Young Gun Silver Fox's music is nothing if not evocative. It envelops you like a warm breeze on an early summer evening and floats over the Topanga Canyon of our minds — a familiar soundtrack for a groovy house party or drive along the coast. It’s timeless in one sense, while also referencing a very particular era.

Over four albums, YGSF reflect "an apex of analog record-making" that occurred between 1977-1982 —  a period of pop radio where groups like Hall & Oates, Steely Dan, the Doobie Brothers and countless less-heralded others created million-dollar records that dominated the charts and remain staples of classic rock radio.

"One of the things that was unusual about that whole West Coast scene was that you had these really talented people, but they all worked together in different capacities. One day they were working on a Michael Jackson record and another day they were doing their own record — or maybe sometimes the same day," says YGSF co-founder Shawn Lee, an American multi-instrumentalist with credits the length of some of his idols. "That's why the music sounds so money, because everybody was at the height of their powers. Everybody had craft."

Although Young Gun Silver Fox nod to an analog era, they make music in a very 21st century medium. Collaborators Lee and Andy Platts – both multi-instrumentalists, with Platts doing much of the songwriting — met on Myspace. And while both live in the UK, they are rarely in the same room. Lee is more of a city guy and lives in London while Platt lives with his wife and young children about 2.5 hours away along  the M25 motorway — they primarily work separately and send each other files. 

"There's an advantage now because you know how things were done and how they're supposed to be done. You have history and you know where the bodies are buried," Lee says with a laugh. "These were records that cost a lot of money to make, and we're making these things in a way that is the exact opposite of that."

The result is era-perfect, and could easily be placed among any of their yacht rock idols. Yet Young Gun Silver Fox are distinct for their medium and messaging; where their heroes were sarcastic or heartbroken, YGSF are wistful and in love, incorporating funk, soul and psychedelia. Their most recent album, 2022's aptly titled Ticket To Shangri-La, is being released as a deluxe version with two newly remixed tracks.

Following their first North American shows in late 2023, Young Gun Silver Fox are preparing an American tour beginning Jan. 23 in Los Angeles. Fittingly, Shawn Lee and Andy Platts sat down over zoom from their respective homes to talk about recreating the sounds of the late ‘70s and ‘80s.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell me a little bit about how you translate what's on the record into a live performance with multiple additional players.

Shawn Lee: It requires a lot of concentration. I think we have a laugh when we play live and it's unscripted. There's a lot of people singing along and dancing around. The choruses will often erupt into big sort of sing-alongs, so it's a lot of fun.

I quite like "Lenny." It's a sort of epic little track and it's always a big sing-along. "Underdog" is quite cool; I love that drop in the middle and everybody claps their hands. Sometimes you can't even hear what you're singing in the chorus. "Mojo Rising" has always been a real massive crowd sing-along and we're trying to get our little vocal blend together and it's like…

Andy Platts: You can't even hear yourself. [At a gig in] Cologne in Germany, [a guy] must've been two meters tops from me, singing every ad lib, every single vocal detail from the record, whilst I was doing it. It was like a double tracking lead vocal thing in the room. He was really on point, really passionate, just singing his heart out. I think after the fourth number, I was halfway through a song and I [mouthed] Really? Is this the thing for the whole show? I think he kind of got the gist of my discreet, please shut the f— up.

Lee: Sometimes people sing the horn parts as well, which always makes me laugh.

I'd love to take it back to just the two of you and learn a bit about the genesis of your group. How did you guys come to develop this distinct but very familiar sounding vibe?

Lee: Back in that time when Myspace was really big and it was a really good networking site for musicians …that's how we met. We tried producing an earlier iteration of [Platts’ band] Mama's Gun, and for whatever reasons that didn't quite happen. So that planted the seed in my head that I wanted to make this kind of sophisticated West Coast music with Andy, and I knew he had all the right reference points and all the right talents that together we could do something good.

It was a good couple of years to make the first record, off and on occasionally doing a tune while we were both busy with our own respective things. And it was very much just a labor of love; we didn't have any big plans for it. It was just let's cobble together a record in our spare time.

Platts: The A&R guy for the label we went with in Holland, he was a guy called Jacques de Bruin, who I'd worked for years, and we got the record to him initially and he was like, "I love it. I grew up with this s—, but I don't know who's going to buy it." And then two months later he called and said, "I want to put it out. F— it. Let's have a go."

There was a DJ that picked up on a track called "Long Way Back," the very last track on the first album, which is like this six minute 50 BPM, really slow soul jam. And he started playing the s— out of it, over and over, and that really caught fire. So it was a real natural, slow-burning word-of-mouth thing that has put us on this journey. 

What does a typical collaboration look like for you guys, if there's such a thing as a typical working pattern?

Platts: It’s one of three things. Shawn will make a perfect sounding record and play almost everything on it — maybe not the horns. It'll sound finished and it's just waiting for some songwriting, some lyrics, melodies, perhaps some backing vocals; a few extra bits of sugar on it – synths or whatever.

