World of Jamaican Music

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An illustrated map of the creators of Jamaican music and how they are connected.

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Studio One

Studio. Ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub

Active
1963-1985

Studio One was the recording studio and label Clement "Coxsone" Dodd built at 13 Brentford Road in Kingston, and the place where more of Jamaican popular music was made than anywhere else.

Dodd had been running the Sir Coxsone's Downbeat sound system since the mid-1950s and issuing records since 1959, on World Disc and other labels of his own, cutting them at other people's studios; Theophilus Beckford's "Easy Snappin'" is among the earliest. In 1963 he took over a former nightclub called The End, near the Carib Theatre, and with his father, a construction worker, converted it. The studio, formally the Jamaica Recording and Publishing Studio Limited, opened in October 1963 with a one-track board. It was the first recording studio in Jamaica owned by a black Jamaican.

The house band changed names and personnel but not its function as a workshop. The Skatalites held the job until 1965 on weekly salaries; then came the Soul Brothers, the Soul Vendors in 1967, and then Sound Dimension. Jackie Mittoo was the arranger and musical director through all of them, coaching singers and shaping riddims, until he emigrated to Canada in 1968; Leroy Sibbles played and arranged bass for much of what followed. Sid Bucknor engineered first, and Sylvan Morris from the late 1960s until the early 1970s.

Dodd auditioned constantly and recorded almost anyone who showed promise. The Wailers cut "Simmer Down" there in late 1963, and the list of people who made early records at Brentford Road includes Toots and the Maytals, Alton Ellis, Ken Boothe, Delroy Wilson, John Holt, the Heptones, Bob Andy, Marcia Griffiths, Burning Spear, Horace Andy, Dennis Brown, Freddie McGregor, Dawn Penn, Larry Marshall, the Gladiators and Sugar Minott. Many arrived as teenagers with nothing and left able to work.

Dodd pressed and distributed his own records and licensed them abroad through his own outlets, which gave him unusual control and unusual leverage. He paid flat fees, kept the masters, and paid no continuing royalties, and a good many of the artists who speak warmly of what he taught them also say they were never paid for it.

The riddims recorded at Brentford Road have been recut more than any others in the music. Channel One's method in the mid-1970s was to rebuild them harder and faster; Sugar Minott, working at the studio at the same time, began writing new songs over the existing tapes, which became standard practice in dancehall a decade later.

In 1979 Dodd answered Channel One with a Studio One renaissance of his own, voicing new songs over his riddims with Sugar Minott, Johnny Osbourne, Freddie McGregor and the deejays Lone Ranger and Michigan and Smiley. Armed robberies at the premises pushed Dodd to New York in the mid-1980s, where he ran Coxsone's Music City in Brooklyn while keeping the Kingston operation alive. He returned in 1998 and reopened the studio. Brentford Road was renamed Studio One Boulevard at a ceremony in his honor at the start of May 2004, and he departed three days later, on May 4, aged seventy-two, at the studio; the cause was a heart attack. He was awarded the Order of Distinction in the rank of Commander posthumously in 2007. Reissue programs by Heartbeat from the mid-1980s, Soul Jazz in the 2000s and Yep Roc since have kept the catalog in print, and ownership of parts of it has been litigated repeatedly.

