In Jamaica, an island in the West Indies located 500 miles from Miami, the popular music at the time was Mento. Since the average Jamaican could not afford to fly overseas and learn of the music of other cultures, Jamaica had been unaffected by the music of America until large radio stations from the bigger south-eastern American cities such as Miami, Jacksonville, Nashville, and New Orleans, began to broadcast. Since the ocean created little interference with the signal, the stations were easily reachable on clear days.
Jamaicans became exposed to new forms of music. Rhythm and Blues, Jazz, and boogie-woogie were totally new to these people and had a danceable beat. The need for more American music grew as the people continued to listen. Some of the dancehall owners and entrepreneurs, such as Clement 'Coxone' Dodd, Leroy Riley, Headley Jones, and Jack Taylor, went out of their way to help satisfy the needs of the quickly changing musical culture in a place where their music was one of the only affordable social activities.
Radios that were capable of picking up distant radio stations were not easily accessible to the average Jamaican, leaving the spread of music largely dependent on the sound systems of their dance-halls. These sound systems would travel to various parts of Jamaica and spread the newest dance music. American musicians, such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles, Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, Smiley Lewis, and others were played from Friday Nights to Monday mornings in all of the dancehalls in Jamaica. The big sound system operators at that time were Tom the Great Sebastian, Roy White, V Rocket, Duke Reid the Trojan, and Sir Coxsone's Downbeat.
When Rock & Roll emerged from the United States, a puzzled Jamaica looked on. This new music identified with the white American youth and for the Jamaican people, it was more difficult to dance to. This would not have been a problem if the music hadn't begun to overpower rhythm & blues. Jamaicans began to find it more and more difficult to acquire r & b records for their dancehalls.
Clement Dodd, a sound system operator, record producer, and retailer, was the one who came up with the concept of creating a new Jamaican popular music. It would encompass all of the components of the music that was being played at the dancehalls: mento, r & b, jazz, and boogie-woogie, combined into one new form.
Dodd passed his ideas on to Cluet Johnson, the bass player for one of the most popular Jamaican dance and recording bands, Clue J and the Blues Blasters. All of the supporters of the "Coxsone Downbeat," were considered to be the 'heppest' in the music scene. Clue J would greet these supporters with the word "Skavoovie." The new music that was created, was said by many to have a "ya ya" sound. In honor of Clue J, the music took on an abbreviation of Clue J's favorite buzzword. This is how ska came about.
In the mid to late 50's, Calypso and American British Pop Style music were the only recordings coming out of Jamaica. Near the end of the 50's, Dodd was recording Jamaican entertainers doing a jazz and r & b sound. The ska sound wasn't officially created until late '60 or '61. The sound was totally different from any of the previous Jamaican forms of music.
"Musically, Ska is a fusion of Jamaican mento rhythm with r & b, with the drum coming in on the 2nd and 4th beats, and the guitar emphasizing the up of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th beats. The drum is therefore carrying the blues and swing beats of the American music, and the guitar is expressing the mento sound." (Julian Jingles)
Ska music became Jamaicans' first popular music. Ska even developed its own dance, which came from the middle class of Jamaica. New names immediately rose to the top of this new Jamaican art form. For vocalists, there was Lascelles Perkins, Owen Grey, Laurel Aitken, Clancy Eccles, Higgs and Wilson, Bunny and Skitter, and the Jiving Juniors. Jah Jerry Haynes became the most famous guitarist, and Aubrey Adams was the popular pianist. The big bass players of the time were, of course, Clue J and Lloyd Brevett. Lloyd Knibbs and Drumbago were the drummers, while Raymond Harper, Jackie Willacy, and Dizzy Johnny Moore were the popular trumpet players. As for trombone, Don Drummond and Rico Rodriguez were a hit. On tenor sax there was the incredible Roland Alphonso.
In 1962, Tommy McCook, one of Jamaica's greatest tenor saxophonists, returned to live in Jamaica. He soon became one of the key players in the shaping of ska music. McCook was an accomplished jazz saxophonist, whose musical discipline greatly enhanced this growing form of music. A year later he began recording with a group of leading musicians: Don Drummond, trombone, Roland Alphonso, tenor saxophone, Lester Sterling, alto, Jackie Mittoo, piano, Lloyd Brevett, bass, Lloyd Knibbs, drums, and Jah Jerry, guitar. Later on, Dizzy Johnny Moore was brought into the group on trumpet.
This group recorded in Studio One, a famous Jamaican recording studio. The response was overwhelming, leaving the fans of the music curious as to whom the musicians were. McCook then suggested that a band should be formed. Lloyd Brevett asked McCook to lead them as a band.
McCook eventually agreed and they became the Skatalites in June of 1964. They broke up after only fourteen months. The kind of ska that the Skatalites played was different from the original boogie-woogie sound that Clue J and his Blues Blasters had created. Tommy McCook explains:
"The drop, the 2nd and 4th beat where the drum dropped was the key to it. In rhythm and blues it was the same drop, but also the ska was a little faster, and the background was different to R & B. The guitar was playing a different thing and the piano wasn't playing as much r &b just ska-ing strictly and keeping the music lively. It was a foundation really. It was a good vibe, and the singers wanted to show their appreciation of the beat, so we used to fire hard on that beat. When the horns weren't riffing, we would come in on the ska and add more weight to it." (Tommy McCook)
In 1967, a great heat wave crippled the West Indies. This made dancing to ska difficult and naturally the pace of the music was slowed as a compromise. Eventually the music slowed enough to be an entirely new sound. Ska had evolved into rocksteady.
The rocksteady sound was much different from the ska. The horns of the rocksteady were turned down, and the emphasis was more on the bass rhythm. This brought forth many artists who were in the backdrop during ska's time. Desmond Dekker, Keith and Tex, the Jamaicans, Laurel Aitken, and others, swept the island off it's feet and could even be heard as far away as England. The first Jamaican band to hit the British pop charts was Desmond Dekker in 1967 with a #11 hit "007 Shanty Town." He also reached #1 in 1969 with "Israelites." This became the music of the British working class, who were then evolving into skinheads.
The desire for this rocksteady sound by the Jamaicans and skinheads made it possible for a new type of music to be started that was focused around skinheads. This was called skinhead reggae. Bands such as Symarip, Derrick Morgan, Desmond Dekker, and others pumped out songs to appease the skinhead masses. The skinhead reggae bands would eventually fade, as would rocksteady in Jamaica, but the UK had been exposed to a new form of music, and it was only a matter of time before something would be done about it.