Another way is that I'll start and I'll send all the multi-tracks over to Shawn. He'll add or replace whatever needs replacing. Invariably if I try and play drums on the track, Shawn will replace that because he is a master drummer. The third way is your old school get it together in person, which has happened on a few tracks. 

More often than not, we kind of like being masters of our own domain and using the technology and the internet for speed and bottling stuff and getting s— done. A Young Gun Silver Fox record doesn't take that long to make usually. It's just having the time set aside to do it.

With all that in mind, it's pretty incredible that you guys managed to make these records that sound like million dollar Los Angeles productions from the '70s. And in reality, you're just emailing back and forth. What is the secret sauce?

Platts: Before it turns into ones and zeros, we're actually playing this s—. It's all these same instruments from back then, same analog processes.

Lee: I think it's one of the gifts of modern technology to not have to go into some expensive studio. It's basically working with really strong materials and then putting it together. There's a saying in the studio world: You can't polish a turd. You need to have good ideas, and good execution of ideas. 

Platts: When people say you can't make a record like that for $100,000. What they're talking about is a $100,000 musical idea. They think that they're talking about the studio and all the bells and whistles and the Star Trek Enterprise, and that's the vessel through which all this brilliance seems to work and come out sounding how it should. They're not attributing that to the source material.

Having those shared reference points and just deeply understanding the language of what you are trying to reference, probably goes a long way in creating something that sounds authentic.

Lee: I think the magic in record making is in the people; in the musicality and what they put into it. There is magic in the process, and it's just about being open to that and letting it happen. I work really fast and I always have. Working fast really ensures that the magic gets in there because I'm discovering it at the time that I'm recording it. 

When you're being intuitive and noodling along, there's a sort of innocence. There's a sort of not pushing too hard thing, which has an energy and a magic to it. It hasn't become stiff and sterile, or I haven't been obsessed by the technical delivery of it.

Platts: It’s a bit more chin stroking for me in that department. I'm happy to gestate on stuff. [Lyrics are] probably one of the big gold standards of the time period in which we're referencing. And for me, that's all about songwriting craft. There's a certain duty of care that is less prevalent in the mainstream to my ears these days in terms of lyrical integrity. You've got to be able to look at something and want it to stand up. 

Is there an underrated, a AOR/yacht-rock group that each of you feels has really influenced your sound?

Lee: I feel like everybody is highly rated amongst the aficionados [of this music]. But I think there were definitely people at the time of inception that didn't really have the hits. You had your Steely Dans and your Doobie Brothers with Michael McDonald who were getting the big hits, and the Christopher Crosses and people like that.

At the same time those records were coming out, there were other bands that weren't really setting the charts on fire, but there were records that I was listening to and enjoying at the same time. There was a record called Single by Bill Champlin, which came out in 1978, which had all the same people working on it.

Pages was another band; they didn't really have any hits, but they've become this sort of musicians' band now. And they were very involved in the whole scene as backing singers. They sang on so many hit records, everybody from Michael Jackson, to Al Jarreau, to Kenny Loggins. 

You had these guys who were obviously really, really amazing at what they did, but they were friends and they had fun and they were making music all the time. Those guys are doing it every day, day in and day out. With all the talent that they had, and all the great people that they had to work with — the great studios, and the great engineers, and the great arrangers — that's why the music sounds so money, because everybody was at the height of their powers.

There was never pop music that was so musical and accomplished, and that sophisticated, that was on the radio. Steely Dan is the perfect example: They made this really, really sarcastic music, almost like they were the smartest people in the room and maybe had a slight bit of contempt for you. But their songs were on the radio and you were singing along and they had the best musicians. And that's a rare thing. It doesn't exist anymore.

Andy, are there any records that really inspired you, particularly from a songwriting perspective?

Platts: Young Gun Silver Fox was started by Shawn. I think he harbored a desire to start making music that referenced this time at some point because it's so deep within him. He came up when that s— was on the radio. One of the great exciting things about this project is that I've been introduced to a whole load of s— that was kind of second nature to Shawn. I hadn't heard, for example, "Biggest Part Of Me" by Ambrosia. And when Shawn played me that, I was like, f—ing hell that's awesome. Absolutely awesome.

I read that "Moonshine" from Ticket To Shangri-La  was co-written with prolific songwriter/Heatwave member Rod Temperton. How did that come about?

Platts: In 2005 I got to score my first ever publishing deal, and they were keen to develop me as an artist. They're like, "We like your songwriting style, we like what you're doing, but you just need to put in the hours and do some wood shedding. Is there anyone you want to work with?" 

I'd spent the previous three years going around the world working with loads and loads of pop people. There are people who are really good at doing that and write fantastic songs, but that's just not the environment that I wanted to be in. I knew that I wanted to be educated in a different way, I think by osmosis.

I spent two days and nights with [Temperton] at his place in Topanga, just hanging out, smoking a lot of Marlboro Reds. Talking and listening, and working on a track together. We created this horrifically sounding '80s demo; it epitomized the worst of the '80s in one production. I knew it was a wicked song, so some 20 years later, Shawn had heard it and he said, "Look, this could work."

