Rocksteady

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Rocksteady (disambiguation).

Music of Jamaica
Kumina - Nyabinghi- Mento - Ska - Rocksteady - Reggae - Sound systems - Lovers rock - Dub - Dancehall - Dub poetry - Toasting - Raggamuffin - Roots reggae
Anglophone Caribbean music
Anguilla - Antigua and Barbuda - Bahamas - Barbados - Bermuda - Caymans - Grenada - Jamaica - Montserrat - St. Kitts and Nevis - St. Vincent and the Grenadines - Trinidad and Tobago - Turks and Caicos - Virgin Islands
Sound samples
Other Caribbean music
Aruba and the Dutch Antilles - Cuba - Dominica - Dominican Republic - Haiti - Martinique and Guadeloupe - Puerto Rico - St. Lucia - United States - United Kingdom

Rocksteady is music genre that was most popular in Jamaica between 1966 and 1968.

The term comes from a dance style that was mentioned in the Alton Ellis song Rock Steady. The rocksteady dance was more relaxed than the earlier, more frantic skanking dance style. A successor to ska, and a precursor to reggae, rocksteady was performed by Jamaican vocal harmony groups such as The Gaylads, The Kingstonians, Toots & the Maytals and The Paragons.

Rocksteady differs from ska in that it has a more relaxed tempo, a diminished use of horns, and a changed role for the bass guitar. With ska, the bass tends to play quarter notes in an even walking style, but with rocksteady, the bass part is more broken-up and syncopated, using aggressive, repetitive lines which were often doubled by a guitar.

[edit] History

Rocksteady arose at a time when young people from the Jamaican countryside were flooding into the urban ghettos of Kingston — in neighborhoods such as Riverton City, Greenwich Town and Trenchtown. Though much of the country was optimistic in the immediate post-independence climate, these poverty-stricken youths did not share this sentiment. Many of them became delinquents who exuded a certain coolness and style. These unruly youths became known as rude boys.

The rude boy phenomenon had existed in the ska period, but was expressed more obviously during the rocksteady era in songs such as Rude Boy Gone A Jail by the Clarendonians; No Good Rudie by Justin Hinds & the Dominoes; and Don't Be Rude by the Rulers. Though Alton Ellis is generally said to be the father of rocksteady for his hit Girl I've Got a Date, other candidates for the first rocksteady single include Take It Easy by Hopeton Lewis, Tougher Than Tough by Derrick Morgan and Hold Them by Roy Shirley.

The record producer Duke Reid released Alton Ellis' Girl I've Got a Date on his Treasure Isle label, as well as recordings by The Techniques, The Silvertones, The Jamaicans and The Paragons. Reid's work with these groups helped establish the vocal sound of rocksteady. Notable solo artists include Delroy Wilson, Bob Andy, Ken Boothe and Phyllis Dillon (known as the Queen of Rocksteady).

Rocksteady lyrics mainly dealt with love or rude boys — or were simple dance tunes. Singers sometimes covered hit songs of the United States. Musicians who were crucial in creating the music included guitarist Lynn Taitt, keyboard player Jackie Mittoo, drummer Winston Grennan, bassist Jackie Jackson and saxophonist Tommy McCook.

Several factors contributed to the evolution of rocksteady into reggae in the late 1960s. The emigration to Canada of key musical arrangers Jackie Mittoo and Lynn Taitt — and the modernization of Jamaican studio technology — had a marked effect on the sound and style of the recordings. Bass patterns became more complex and increasingly dominated the arrangements, and the piano gave way to the electric organ. Other developments included horns fading farther into the background; a scratchier, more percussive rhythm guitar; and a more precise and intricate drumming style.

By the early 1970s, as the Rastafarian movement gained in popularity, songs became focussed less on romance and more on black consciousness, politics and protest. Although rocksteady was a short-lived phase of Jamaican popular music, it was hugely influential to the reggae and dancehall styles that followed. Many bass lines originally created for rocksteady songs continue to be used in contemporary Jamaican music.

[edit] External links

Reggae
Reggae - Mento - Rocksteady - Ska - Blue Beat - Dub music - Dub poetry - Toasting - Lovers Rock - Dancehall (music) - Ragga - Reggaeton - Roots reggae - 2 Tone
List of reggae genres - Caribbean music in the United Kingdom
Related topics
Jamaica - Haile Selassie - Marcus Garvey - Rastafari - Rude boy - Skinhead - Dancehall (venue) - Dubplate - Jamaican sound system - Sound system (DJ) - Riddim - Jamaican English - Studio One - Trojan Records - Island Records - Coxsone Dodd - Chris Blackwell - Reggae musiciams - Dub artists - Jamaiican record producers