Contents - Beth Lesser

les tune. It was probably at that point where Mr. Dodd felt that it was fair
game to ‘version himself, so to speak, and realized the value of his riddims” *
The fierce competition between studios and producers lead to even more
versions of old classics surfacing in new styles. And the versions were being
played on the many sound systems throughout the island. At the time, Sugar
Minott was selecting and singing on a sound system in Maxfield Park called
Sound of Silence. “I used to play Studio One dubs [dubplate versions of the
rhythms] on my sound and I used to make up songs to them.” So, when Sugar
went to Studio One to audition for Mr. Dodd, he explained that he wouldn’t
need Mr. Dodd to make any new rhythm tracks for his music. He could sing
on what Coxsone already had in the vaults ** .
Coxsone Dodd was interested in the idea and cut some dubplates for
Sugar to take home and practice with. Sugar returned with ‘Wrong Doers’,
sung over the version of Leroy Sibbles’ ‘Love Me Girl’. Mr. Dodd was impressed
and ran off eight more rhythms for Sugar to play with. Sugar took the
rhythms and composed songs with his characteristic lyrics of suffering and
struggle. Mr. Dodd selected 10 of the songs that Sugar brought to him and
released them on the album Live Loving in 1977, songs like ‘Hang On Natty’,
‘Live Loving’ and ‘Jah Jah Lead Us’. The lyrics were true roots and culture, but
Sugar sang them in his romantic, melancholy style giving the songs the feel of
a ballads rather than protests.
The reaction to the first album was so favorable that Mr. Dodd followed
it up with a showcase LP that contained some of Sugar’s strongest and best
loved work, including the classics ‘Vanity’, ‘Mr. DC’ and the afore-mentioned
“I Need A Roof”.
The release of the two albums gave Studio One a new lease on life. “Everybody
start to find out that Sugar Minott has Coxsone rhythms that nobody
could ever get,” Sugar recalled. “So, all the sound people start coming to me
for dubplates, so I was like the king, man! Jack Ruby come in, Scorpio, Arrows.
So that’s how the whole revolution start, of singing on rhythms. And at
that time, I was like a savior to Studio One, cause, remember, there was no
more Ken Boothe, there was no more nobody. It was different. Freddy Mc-
Gregor was there, Silvertones and some people like that. it’s like a new studio
one started cause Everybody started singing on the rhythms. I did a song
called ‘Come Now Natty Dread’ and that’s how Freddy McGregor got his
first hit song – by making an answer to that, like ‘Come Now, Sister, Come
* “What was temporarily ‘out of date’ in the mid-’70s saw a re-assessment in the late ‘70s. He realized
the value of the bedtracks, and had musicians like Pablove Black ‘update them’ with over-dubs
to give them a bouncier, heavier sound.”- David Kingston
** The most common method for recording a vocalist was to have the band create a backing track
around the singer’s vocals. Sugar was, instead, building his vocals over already recorded backing
tracks
48 | RUB A DUB STYLE – The Roots of Modern Dancehall