He came back with this whole production around my vocal and Rhodes that really did justice to the song, to the spirit of Rod's writing, to where we were with Young Gun Silver Fox. We quickly released it as a little limited edition seven inch, and it just flew. 

Lee: It was an amazing opportunity to be part of that legacy in my own way just to put myself into that scenario. And I definitely felt the responsibility that I had to do it justice. 

As somebody who writes about revivals quite a bit, I cringe asking this question: How do you not exhaust this fairly specific sound, both as performers and with audiences?

Platts: It's a narrow timeline and pool of music and style if you're looking at it from the outside in. [But there's] the fact that it can cross from white bread, straight-down-the-line pop rock to deep gospel and everything in between. It gives you a lot to play with. But we do just sound like ourselves.

Back then — whether it's Michael McDonald or Hall and Oates or whoever — there was a lot of angst, heartbroken love songs. There's a lot of men baring their feelings, which is fine, but I don't think we're treading a lot of those same lyrical things. The first song on Ticket to Shangri-La is capturing a portrait of an old couple who is still in love after all these years. "Sierra Nights" is a song which tries desperately to capture the novel Don Quixote in a song.

Lee: I think it's an interesting thing that happens when you understand you've cultivated the sound which is yours. There's a structure now, and that actually frees you up because you concentrate on other things. You are augmenting what you've already done. And it's great, man. It's like having some stability. It's a strong anchor to work off of.

I think now we just have to sound like the best versions of ourselves, to write the best songs, make the best records. And I think that's the kind of thing that Andy and I really thrive on, always doing something better than we've done before.

Are you working on anything right now that you can detail?

Lee: It's in progress. We don't really talk about what we do. We just kind of do it. The first record, we almost didn't talk the whole time that we did it. It was completely autonomous. 

I think four albums in, we kind of understand what we're doing now and that's a double-edged sword. Sometimes it's like, I feel like we could always make a good record without putting a lot of effort into it. It would take care of itself. But I think the idea is that you want to feel like, hey man, we broke through another wall with this.

You [have] got to aspire to greatness. Whether or not you ever achieve it, even if you achieve it for a moment.

Platts: If you're not trying to kick it with the very best who've ever done it, what's the point? You absolutely want to go shoulder-to-shoulder with anyone who's ever done it. That's definitely a big part of the criteria. To be able to keep doing it is one, to get better at doing it is the other. And between those three criteria, you've got success. 

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There are few purer things online than the YouTube comments to Smash Mouth's "All Star."

The splashy, hook-stuffed, puppyish earworm rocketed into most of our hippocampi via 2001's Shrek, and it never left. Chances are it's playing in your head right now. No "-body" ever followed a "Some-" like this. And when lead singer Steve Harwell tragically passed in 2023, folks of all backgrounds flooded the video in droves to pay their respects.

"You really were an 'All Star,'" declared one commenter. "One of the coolest guys to ever live," opined another. "As a wise man once said, only shootin' stars break the mold." "He may not have been the sharpest tool in the shed," a third commenter said, "but now he's the brightest star in the sky."

They don't stop coming: "All Star" really galvanized a generation of kids to go for it, and chase their dreams. And 25 years since its release on May 4, 1999, the maddeningly catchy single from 1999's Astro Lounge, continues to hurtle forth. Millennials know it from "Shrek." Gen Z knows it for the memes (oh, somanymemes). But it's also just a bulletproof — and totally unforgettable — pop song.

Written by founding guitarist and vocalist Greg Camp, "All Star" seemed to take the best parts of Y2K-era hits and Frankenstein them together. Which arose from necessity: Smash Mouth had just had a smash with "Walkin' on the Sun," from their 1997 debut Fush Yu Mang, and the pressure was on to follow it up.

"One night I sat Greg down, opened up a Billboard magazine, and said, 'Dude, let's just go through this. I want a little piece of each one of these songs," Smash Mouth's manager, Robert Hayes, told Rolling Stone. As he explained, the top 50 contained the likes of Sugar Ray, Third Eye Blind, Barenaked Ladies, and Chumbawumba — as well as Smash Mouth themselves.

"He left, and two days later, he walks into my office with a cassette tape. I popped it in and there was 'All Star' on this cassette," Hayes continued. "I stopped, and I looked at him. He goes, "What? You don't like it?" I said, "Are you friggin' kidding me? This is a smash!"

As bassist Paul DeLisle put it, "All Star" was a response to letters Harwell would receive from the youth. The lyrics "were just sort of like a pep talk, almost," he explained in the same piece. The song was [for] these kids: "Hang in there. You are the master of your own domain. You control your own ship."

"All Star" was a head-turning song, and best of all, it was beamed to the right act for the job. Not for nothing was it nominated for Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal at the 2000 GRAMMYs. "I'm not going to toot my own horn, but nobody else could have sang that song," Harwell rightly declared. "It would have never been what it is now. I could've pitched that song to a million bands and they would have tried to do it, and it would've never been what it is."

