Talk:Studio One (record label)

citations for artists who recorded at studio one

i put three citations to references at the end of the list of artists rather than citing each one to a specific source. this seemed more clear to me, but i wouldn't object if anyone wants to break this out into separate citations for each artist. your call. — alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 22:54, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

the current first paragraph

is in kind of rough shape, but i can't really see what to do about it. the one reference is a bunch of unreferenced quotes on a web page, and there's non-inline reference to a cd booklet, which i don't have available. my feeling is that the best thing to do is rewrite the whole thing from legit sources, but i don't have any available right now. — alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 23:25, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Easy Snapping was recorded at Federal Studio

Coxsone used Federal Studio to record Easy Snapping in 1956 (see Ranglin article).

The track was first released on the Worldisc label.

Ernest Ranglin Wikipedia Article

Sluffs (talk) 23:16, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Studio One Reopens (January 2012)

Is this Jamaica Observer, 20 January 2012 source acceptable to report that Studio One reopened in 2012? (I am new to this.)

Whschirmer (talk) 20:03, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

History section

There's so much wrong with the History section that I don't know where to start; it needs to be completely re-written from the ground up and, given its central importance in the history of Jamaican music, probably should be longer. It should be carefully correlated with the article on Coxsone Dodd himself, which isn't much better but does include some material that ought to be here. I don't think it would be right to combine the articles (the organisation and its leader should remain separate) but clearly there will be a lot of overlap when both are done properly.

What Clement Dodd founded in 1954 wasn't "Studio One", it was the Sir Coxsone Down Beat sound system. When his organisation graduated to producing its own recordings around 1956, initially as exclusives to play on the sound system as suitable American imports became harder to find, they used whatever studios were available in Kingston at the time - initially Federal, owned by the Khoury family, was pretty much the only one. When Dodd began releasing these productions to the public around 1959, they were on a variety of labels including Worldisc.

In 1963 Dodd purchased a former nightclub known as The End on Brentford Road in Kingston and refitted it as the Jamaica Recording & Publishing Studio. Because it was the first Black-owned recording facility in Jamaica (the Khourys were of Lebanese descent) it became colloquially known as Studio One, with Dodd soon adding a label of this name to his many others. The Khourys sold Dodd their old one track recorder for him to use in the studio when they upgraded to a 2-track machine; he in turn upgraded to 2-track in 1965, enabling him to record vocal and backing tracks separately for the first time. It's unclear who first called the studio Studio One; it may have been Dodd himself but it was never the official name of the studio. Either way, the first releases on the label of that name appear to have been issued around late 1963, within months of the studio opening.

The Skatalites did indeed break up in 1965, and it did follow Don Drummond's conviction for murder, however it's not at all clear that the latter event directly led to the former (they continued for 6 months without Drummond after his arrest) and it certainly wasn't the only or even the main factor, therefore it shouldn't be implied in the text.

Burning Spear should not be included in the list of artists who recorded at Studio One from 1965-1968 - they didn't record until 1969. Likewise "Creation Rebel", a Burning Spear track, shouldn't be included in the list of songs recorded in that era. (It might be better to take the date range out.) The paras about musicians should include some mention of Leroy Sibbles (leader of The Heptones) as he was also the bass player and band leader on many Studio One productions of the late 1960s and composer of many of their most iconic bass lines.

Jackie Mittoo did indeed move to Canada in 1968, but he regularly returned to Jamaica and continued to record at Studio One when he did so. The sentence about Hux Brown's work outside Studio One doesn't belong in this article and I'm not at all sure that Jackie Mittoo ever recorded for Leslie Kong, as implied by the sentence beginning the 4th para of this section, especially as it only refers to drums and bass and Mittoo was a keyboard player.

The studio was closed when Dodd relocated to New York but the label continued to operate from his new base and Dodd was producing new recordings up until his death in 2004. Since then, members of his family have continued to press Studio One material and license it to other record companies, such as Soul Jazz in the UK and Heartbeat and then Yep Roc in the USA.

It needs to be emphasised in the article that only a certain proportion of Dodd's output ever came out on the Studio One label itself (though it was one of, if not the most used) but that his whole output as a producer is collectively known among fans as Studio One, just as the total output of all of Berry Gordy's labels is known as Motown. A list of Dodd's other labels would be useful (and more doable than a lot of this upgrade!)

I don't know how much of what I've included above can be properly referenced, but I read it across various books and sleeve notes since the 1980s, so there must be some scope. There are undoubtedly people who know far more about this stuff - and the appropriate references - than I do. As an initial clean up, I'll remove a couple of bits that simply don't belong here. Freewheeling frankie (talk) 11:48, 31 May 2023 (UTC)