THE FOUNDATION LABEL

The story of the mighty Studio One imprint, founded by legendary producer Coxsone Dodd in 1956 and home to many greats such as the Skatalites,Bob Marley, Jackie Mittoo and Sugar Minott is probably common knowledge by now (if not: watch the great documentary made and released by SoulJazz Records). Even if one has just a slight interest in reggae music it's impossible not to stumble upon Studio One, because sooner or later you're bound to hear a song, an artist or even a riddim that was originally created in the legendary studios on Brentford Road. Thanks to the hard work of many great labels such as Heartbeat and SoulJazz records we are able to listen to hard to find or unreleased gems. Thanks to avid fans such as Rob Chapman, we know what the original 7"s look like, which albums are bogus or bootlegged (for instance: all Trojan albums containing Studio One releases are illegal), and which items we should be on the lookout for.

The story about the label might be well known, as stated above, but how do you cover a fifty years period of reign in one documentary or even in a series of samplers? It can not be done. Luckilly there are thousand and thousands of interesting websites on the internet dealing with nothing but Studio One. A little bit of crawling keeps you informed and always yawning for more.
Two new interesting sites just hit the web:
Studio One heartbeat contains a timeline, wallpapers and some interesting links, but most of all: it contains every Studio One album released by the Heartbeat label and, here comes the good part: you can listen to all of the songs!

Studio One Style contains way too much information about 7"s, 10"s, 12"s, artists, new releases, old releases and more. It's good but unfortunately also for a great deal written in french. Not my strongest language I'm afraid..

thanks to dancecrasher for the links.

Also be on the lookout for two great new releases on the SoulJazz imprint containing nothing but goodies. These come highly recommended!!

Studio One Soul part 2
(click to see tracklisting and info)










and: Sound Dimension: Jamaica Soul Shake part 1