The band and record company both flipped for "All Star" — and what helped tremendously was its licensability. "I licensed the crap outta that song," Hayes said. "You could not walk into a grocery store or turn on the television without hearing 'All Star.' It was very, very saturated."

As impossible as it seems today, Smash Mouth initially turned down use of "All Star" in Shrek. But Dreamworks kept knocking, and eventually flew a rep to play the film for them. When the band beheld the quality of Shrek, they caved. The result was a phenomenon — partly because it nailed the character of the titular ogre.

As the co-director of Shrek, Vicky Jenson, put it, "All Star" was a really fun, upbeat way to really understand Shrek right from the get-go." Which could apply to kids the world over as well — their boundless energy, their limitless senses of possibility.

"Only shooting stars break the mold," the late Harwell trumpeted with dizzying enthusiasm — and today, that mold lies shattered at our feet. We may never see the likes of Smash Mouth, or "All Star," again.

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Between two award seasons, A Star Is Born received seven nominations — including Record Of The Year and two nods for Song Of The Year — and four wins for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media, Best Song Written for Visual Media twice, and Best Pop/Duo Group Performance.

In this episode of GRAMMY Rewind, travel to 2019 to watch Lady Gaga accept one of the album's first GRAMMY wins for Best Pop/Duo Group Performance for "Shallow."

After thanking God and her family for their unwavering support, Lady Gaga expressed gratitude for her co-star, Bradley Cooper. "I wish Bradley was here with me right now," Gaga praised. "I know he wants to be here. Bradley, I loved singing this song with you."

Gaga went on to express how proud she was to be a part of a movie that addresses mental health. "A lot of artists deal with that. We've got to take care of each other. So, if you see somebody that's hurting, don't look away. And if you're hurting, even though it might be hard, try to find that bravery within yourself to dive deep, tell somebody, and take them up in your head with you."

Press play on the video above to hear Lady Gaga's complete acceptance speech for A Star Is Born's "Shallow" at the 2019 GRAMMY Awards, and check back to GRAMMY.com for more new episodes of GRAMMY Rewind.

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As someone who has dedicated her life to being a performer, Dua Lipa's recent admission to Apple Music's Zane Lowe seems almost unfathomable: "I never thought of the idea of being famous."

Stardom may not have been on her mind as a kid, but Lipa is now, indeed, one of the most famous pop stars on the planet as she releases her highly anticipated third album, Radical Optimism. 

In the seven years since her acclaimed 2017 self-titled debut, Lipa has achieved several highs — like three GRAMMY wins, including Best New Artist in 2019 — as well as the subsequent lows that can often come with global stardom. And though the singer also admitted to Lowe that it "took me a while to find my voice," Radical Optimism is her most self-assured album yet — one that hinges on the title being not only the project's name, but also its defining approach to Lipa's present-day vision for her life.

"Radical Optimism and the way that I see it is this idea of rolling with the punches, of not letting anything get you down for too long. Of always seeing the positive side of things. Of being able to grow and move forward and change your perspective regardless of what's happening in your life…I think it's a big part of maturing and growing up."

The entire album was crafted in her native London over the course of a year-and-a-half, with Lipa enlisting a small band of collaborators — including her righthand co-writer Caroline Ailin, Kevin Parker of Tame Impala, Danny L. Harle and Tobias Jesso, Jr. — to create a cohesive, buoyant body of work tinged with disco, funk and bits of psychedelic pop.

Naturally, "radical optimism" is a core thread that runs through all eleven songs as Lipa reflects on falling in and out of love, grapples with her fame and confidently declares that everything that came before Radical Optimism was just a practice run. After all, as she brazenly declares on the LP's second single, "Training season's over." 

As you enter Dua's latest musical world, dive into four major takeaways from Radical Optimism below.

Radical Optimism Isn't Just A New Era — It's A Whole New Perspective

When Lipa accepted her GRAMMY for Best Pop Vocal Album in 2021, she declared she was officially done with the "sad music" that had fueled her breakout debut album. And if 2020's Future Nostalgia was, in context, a kind of clubby, '80s-driven turning point for the artist, she fully embraces the Radical Optimism promised by its follow-up's title. Lipa's newfound attitude is both clear-eyed and relentlessly positive across the album's 11 tracks, whether she's gushing over a new love on giddy opener "End of an Era," being kept up all night by thoughts of a seductive crush on "Whatcha Doing" or cutting her losses and ditching out early on the spellbinding "French Exit."

Even "These Walls," on which she watches a doomed relationship fade to black, is approached with a sense of inevitability laced with clarity and astute kindness. "But if these walls could talk/ They'd say enough, they'd say give up/ If these walls could talk/ They'd say/ You know you're f—ed/ It's not supposed to hurt this much/ Oh, if these walls could talk/ They tell us to break up," Lipa sings over gossamer production and a piano line by Andrew Wyatt.

You Can Still Find Her On The Dance Floor

The rollout for Radical Optimism was front-loaded with the release of three singles ahead of the full album in the form of "Houdini," "Training Season" and "Illusion." Between the three subsequent music videos and a thrilling live performance at the 2024 GRAMMYs in February, Lipa signaled that her third LP would be filled with her signature style of scintillating dance floor bangers.

