The Golden Age of Reggae: An Archival Romp With Roots Pioneer Patricia Chin
It all started in 1958 with Randy’s Record Mart, a tiny shop in a converted ice cream parlor in downtown Kingston, Jamaica. Elvis Presley, Jim Reeves, and Little Richard were running the airwaves by day; Coxsone Dodd’s and Duke Reid’s sound systems were commanding the streets by night. Having noticed a need for more local recording studios, the owners of Randy’s, Patricia Chin and her husband, Vincent “Randy” Chin, decided to open their own production facility, which they named Studio 17.
An abbreviated list of the artists who recorded at Studio 17 in the years that followed: Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Gregory Isaacs, Fats Domino, Dennis Brown, Burning Spear, Toots and the Maytals, the Heptones, and Bunny Wailer. Augustus Pablo recorded his hit “Java” there in 1972, and Lee “Scratch” Perry rented the studio for weeks at a time to produce songs by Bob Marley and the Wailers. Marley himself recorded tracks from Catch a Fire at the Chins’ studio. It was around this time that the young Greek filmmaker Ted Bafaloukos began to shoot his 1978 art-house classic, Rockers. Several scenes were shot outside of Randy’s Record Mart, which also became a hub for the film’s crew and cast, many of whom had themselves recorded at Studio 17.
Fast-forward through six decades, countless albums, and a relocation in the ’70s to Queens, New York. VP Records is the largest publisher and distributor of reggae and dancehall in the world and Patricia Chin, now 78, one of Jamaican music’s foremost living pioneers. (Vincent passed away in 2003.) Chin recently spoke with us about the birth of reggae, the now-mythic days of Randy’s Record Mart (shown here in photographs courtesy of Bafaloukos), and why roots reggae is coming back now.
What would you say was the first reggae song?
I would say it was “Do the Reggay” by Toots and the Maytals in 1968.
What, instrumentally, made reggae different from ska and rocksteady?
The beats and the riddims. Ska was the precursor and the beat was very fast with a lot of brass, like a big band sound. For example, you had the Skatalites, Prince Buster, and early Wailers songs that were an expression of that genre. Rocksteady was heavily influenced by rhythm and blues, so the beat slowed down, like what you hear in Alton Ellis’s music. And then reggae slowed down the beat even more with artists like Bob Marley.
What quality did the one-drop bring to the music?
The one-drop was less instrumental, and it was dependent on the drum and the bass. It’s when the drum and the bass became the two heartbeats of the riddim. The one-drop also came about during a period when the music’s message was changing. This is where Rastafari comes in, the Rastafarian chant, so the drum was an essential component. You can look at the Nyabinghi drumming culture and see how the message is expressed through the music.
How was the substance of reggae lyrics different from ska and rocksteady?
Ska and rocksteady artists were singing more about life and having a good time. They were our storytellers in the ’50s and ’60s. And then as times got tougher in Jamaica and it became more about the search for the motherland, more about a back-to-Africa vision, the lyrics started to reflect that through reggae. So in the ’70s and ’80s, you had songs from artists like Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, and Gregory Isaacs that spoke more about culture and politics and social commentary. Reggae was conscious music, whereas rocksteady and ska were more party genres, like when The Paragons sang, “I’m gonna wear you to the ball tonight.”
What role did your record store and studio play in the birth of reggae?
We were in the heart of Kingston, so we were a popular crossroads for the musicians and singers and producers. All of them came to our shop and studio—Lee Perry, Bob Marley, Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs, Jacob Miller, Burning Spear, Augustus Pablo, Sugar Minott, The Heptones, The Upsetters, so many artists. “Idler’s Rest,” they called it, where everyone gathered. And then the record companies like Trojan, EMI, Island Records, Jet Star, and some of the independents would come to sign up artists and license songs right then and there. Our studio became the spot, because the other studios were so far away and so expensive. You had to do a recording in one place, then go to another place to do the mastering, then somewhere else to do the pressing. So what we did was centralize the process by keeping the studio right in Kingston, and we did everything in-house. It was an exciting time because you’re watching this movement build up right in front of you. Looking back, it was just a privilege to be that much a part of the thing, to belong that much to the music.
Was it common for Jamaicans to own record players in the ’70s?
Yes, in the ’70s people had them in Jamaica. You don’t see it much now, but before the 45s came about, we listened to the 78s. RCA used to produce them. The 78s were gramophone records and you’d have to wind up the gramophone to play them. That was well before the turntable came around, and I was there from that time.
What did you sell more of: singles or albums?
Singles, 45s, and we carried everybody’s record—it didn’t matter who the artist was. We would get maybe 10 to 15 new 45s a week, and on Saturdays our shop was stacked with people from the sound systems, from country, even from foreign, just lining up to buy music. We knew all the artists that were hot, all the producers, all the riddims, because we were like a walking encyclopedia of music just from selling at the counter six days a week.
How did you come to start recording artists?
Things just happened naturally for us. We went from stage to stage. We were selling the records at first. Then we decided to start distributing them, then producing, then we built a little studio because we wanted to record the music. Eventually we started the label. The first artist we officially signed was Beenie Man once we moved to America. We signed him in 1997, and then Shabba Ranks and Yellowman. But we had signed Lord Creator back in Jamaica in 1962, and my husband [Vincent] recorded the song “Independent Jamaica” with him.
Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Burning Spear, and much of the early reggae royalty recorded at your Studio 17. Are there particular sessions that stand out to you now?
Lee Perry was the most outstanding because he was always experimenting with new sounds and beats. He rented the studio a lot, and would just disappear and live up there, you know, working on early Bob Marley and the Wailers songs. A lot of people thought he was sort of crazy, but he was a genius where the music was concerned. And look at what he became, one of the originators of dub, which has shaped the way music sounds today.
We recorded tracks for Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Catch a Fire at our studio. Bob was a cool guy. And then Burning Spear cut his album Marcus Garvey in the studio in 1975 with the Black Disciples band. In 1976, Peter Tosh recorded Legalize It and Equal Rights with us in 1977.
Did DJ music have the same audience as band music?
Well, I would say DJ music was more exciting because it was about the battle of words, and the sound systems were very competitive and popular with the people. They each brought their own special flavor through improvisation. You could have one riddim and have three DJs putting their voice on it, so it was like a showdown on the mic. Many of our songs are based on everyday living, so it’s fascinating to see how the DJs express themselves, how they formulate the lyrics and chat over the riddims. Beenie Man, Yellowman, Shabba, all a dem—they rap with it, dem know how fi flow. So it’s a war, but it’s a war with words. That’s why the music is so compelling, because it tells a story and offers an emotional release. It’s the same with hip-hop. They patterned American hip-hop after the Jamaican sound system.
In what ways was reggae a product of its time?
Well, every time we had an election coming around, the DJs would go with the different political parties and create lyrics for that politician to amplify their message. So the music became the people’s mouthpiece in many ways. And then Bob Marley was definitely singing about the times on his albums like Survival and Exodus, talking about political oppression and social upliftment and a call to consciousness.
Why did you leave Jamaica in the ’70s?
We took a lot of chances in leaving Jamaica. It felt like we reverted 15 years backwards, but it was also a new beginning. I remember at Christmastime, our shop was open for 24 hours down on North Parade. From Christmas Eve right up to Christmas morning, people were still buying music and celebrating in the street and there was just this relaxed energy around the place. It’s only when the politics changed and there was talk of socialism that we started to get concerned. Everybody got concerned. A lot of planes were flying out. Some went to Canada, some to America, some to England. As our prime minister at the time, Michael Manley, said, “Ten planes out a day. Go if you want to go.” So everybody just left. And that’s when we decided to come up to New York.
Was reggae already popular in New York when you arrived?
It was only Bob Marley that people knew. So we had to school them about the music. We said, “You don’t know Burning Spear? You don’t know Lee Perry?” Considering that Bob was so popular, we brought a lot of Augustus Pablo, Israel Vibration, a lot of culture and roots music with us, but our customers didn’t gravitate toward that. Somehow they couldn’t see the connection between those artists and Bob Marley. They mostly wanted the dancehall because it was close to hip-hop, and that was a popular and recognizable genre for Americans at the time.
Why do you think Bob Marley blew up the way he did?
I think he came at the right time. He reflected the times, too, what was happening in England and American during the ’60s and ’70s, with different pockets of unrest and social rebelliousness. He was unique because he had dreadlocks and he carried a strong message with a positive outlook. People universally could identify with him, and he eventually became an international icon. Chris Blackwell worked very hard to get his voice heard, too. Bob’s success was a combination of his looks, his message, and his authenticity. He walked the walk.
When did reggae start to evolve into dancehall?
The music just evolved with the times. Dancehall was a more stripped-down version of reggae that started around the late ’70s with artists like Yellowman. Then in the ’80s, the digital instrumentation aspect of it began to get popular. But dancehall is aimed at entertaining the crowd more than promoting a message. It’s more short-lived, you know, and there’s always a next track coming out, and a next, and a next. Reggae has a longer life span because it’s organic, it’s grown out of musicians with a knowledge and appreciation of the forerunners of the genre. It’s about improvisation rather than expensive machines and production techniques. Reggae is live. It has feeling. It’s music from the heart.
Why do you think roots reggae is coming back now?
After 50 years, the younger generation is searching for something deeper. It’s just a timing in the minds of the people and the universe. My granddaughter is going back to listening to Bob Marley again. And she wasn’t even born when he was making music. I saw a lot of the young roots reggae artists, Jah9 and Chronixx and Romain Virgo—his style is more lovers’ rock—perform at the Rototom Festival in Spain last August in front of 20,000 people, and the reception was just incredible! I think it signals the comeback of reggae and conscious music.
What do you think makes reggae music so uniquely and universally potent?
The lyrics, the message, the riddims. Reggae isn’t watered down. It’s not machine-made. It’s like organic food, you know, food for the spirit and the soul. It has so many elements to express so many different moods. Reggae is a music you just never get tired of listening to. You can’t hold on to it, though. It’s like love. You pass it on, and you pass it on, and someone else passes it on. But I know the music will never die. It will never die.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
