap's Top Deck, backing among others the Wailers, Toots and the Maytals, Delroy Wilson, Desmond Dekker, Alton Ellis, Ken Boothe, and Lee Perry. Ernest Ranglin, Lynn Taitt, Baba Brooks, and Dennis Campbell also played on many of the sessions. Drummond was the band's most prolific writer, and the Skatalites' instrumentals, many of them adapted from Latin and jazz records, include "Man in the Street," "Eastern Standard Time," "Phoenix City," and "Guns of Navarone," which reached the British top forty in 1967.

In January 1965, Drummond was arrested for the killing of his partner, Anita "Margarita" Mahfood. He was committed to the Bellevue asylum, where he departed on May 6, 1969. The band played its last show in August 1965 and divided in two: Alphonso, Mittoo, Moore, and Brevett stayed with Dodd as the Soul Brothers, later the Soul Vendors, and McCook took the Supersonics to Duke Reid's Treasure Isle.

There were several reunions in the 1970s and early 1980s, including the performance at Reggae Sunsplash in 1983, and the band re-formed on a permanent footing in 1986, based in the United States. The later band made Hi-Bop Ska (1994), its first Grammy-nominated album, with Shaffer, Prince Buster, and Toots Hibbert among the guests, On the Right Track (2007), Walk with Me (2012), and Platinum Ska (2016). The founders departed in turn: Drummond in 1969, Opel in 1970, Mittoo in 1990, McCook and Alphonso in 1998, Haynes in 2007, Moore in 2008, Knibb in 2011, Brevett in 2012, and Sterling, the last founding instrumentalist, on May 16, 2023. Doreen Shaffer, the last surviving founder, continues to tour with the band.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. The books differ on when the band formed. The Rough Guide: "officially formed in June 1964, at a meeting in the Odeon Theatre." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 42. Bradley places the musicians at Brentford Road in 1963, "about to organize themselves as the Skatalites." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 100. Wikipedia says the founders "started to play together from 1955." "The Skatalites," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skatalites.
  2. The books' lists differ. Bradley names Brevett, Knibb, Mittoo, McCook, Alphonso, Sterling, Drummond, "Johnny Moore and Ba Ba Brooks (trumpet), Jah Jerry and Harold Moore (guitar) and Lord Tanamo and Tony DaCosta (vocals)." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 100. The Rough Guide adds Ernest Ranglin and Harold McKenzie to Jah Jerry on guitar and names Tanamo, Shaffer, and Opel as the band's singers; it spells the guitarist's name Hinds. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 42. Katz and the band's own history spell it Haynes, and the band's history lists Opel among the founders: David Katz, "'Jah Jerry' Haynes," Guardian, August 22, 2007, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/aug/22/guardianobituaries.obituaries. "History," The Skatalites, accessed October 5, 2026, https://skatalites.com/history.
  3. Knibb proposed "Satellites," and McCook "is said to have replied: 'No, we play ska - the Skatalites.'" Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 42.
  4. The band's history confirms the Hi-Hat in Rae Town as the first show. "History," The Skatalites. Wikipedia dates it to May 1964. "The Skatalites," Wikipedia. The Star of June 27, 1964, which Augustyn reprints, reported that the band had "taken over" the Bournemouth "for the past few weeks" and had "made four public appearances so far": Heather Augustyn, "Skatalites Go Into Orbit," SkaBook (blog), January 29, 2016, https://skabook.com/2016/01/29/skatalites-go-into-orbit/. The band's long biography names Opel, DaCosta, Shaffer, and Tanamo and dates the debut to June 27, 1964. "The Skatalites Long Bio," Paradise Artists, accessed November 5, 2026, https://www.paradiseartists.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/the-skatalites-long-bio.pdf.
  5. The Rough Guide lists "the Orange Bowl, the Bournemouth Beach Club, the Blinking Beacon and La Parisienne" among its regular dates. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 42. On three nights a week and the Sunday booking, "Skatalites Long Bio." The Star's report of June 27, 1964, describes a Wednesday night at the Bournemouth and names Alphonso, Drummond ("when he sits in"), McCook, Brevett, Knibb, Moore and Sterling: Augustyn, "Skatalites Go Into Orbit."
  6. On the artists and producers, Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 42-43; "History," The Skatalites. On Delroy Wilson, Desmond Dekker, and Lee Perry, "The Skatalites," Wikipedia.
  7. The books differ on membership. The Rough Guide counts Ranglin among the band's guitarists and says Baba Brooks played "in place of" Moore with the rest of the band; Bradley lists Brooks as a member. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 42; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 100. Wikipedia lists Ranglin, Taitt, Brooks, and Dennis Campbell among the band's associated musicians. "The Skatalites," Wikipedia.
  8. On Drummond as arranger and on "Man in the Street," "Eastern Standard Time," "Phoenix City," and "Guns of Navarone," Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 101-2; on the Latin and jazz sources, Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 43. "Guns of Navarone" entered the UK chart in April 1967 and peaked at number thirty-six. "Skatalites," Official Charts, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.officialcharts.com/artist/12947/skatalites/.
  9. Bradley places the killing "in the early hours of New Year's Day 1965" and says Drummond gave himself up at Rockfort police station "the next day" and died in Bellevue four years later. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 102-3. The Rough Guide gives 1969. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 42. Other accounts place the killing on January 2; see the entry on Don Drummond. On May 6, "Don Drummond," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Drummond.
  10. The Rough Guide dates the farewell show to just after the Independence Day celebrations of August 1965, at a police ball at the Runaway Bay Hotel. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 42. On the Soul Brothers, "A Remembrance of the Chief Musician," annotation for Rolando Alphonso, Something Special: Ska Hot Shots (Heartbeat, 2000), Tallawah, accessed October 5, 2026, http://tallawah.com/liner-notes/linernotes7/. On the Supersonics at Treasure Isle, Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 64.
  11. The band's history says "in 1983 most of the members reunited" and that by 1986 members living in the United States "had started playing engagements there." "History," The Skatalites. On the earlier reunions and the Sunsplash show, "The Skatalites," Wikipedia. Augustyn notes a 1975 reunion, for Lloyd Brevett's African Roots sessions and a New Year's Eve show at the National Arena reported in the Gleaner: Heather Augustyn, "Skatalites Reorganized in 1975," SkaBook (blog), January 15, 2016, https://skabook.com/2016/01/15/skatalites-reorganized-in-1975/. Katz says the 1983 Sunsplash show led to American dates and Return of the Big Guns (1984): Katz, "'Jah Jerry' Haynes."
  12. The band's history names "Hi-Bop Ska: The 30th Anniversary Recording" and "Greetings from Skamania" as its two Grammy-nominated albums. "History," The Skatalites. The "Hi-Bop Ska" sleeve credits Prince Buster and Toots & the Maytals as guests. "The Skatalites - Hi-Bop Ska," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/1168977. On the later albums, "The Skatalites," Wikipedia.
  13. On Sterling's death, Yasmine Peru, "Lester Sterling of Skatalites Fame Has Died," Jamaica Gleaner, May 17, 2023, https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/entertainment/20230516/lester-sterling-skatalites-fame-has-died. On the other founders' death years, "The Skatalites," Wikipedia.
  14. "The Skatalites," Wikipedia.

World of Jamaican Music: the whole map