The rest of the album more than delivers on that promise, with an overall BPM that rarely falls below what's needed for a full-blown aerobic workout — perfect for over-the-top choreography, of course. And in case the Service95 founder's commitment to the dance floor isn't already apparent, just look at the history-making hat trick she recently pulled off on the Billboard's Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart: as of press time, "Houdini," "Illusion" and "Training Season" occupied the top three spots, marking a first for any female artist in modern music history.

She's Redefining Love On Her Own Terms

If the litany of love songs on Radical Optimism are any indication, it's safe to say Lipa is head over heels these days (with boyfriend Callum Turner, perhaps?). Opening track "End of an Era" may mark the beginning of a new musical journey for the singer, but it's just as much about the thrill of a new relationship. Later on the track list, she uses album cut "Falling Forever" to grow an initial spark of infatuation into a red-hot love affair as she yearns, "How long, how long/ Can it just keep getting better?/ Can we keep falling forever" on the lovestruck chorus.

Lipa also makes it clear on the shapeshifting highlight "Anything For Love" that she's "not interested in a love that gives up so easily." As she refuses to accept the modern paradigm of ghosting, non-committal situationships and running away when things get hard, the song morphs from a tender piano ballad into danceable, mid-tempo groove, giving the listener just enough breathing room to wrestle with the questions of what kind of love they'll accept before dancing it out.

She's Putting Her Emotional Growth On Full Display

It's been almost seven years since Lipa spelled out her "New Rules" for a generation of pop lovers, and some of the most affecting cuts on Radical Optimism prove the British-Albanian star has accrued even more hard-won wisdom since her early days of "If you're under him, you ain't gettin' over him."

Penultimate track "Maria" finds Lipa thanking the ghost of her current lover's ex-girlfriend for making him a better man: "Never thought I could feel this way/ Grateful for all the love you gave/ Here's to the lovers that make you change/ Maria, Maria, Maria." 

Meanwhile, on album closer "Happy for You," the singer turns her attention not to a lover's ex-girlfriend, but to an ex who's moved on from her and found himself happier than ever. It's a complex, but decidedly mature feeling to realize you're genuinely happy for someone you used to love, but Lipa encapsulates the emotion perfectly. 

"Oh, I must've loved you more than I ever knew/ Didn't know I could ever feel/ 'Cause I'm happy for you," she sings on the chorus. "Now I know everything was real/ I'm not mad, I'm not hurt/ You got everything you deserve/ Oh, I must've loved you more than I ever knew/ I'm happy for you."

The grown-up sentiment finishes the album on a bittersweet emotional high — proving that no matter what life throws at her, Lipa will remain radically and unapologetically optimistic to the end. 

GRAMMY Rewind: Dua Lipa Champions Happiness As She Accepts Her GRAMMY For Best Pop Vocal Album In 2021

On April 30, 2004, producer Clement Seymour "Sir Coxsone" Dodd — an architect in the construction of Jamaica’s recording industry — was honored at a festive street renaming ceremony on Brentford Road in Kingston, Jamaica. The bustling, commercial thoroughfare at the geographical center of Kingston was rechristened Studio One Blvd. in recognition of Coxsone’s recording studio and record label.

Dodd is said to have acquired a former nightclub at 13 Brentford Road in 1962; his father, a construction worker, helped him transform the building  into the landmark studio. In 1963 Dodd installed a one-track board and began recording and issuing records on the Studio One label. 

Dodd’s Studio One was Jamaica’s first Black-owned recording facility and is regarded as Jamaica’s Motown because of its consistent output of hit records. Studio One releases helped launch the careers of numerous ska, rocksteady and reggae legends including Bob Andy,  Dennis Brown, Burning Spear, Alton Ellis, the Gladiators, the Skatalites, Toots and the Maytals, Marcia Griffiths, Sugar Minott, Delroy Wilson and most notably, the Wailers.

At the street renaming ceremony, a jazz band played, speeches were given in tribute to Dodd’s immeasurable contributions to Jamaican music and many heartfelt memories from the studio’s heyday were shared. In the culmination of the late afternoon program, Dodd, his wife Norma, and Kingston’s then mayor Desmond McKenzie unveiled the first sign bearing the name Studio One Blvd. Four days later, on April 4, 2002, Coxsone Dodd suffered a fatal heart attack at Studio One. His productions, however, live on as benchmarks within the island’s voluminous and influential music canon.

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Born Clement Seymour Dodd on Jan. 26, 1932, he was given the nickname Sir Coxsone after the star British cricketer whose batting skills Clement was said to match. As a teenager, Dodd developed a fondness for jazz and bebop that he heard beamed into Jamaica from stations in Miami and Nashville and the big band dances he attended in Kingston. Dodd launched Sir Coxsone’s Downbeat sound system around 1952 with the impressive collection of R&B and jazz discs he amassed while living in the U.S., working as a seasonal farm laborer.

