STORY · GLOBAL
From Brentford Road to a global No. 1: the long life of a Studio One riddim
Well supported
How a 1968 Studio One instrumental travelled decades to become a worldwide hit.
The Full Up and Love Me Forever rhythms show a Studio One groove outliving its era and crossing the world.
A groove that would not retire
The rhythms cut at Studio One on Brentford Road in the late 1960s were built by a small circle of players - among them bassist Leroy Sibbles and keyboardist Jackie Mittoo - whose lines became public property in the best sense. The Full Up instrumental is a case in point: a spare, hypnotic groove that kept finding new singers.
In 1981 producer Gussie Clarke set the Mighty Diamonds on Full Up for Pass the Kouchie, a Rastafari smoking anthem. A year later the Birmingham teenagers Musical Youth reworked it as Pass the Dutchie - swapping the ganja reference for a cooking pot - and took the same Studio One rhythm to No. 1 in Britain and around the world.
The bassline stayed the same; only the words, and the size of the audience, changed.
The story repeats with melody as well as rhythm. The B-side of Carlton & the Shoes' Love Me Forever, 'Happy Land', supplied the seed for the Abyssinians' Satta Massagana, one of roots reggae's most covered songs. A single label's catalogue, cut in a few Kingston rooms, became a wellspring the whole world drank from - and, inevitably, a knot of questions about who wrote what, and who got paid.