reggae
Ska > Rocksteady > Reggae
There are several assumptions about the first reggae song in history.
Maybe it was “People Funny Boy” by the songwriter and singer Lee “Scratch” Perry.
The first known song in which the word reggae appears is the single “Do The Reggay” by Toots and the Maytals in 1968.
In the early seventies, reggae gradually gave way to a slower-paced reggae with heavy bass: this marked the arrival of “roots reggae”.
Get Up, Stand Up by The Wailers
1968 > 1969
1970 > 1971
1972 > 1973
1974 > 1975
1976 > 1977
1978 > 1979
1980 > 1981
1982 > 1983
1984 > 1985
1986 > 1989
1990 > 1999
Music labels
Island Records (now owned by Universal Music Group) was founded in Jamaica by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in 1959.
Trojan Records was founded in 1968 when Lee Gopthal pooled his Jamaican music interests with those of Chris Blackwell’s Island Records.
Tracks were produced at Trojan, which was sold to Saga in 1975.
Blackwell also also formed Mango Records and pioneered reggae to wider audiences the UK and the US beginning in the mid 1970s with releases from Burning Spear, Augustus Pablo, Inner Circle, Dillinger, Black Uhuru, Third World, Aswad, Max Romeo, Justin Hines, Sly and Robbie and Lee Perry.
left to right : LKJ aka Linton Kwesi Johnson, Keith Hudson, James Chambers aka Jimmy Cliff, Desmond Dekker.