Many sound system proprietors traveled to the U.S. to purchase R&B records — the preferred music among their dance patrons and key to a sound system’s following and trumping an opponent in a sound clash. With the birth of rock and roll in the mid-1950s, suitable R&B records became scarce. Jamaica’s ever-resourceful sound men ventured into Kingston studios to produce R&B shuffle recordings for sound system play. 

Recognizing there was a wider market for this music, Dodd pressed up a few hundred copies of two sound system favorites for general release, the instrumental "Shuffling Jug" by bassist Cluett Johnson and his Blues Blasters and singer/pianist Theophilus Beckford’s "Easy Snapping," both issued on Dodd’s first label, Worldisc. (Some historians recognize "Easy Snapping" as a bridge between R&B shuffle and the island’s Indigenous ska beat; others cite it as the first ska record.) When those discs sold out within a few days, other soundmen followed Dodd’s lead and Jamaica’s commercial recording industry began to flourish.

"Before then, the only stuff released commercially were mento records that were recorded here, but our sound really hit so we kept on recording. When I heard 'Easy Snapping,' I said 'Oh my gosh!'" Coxsone recalled in a 2002 interview for Air Jamaica's Skywritings at Kiingston’s Studio One. "I thank God for that moment." 

Dodd was the first producer to enlist a house band, pay them a weekly salary rather than per record. Together, they had an impressive run of hits in the ska era in the early ‘60s; during the rocksteady period later in the decade, Dodd ceded top ranking status to long standing sound system rival (but close family friend) turned producer Duke Reid. (Still, Studio One released the most enduring instrumentals or rhythm tracks, also known as riddims, of the period.)  As rocksteady morphed into reggae circa 1968, Dodd triumphed again with consistent releases of exceptional quality. 

In 1979 armed robbers targeted the Brentford Rd premises several times. Dodd left Jamaica and established Coxsone’s Music City record store/recording studio in Brooklyn, dividing his time between New York and Kingston. Reissues of Dodd’s music via Cambridge, MA based Heartbeat Records, beginning in the mid 1980s, followed by London’s Soul Jazz label in the 2000s, and most recently Yep Roc Records in Hillsborough, NC, have helped introduce Studio One’s masterful work to new generations of fans. 

"The best time I’ve ever had was when I acquired my studio at 13 Brentford Rd. because you can do as many takes until we figured that was it," Coxsone reflected in the 2002 interview. "God gave me a gift of having the musicians inside the studio to put the songs together. In the studio, I always thought about the fans, making the music more pleasing for listening or dancing. What really helped me was having the sound system, you play a record, and you weren’t guessing what you were doing, you saw what you were doing." 

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Coxsone Dodd’s passing, read on for a list of 10 of his greatest productions.

The Maytals - "Six and Seven Books of Moses" (1963)

In 1961 at the dawn of Jamaica’s ska era, Toots Hibbert met singers Nathaniel "Jerry" Matthias and Henry "Raleigh" Gordon and they formed the Maytals. The trio released several hits for Dodd including the rousing, "Six and Seven Books of Moses," a gospel-drenched ska track that’s essentially a shout out of a few Old Testament chapters. 

Moses is credited with writing five chapters, as the lyrics state, "Genesis and Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers Deuteronomy," but "the Six and Seven books" are in question. Many Biblical scholars say Moses wasn’t the scribe, believing those chapters, including phony spells and incantations to keep evil spirits away, were penned in the 18th or 19th century. 

Nevertheless, there’s a real magic formula in The Maytals’ "Six and Seven Books of Moses": Toots’ electrifying preacher at the pulpit delivery melds with elements of vintage soul, gritty R&B, and classic country; Jerry and Raleigh provide exuberant backing vocals and seminal ska outfit and Studio One’s first house band, the Skatalities deliver an irresistible, jaunty ska rhythm with a sophisticated jazz underpinning. 

The Wailers - "Simmer Down" (1964)

A flashback scene in the biopic Bob Marley: One Love depicts the Wailers (then a teenaged outfit called the Juveniles) approaching Dodd for a recording opportunity; Dodd inexplicably points a gun at them as they recoil in terror. Yet, there isn’t any mention of such an inappropriate and unprovoked action from the producer in the various books, documentaries, interviews and other accounts of the Wailers’ audition for Dodd. 

The Wailers’ first recording session with Dodd in July 1964, however, yielded the group’s first hit single "Simmer Down." At that time, the Wailers lineup consisted of founding members Bob Marley, Bunny Livingston (later Wailer) and Peter Tosh alongside singers Junior Braithwaite and (the sole surviving member) Beverley Kelso. When Junior left for the U.S., Dodd appointed Marley as the group’s lead singer.

The energetic "Simmer Down" cautions the impetuous rude boys to refrain from their hooligan exploits. The Skatalites’ spirited horn led intro, thumping jazz infused bass and fluttering sax solo, enhances Marley’s youthful lead and the backing vocalists’ effervescence. The Wailers would spend two years at Studio One and record over 100 songs there, including the first recording of "One Love" in 1965; by early 1966, they would have five songs produced by Dodd in the Jamaica Top 10. 