Last updated October 21, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. The Rough Guide calls it "the most influential studio of all"; Bradley writes that "for the first few years of reggae Studio One was the music's overall development." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 89; Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 212.
  2. The Rough Guide dates the sound-system owners' move into commercial record production to 1959. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 20. Bradley describes "Easy Snappin'" as first cut as soft wax for the Downbeat sound, with the released version recorded at Federal, and places its release early in 1960. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 51, 55. Katz says Dodd "began recording artists such as Bunny and Skully at Federal studio" in 1956. David Katz, "Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd," Guardian, May 6, 2004, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/may/06/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries.
  3. Bradley: "In 1963 Dodd took over 13 Brentford Road, premises that previously housed a nightclub called The End." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 99. DancehallMag says Dodd acquired it in 1962 and that his father, "a construction worker, helped him transform the building," and places it "close to the Carib Theatre." "Studio One: The Motown of Jamaica - A Complete History," DancehallMag, September 11, 2026, https://www.dancehallmag.com/2026/09/11/music/studio-one-the-motown-of-jamaica-a-complete-history.html.
  4. Bradley says Dodd "installed a one-track board and opened the Jamaican Recording & Publishing Studio Ltd, also known as Studio One." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 99. The month is from DancehallMag. "Studio One: The Motown of Jamaica."
  5. Bradley: "Dodd was then the only black man in Jamaica to own a recording studio." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 99.
  6. The books disagree on when the Skatalites formed: Bradley places the gathering at Brentford Road in 1963, the Rough Guide says they "were officially formed in June 1964." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 100; Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 42. The Rough Guide dates their farewell to just after Independence Day 1965. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 42. Bradley says Dodd kept his musical directors "on wages." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 212.
  7. The Rough Guide traces Mittoo's bands "from the Soul Brothers through the Soul Vendors to the Sound Dimension," dating the Sound Dimension name to "late 1967," while Bradley still calls the house band the Soul Vendors after "the end of 1968." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 90, 96; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 313. DancehallMag says the Soul Brothers were working "barely a week after the disbandment of the original Skatalites" in August 1965. "Studio One: The Motown of Jamaica."
  8. Bradley calls Mittoo "Coxsone's resident musical arranger/talent scout" and says Sibbles "edged Jackie Mittoo to one side as the man in charge of the music at Studio One"; the Rough Guide says Mittoo "first left for Toronto in 1968." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 201, 215; Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 96.
  9. The Rough Guide calls Morris "the finest recording engineer ever to work at 13 Brentford Road," places him there by early 1969, and says he had left before Dodd's 1974 dub series and moved to Harry J's in the mid-1970s. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 222, 226, 233. The Rough Guide places Syd Bucknor at Channel One in 1973. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 229. Campbell writes that Bucknor's "best work as an engineer was done in Jamaica at producer Clement Dodd's Studio One," during the rocksteady era of the mid-1960s. Howard Campbell, "Norman 'Syd' Bucknor: An Ear for Hit Songs," Jamaica Observer, February 20, 2018, https://jamaicaobserver.com/2018/02/20/norman-syd-bucknor-an-ear-for-hit-songs.
  10. The Rough Guide says the Wailers auditioned "one morning in late 1963" and that "Simmer Down" was released at the end of December 1963. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 38.
  11. DancehallMag credits Dodd with being "the first to record Burning Spear, Dennis Brown, the Heptones, and the Abyssinians." "Studio One: The Motown of Jamaica." Alton Ellis had first recorded for Dodd at Federal in 1959, before Brentford Road opened. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 20. Bradley quotes Sibbles on running Dodd's Sunday auditions. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 221.
  12. Keble Drummond of the Cables said Dodd promised him money from an album that "sold a lot," "But he never got me some," and Clinton Fearon of the Gladiators said, "I get no money from Coxsone." Peter I, "Keble 'Cables' Drummond: What Kind of World (The Interview), Part 2," Reggae Vibes, February 5, 2024, https://www.reggae-vibes.com/articles/2024/02/keble-cables-drummond-what-kind-of-world-the-interview-part-2/; Catherine Fearon, "Interview: Clinton Fearon Part 2," United Reggae, August 9, 2010, https://unitedreggae.com/articles/n437/080910/interview-clinton-fearon-part-2.
  13. The Rough Guide says Studio One "supplied the original cuts for nearly all the rhythms" of the early dancehall era, and credits the Revolutionaries' "updates of classic Studio One rhythms" with defining the rockers phase at Channel One. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 160, 263.
  14. The Rough Guide says Sugar Minott's 1978 Studio One album Live Loving showed "how new lyrics could be seamlessly grafted onto old rhythms." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 263.
  15. Katz says that although Channel One's recuts of Dodd's rhythms "subsequently found greater favour, he beat them at their own game with a Studio One renaissance in 1979." Katz, "Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd."
  16. Bradley: "In the mid-1980s he shut up shop and moved to New York, where he runs a record shop." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 224. DancehallMag says "an attempted armed robbery" convinced Dodd to move to Brooklyn. "Studio One: The Motown of Jamaica."
  17. DancehallMag says he returned to Brentford Road in 1998, "on the death of his mother." "Studio One: The Motown of Jamaica."
  18. DancehallMag gives May 1, 2004, for the renaming, says he died of a heart attack "three days later, aged 72, while working in his studio," and dates the award to October 15, 2007. "Studio One: The Motown of Jamaica." Katz says he received the Order of Distinction in 1991. Katz, "Clement 'Sir Coxsone' Dodd."
  19. DancehallMag dates Heartbeat's association with Dodd to 1983, with the compilation Best of Studio One. "Studio One: The Motown of Jamaica." The Rough Guide reviews several Soul Jazz Studio One compilations. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 75. Yep Roc launched its reissue series, in partnership with Dodd's daughter Carol, in 2016. Daniel Kreps, "Studio One Reissue Series Kicks Off With Classic 'Wailing Wailers,'" Rolling Stone, April 8, 2016, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/studio-one-reissue-series-kicks-off-with-classic-wailing-wailers-184088/.
  20. In 2021, for example, the administrators of Dodd's estate won a case in the UK High Court against his daughter Morna, who had licensed some of his music to a Japanese company. Claudia Gardner, "Daughter Of Coxsone Dodd, Producer & Bob Marley Mentor, Sued For 'Infringing' On Her Father's Intellectual Property," DancehallMag, November 6, 2021, https://www.dancehallmag.com/2021/11/06/news/daughter-of-coxsone-dodd-producer-bob-marley-mentor-sued-for-infringing-on-her-fathers-intellectual-property.html.

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