As the supply of previously unheard tunes in the jump blues and more traditional R&B genre began to dry up in the late 1950s, Jamaican producers began recording their own version of the genres with local artists.[2] These recordings were initially made to be played on "Soft Wax" (a lacquer on metal disc acetate later to become known as a "Dub Plate"), but as demand for them grew eventually some time in the second half of 1959 (Believed by most to be in the last quarter) producers such as Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reid began to issue these recording on 45rpm, 7-inch discs. At this point the style was a direct copy of the American "Shuffle Blues" style, but within two or three years this had morphed into the more familiar Ska style with the off beat guitar chop that could be heard in some of the more uptempo late 1950s American Rhythm and Blues recordings such as Fats Domino's "Be My Guest" (a hugely popular record on Jamaican Sound Systems of the late 1950s). This "classic" Ska style was of bars made up of four triplets but was characterized by a guitar chop on the off beat — known as an upstroke or skank — with horns taking the lead and often following the off beat skank and piano emphasizing the bass line and, again, playing the skank.
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Rock-n-roll pioneer, unwitting inspiration for ska, New Orleans musical icon, and yet for some reason, the image that keeps running through my head is of Richie.