Alton Ellis -"I’m Still In Love" (1967)

Jamaica’s brief rocksteady lasted about two years between 1966-1968, but was an exceptionally rich and influential musical era. The rocksteady tempo maintained the accentuated offbeat of its ska predecessor, but its slower pace allowed vocal and musical arrangements, affixed in heavier, more melodic basslines.

Alton Ellis is considered the godfather of rocksteady because he had numerous hits during the era and released "Rock Steady," the first single to utilize the term for producer Duke Reid. Ellis initially worked with Dodd in the late 1950s then returned to him in 1967. The evergreen "I’m Still in Love" was penned by Alton as a plea to his wife as their marriage dissolved: "You don’t know how to love me, or even how to kiss me/I don’t know why."  Supporting Alton’s elegant, soulful rendering of heartbreak, Studio One house band the Soul Vendors, led by keyboardist Jackie Mittoo, provide an engaging horn-drenched rhythm, epitomizing what was so special about this short-lived time in Jamaican music.

"I’m Still In Love" has been covered by various artists including Sean Paul and Sasha, whose rendition reached No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2004. Beyoncé utilized Jamaican singer Marcia’s Aitken’s 1978 version of the tune in a TV ad announcing her 2018 On The Run II tour with Jay-Z. In February 2024, Jennifer Lopez sampled "I’m Still in Love" for her single "Can’t Get Enough."

Bob Andy - "I’ve Got to Go Back Home" (1967)

 The late Keith Anderson, known professionally as Bob Andy, arrived at Studio One in 1967. He quickly became a hit-making vocalist, and an invaluable writer for other artists on the label. He penned several hits for Marcia Griffiths including "Feel Like Jumping," "Melody Life" and "Always Together," the latter their first of many hit recordings as a duo. 

A founding member of the vocal trio the Paragons, "I’ve Got to go Back Home" was Andy’s first solo hit and it features sublime backing vocals by the Wailers (Bunny, Peter and Constantine "Vision" Walker; Bob Marley was living in the USA at the time.) Set to a sprightly rock steady beat featuring Bobby Ellis (trumpet), Roland Alphonso (saxophone) and Carlton Samuels’ (saxophone) harmonizing horns, Andy’s lyrics poignantly depict the challenges endured by Jamaica’s poor ("I can’t get no clothes to wear, can’t get no food to eat, I can’t get a job to get bread") while expressing a longing to return to Africa, a central theme within 1970s Rasta roots reggae. 

The depth of Andy’s lyrics expanded the considerations of Jamaican songwriters and one of his primary influences was Bob Dylan. "When I heard Bob Dylan, it occurred to me for the first time that you don’t have to write songs about heart and soul," Andy told Billboard in 2018. "Bob Dylan’s music introduced me to the world of social commentary and that set me on my way as a writer."  

Dawn Penn - "You Don’t Love Me" (1967)

Dawn Penn’s plaintive, almost trancelike vocals and the lilting rock steady arrangement by the Soul Vendors transformed Willie Cobbs’ early R&B hit "You Don’t Love Me," based on Bo Diddley’s 1955 gritty blues lament "She’s Fine, She’s Mine," into a Jamaican classic. The song’s shimmering guitar intro gives way to the forceful drum and bass with Mittoo’s keyboards providing an understated yet essential flourish.

In 1992 Jamaica’s Steely and Clevie remade the song, featuring Penn,  for their album Steely and Clevie Play Studio One Vintage. The dynamic musician/production duo brought their mastery (and 1990s technological innovations) to several Studio One classics with the original singers. Heartbeat released "You Don’t Love Me" as a single and it reached No. 58 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Several artists have reworked Penn’s rendition or sampled the Soul Vendors’ arrangement including rapper Eve on a collaboration with Stephen and Damian Marley. Rihanna recruited Vybz Kartel for an interpretation included on her 2005 debut album Music of the Sun, while Beyoncé performed the song on her I Am world tour in 2014 and recorded it in 2019 for her Homecoming: The Live Album. In 2013, Los Angeles-based Latin soul group the Boogaloo Assassins brought a salsa flavor to Penn's tune, creating a sought-after DJ single. 

The Heptones - "Equal Rights" (1968)

"Every man has an equal right to live and be free/no matter what color, class or race he may be," sings an impassioned Leroy Sibbles on "Equal Rights," the Heptones’ stirring plea for justice.

Harmony vocalist Earl Morgan formed the group with singer Barry Llewellyn in the early '60s and Sibbles joined them a few years later. The swinging bass line, played by Sibbles, anchors a stunning rock steady rhythm track awash in cascading horns, and blistering percussion patterns akin to the akete or buru drums heard at Rastafari Nyabinghi sessions.

Besides leading the Heptones’ numerous hit singles during their five-year stint at Studio One, Sibbles was a talent scout, backing vocalist, resident bassist and the primary arranger, alongside Jackie Mittoo. Sibbles’ progressive basslines are featured on numerous Studio One nuggets (many appearing on this list) and have been sampled or remade countless times over the decades on Jamaican and international hits.

