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 →

Randy's Studio 17

Studio. Rocksteady, reggae, dub

Active
1968-1980s

Randy's Studio 17 was the recording room above Randy's Record Mart at 17 North Parade in downtown Kingston, run by Vincent and Patricia Chin and their son Clive from the late 1960s until the family left for New York in the middle of the 1970s. It stood where the musicians already gathered, and it served both the family's productions and the producers who hired it.

Clive Chin said his father bought the building and "built the studio upstairs" so that he no longer had to rent other rooms, and it was hired out in turn: the Rough Guide names Lee Perry, Bunny Lee, and Niney the Observer among the producers Errol Thompson recorded there. Errol Thompson joined as engineer at the end of the 1960s and rebuilt the room, the studio was later upgraded to sixteen tracks, and Karl Pitterson engineered and mixed there as well.

The house band was billed as Randy's All-Stars and, on the Chins' Impact label, as the Impact All-Stars. At various times it included Aston "Family Man" Barrett, Tyrone Downie, Sly Dunbar, Bertram "Ranchie" McLean, and a young keyboard player named Horace Swaby. The same players turned up at Channel One as the Revolutionaries and on Bunny Lee's sessions as the Aggrovators, taking whatever name the session called for.

Clive Chin, a schoolmate of Swaby's, recorded him on melodica for "Java" in the early 1970s and issued it on Impact under the name Augustus Pablo. The partnership produced This Is Augustus Pablo (1973), and Thompson's dub treatment of the same riddims, Java Java Java Java, is one of the records named in the contested question of the first dub album, alongside Herman Chin Loy's Aquarius Dub, Lee Perry's Blackboard Jungle Dub, Keith Hudson's Pick a Dub, and Derrick Harriott's work with King Tubby.

Lee Perry recorded a run of Wailers sides there in 1970 and 1971, and part of Catch a Fire was cut there. Jack Ruby made Burning Spear's Marcus Garvey there with the Black Disciples, and Peter Tosh recorded Legalize It there and at Treasure Isle. Gregory Isaacs, Dennis Brown, and Johnny Nash also worked in the room, and Roy Shirley's "A Sugar" (1971) was a hit for Randy's.

When the family left, some two thousand session tapes stayed behind. They were thought to have been destroyed in the hurricane of 1988 but survived, and Clive Chin later recovered and restored them. Studio 17 now operates as a record shop and museum.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Katz describes the four-track studio the Chins built above the shop as "fully functional from late 1968." David Katz, "Vincent 'Randy' Chin," obituary, Guardian, February 22, 2003, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/feb/22/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries. The Rough Guide says the family "relocated to the USA in mid-decade." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 223; see also 46.
  2. Angus Taylor, "Interview: Clive Chin," United Reggae, November 5, 2008, https://unitedreggae.com/articles/n233/110508/interview-clive-chin. The Rough Guide says Thompson recorded "much of the work of such producers as Lee Perry, Bunny Lee and Winston 'Niney' Holness" there. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 222; see also Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 341.
  3. The Rough Guide says Thompson, after working at Studio One in early 1969, "moved to Randy's, where he completely rebuilt the studio." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 222. Bradley calls him the house engineer "practically since it opened in 1968." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 331. Clive Chin recalled that Thompson was hired after the first engineer, Bill Garnett, left for the United States. Angus Taylor, "Interview: Clive Chin," United Reggae, November 5, 2008, https://unitedreggae.com/articles/n233/110508/interview-clive-chin. On the sixteen tracks, Katz, "Vincent 'Randy' Chin." Pitterson is credited as an engineer on "Legalize It," part of which was recorded at Randy's. "Peter Tosh - Legalize It," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/38442042.
  4. On the Impact All-Stars sessions, engineered by Thompson from 1972, Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 330. The members of Randy's All-Stars are listed in "Randy Chin," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Chin. No source was read for Ranchie McLean in the band.
  5. Bradley counts "the Barrett brothers, Sly Dunbar" among the Aggrovators and Ranchie McLean and Sly Dunbar among the Revolutionaries. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 349, 358.
  6. Clive Chin on knowing Pablo at school: Taylor, "Interview: Clive Chin." On "Java," Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 330, and Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 223.
  7. Bradley: "Java Java Java... in 1973, was another of the very first dub albums. Likewise Herman Chin Loy, whose Aquarius Dub LP appeared at roughly the same time." He also discusses Keith Hudson's dubs and dates "Blackboard Jungle Dub" to 1973. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 322, 330. The Rough Guide calls "Java Java Java Java" "one of the first dub albums ever released." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 223. On "This Is Augustus Pablo," Katz, "Vincent 'Randy' Chin." No source was read for Harriott in this connection.
  8. On the Perry sessions with the Wailers in 1970-71, Katz, "Vincent 'Randy' Chin." The Rough Guide says "Catch a Fire" was made at the Harry J, Dynamic and Randy's studios. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 137.
  9. The "Legalize It" sleeve credits Treasure Isle and Randy's. "Peter Tosh - Legalize It," Discogs, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/release/38442042. On Marcus Garvey, "Marcus Garvey (Album)," Wikipedia, accessed November 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Garvey_(album).
  10. Katz, "Vincent 'Randy' Chin." No source was read for "A Sugar."
  11. The film's publicity speaks of "hundreds of reels" that "survived years of neglect as well as looting, hurricane Gilbert, and intense tropical heat." "Studio 17: The Lost Reggae Tapes, Makes Its Global Premiere Today," DancehallMag, February 1, 2021, https://www.dancehallmag.com/2021/02/01/news/studio-17-the-lost-reggae-tapes-makes-its-global-premiere-today.html. A visitor's account gives about two thousand tapes; Angus Taylor wrote of "eight and a half thousand reels." "A Visit to Studio 17, Orange St. Kingston JA," The Carvery Studio, September 19, 2021, https://thecarverystudio.com/?p=4433. Angus Taylor, "Clive Chin: From 17 North Parade to the World," United Reggae, September 9, 2012, https://unitedreggae.com/articles/n1094/090912/clive-chin-from-17-north-parade-to-the-world.
  12. "A Visit to Studio 17," The Carvery Studio, a thin source.

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