The WBH Guide to Jamaican Music, part 2: The Golden Age – Rocksteady and Early Reggae
Toots and the Maytals [src: National Geographic]
Ska, which had completely dominated Jamaican music from the early 60s, couldn’t last forever. By mid-1966, a new sound was emerging, one that permanently changed Jamaican music forever: rocksteady, which lasted a mere month and a half or so before morphing into the earliest form of reggae, the name that has persisted till the present. These two forms together only lasted about six years, and while rocksteady is widely acclaimed as the golden age of Jamaican music, the official WBH opinion is that early reggae belongs in that era as well. In full disclosure, rocksteady and reggae up till about 1972/3 – stylistically very close to rocksteady – is arguably my favorite genre of music, leaning slightly more to the reggae side.
Following is the absolute best of the best that the island has produced, and dozens of brilliant tracks.
We Ball Harder 