Studio One (also known as "Studio 1") is the most revered and outstanding record label in the history of Jamaican music having introduced many reggae stars to the world.
It was one of the many labels formed by producer Clement "Coxsone" Dodd.
The original location of the operation and its recording studio was 13 Brentford Road, Kingston 5, Jamaica W.I.
In recognition of the importance of Mr. Dodd and the studio the street was renamed by the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (the city government) on May 1st, 2004 from Brentford Road to Studio One Boulevard.
Regarding the recent YepRoc reissues: Some tracks have been mastered from lossy (mp3) sources. You can tell by looking at the spectrum. The part of the music which was removed by the compression has been overlayed with a random noise signal... This is pretty much scam, especially on the releases were they claim it was mastered from the tapes.
I really hope Yep Roc gets back to the wonderful deluxe LP reissues like Presenting the Gladiators, the Wailers and Picture on the Wall. I know there are a lot of singles that could be compiled, but there are some LPs that are in desperate need of a quality repress. The top of my list would be Gaylads- Soul Beat, Carlton and the Shoes- Love Me Forever, and Termites- Do the Rock Steady. Also, some great Alton Ellis albums.
The music is indeed topnotch, but the recent black and white label represses using the classic 1 Studio logo shown above are truly appalling. It's as if they have mastered from the most horrible crackly copies they can find. Truly awful quality to the point of being unplayable. Other represses can be better but it is the usual lottery with Jamaican pressings off old vinyl. None of it will be perfect (or anything close)!
In my opinion the most consistently crap pressings to come out of Jamaica, which is a shame considering they produced some of the greatest reggae ever. I've found that the US pressings from (I believe) mid-1980s with a yellow background, a large red "1" and black text tend to be of reasonable quality and worth seeking out for any releases you'd like to *listen* to!
Hello everyone, I have an idea, to help distinguishing different Studio One presses. As we all know, there were several label variations (see http://www.downbeat-special.co.uk/LABELS/studio.html , and more on that essential site) Perhaps we can use some short comment in format field to describe, which one is that. Only problem i see here is to find short and well describing terms. Or maybe there are existing ones? What do You think?
gy187
July 28, 2021A good example is Various - Natural High (The Bongo Man Collection)