In a December 2023 interview Sibbles echoed a complaint expressed by many who worked at Studio One: Dodd didn’t fairly compensate his artists and the (uncredited) musicians produced the songs while Dodd tended to business matters. "When we started out, we didn’t know about the business, and what happened, happened. But as you learn as you go along," he said. "I have registered what I could; I am living comfortably so I am grateful." 

 The Cables - "Baby Why" (1968)

Formed in 1962 by lead singer Keble Drummond and backing vocalists Vincent Stoddart and Elbert Stewart, the Cables — while not as well-known as the Wailers, the Maytals or the Heptones — recorded a few evergreen hits at Studio One, including the enchanting "Baby Why." 

Keble’s aching vocals lead this breakup tale as he warns the woman who left that she’ll soon regret it. The simple story line is delivered via a gorgeous melody that’s further embellished by Vincent and Elbert’s superb harmonizing, repeatedly cooing to hypnotic effect "why, why oh, why?" 

Coxsone is said to have kept the song for exclusive sound system play for several months; when he finally released it commercially, "Baby Why" stayed at No. 1 for four weeks. 

"Baby Why" is notable for another reason: although the Maytals’ "Do The Reggay" marks the initial use of the word reggae in a song, "Baby Why" is among a handful of songs cited as the first recorded with a reggae rhythm (reggae basslines are fuller and reggae’s tempo is a bit slower than its rocksteady forerunner.) Other contenders for that historic designation include Lee "Scratch Perry’s "People Funny Boy," the Beltones’ "No More Heartache," and Larry Marshall and Alvin Leslie’s delightful "Nanny Goat." 

Burning Spear - "Door Peeper" (1969)

Hailing from the parish of St. Ann, Jamaica, Burning Spear was referred to Studio One by another St. Ann native, Bob Marley. Spear’s first single for Studio One "Door Peeper" (also known as "Door Peep Shall Not Enter") recorded in 1969, sounded unlike any music released by Dodd and was critical in shaping the Rastafarian roots reggae movement of the next decade.

The song’s biblically laced lyrics caution informers who attempt to interfere with Rastafarians, considered societal outcasts at the time in Jamaica, while Spear’s intonation to "chant down Babylon" creates a haunting mystical effect, supported by Rupert Willington’s evocative, deep vocal pitch, a throbbing bass, mesmeric percussion and magnificent horn blasts. 

As Spear told GRAMMY.com in September 2023, "When Mr. Dodd first heard 'Door Peep' he was astonished; for a man who’d been in the music business for so long, he never heard anything like that." Dodd’s openness to recording Rasta music, and allowing ganja smoking on the premises (but not in the studio) when his competitors didn’t put him in the forefront at the threshold of the roots reggae era.

"Door Peeper" was included on Burning Spear’s debut album, Studio One Presents Burning Spear, released in 1973 and remains a popular selection in the legendary artist’s live sets.

Joseph Hill - "Behold The Land" (1972)

In the October 1946 address Behold The Land by W. E. B. DuBois at the closing session of the Southern Youth Legislature in Columbia, South Carolina, the then 78-year-old celebrated author and activist urges Black youth to fight for racial equality and the civil rights denied them in Southern states. The late Joseph Hill’s 1972 song of the same name, possibly influenced by Dubois’ words, is a powerful reggae missive exploring the atrocities of the transatlantic slave trade from which descended the discriminations DuBois described.

Hill was just 23 when he wrote/recorded "Behold The Land," his debut single as a vocalist. Hill’s haunting timbre summons the harrowing experience with the wisdom and emotional rendering of an ancestor: "For we were brought here in captivity, bound in links and chains and we worked as slaves and they lashed us hard." Hill then gives praise and asks for repatriation to the African motherland, "let us behold the land where we belong."

The Soul Defenders — a self contained entity but also a Studio One house band with whom Hill made his initial recordings as a percussionist — provide a persistent, bass heavy rhythm that suitably frames Hill’s lyrical gravitas, as do the melancholy hi-pitched harmonies.

In 1976 Hill formed the reggae trio Culture and the next year they catapulted to international fame with their apocalyptic single "Two Sevens Clash," which prompted Dodd to finally release "Behold The Land." Culture would re-record "Behold The Land" over the years including for their 1978 album Africa Stand Alone and the song received a digital remastering in 2001.

Sugar Minott - "Oh Mr. DC" (1978)

In the mid-1970s singer Lincoln "Sugar" Minott began writing lyrics to classic 1960s Studio One riddims, an approach that launched his hitmaking solo career and further popularized the practice of riddim recycling — which is still a standard approach in dancehall production. Sugar, formerly with the vocal trio The African Brothers,  penned one of his earliest solo hits "Oh, Mr. DC" to the lively beat of the Tennors’ 1967 single "Pressure and Slide" (itself a riddim originally heard, at a faster pace, underpinning Prince Buster’s 1966 "Shaking Up Orange St.")

"Oh, Mr. DC" is an authentic tale of a ganja dealer returning from the country with his bag of collie (marijuana); the DC (district constable/policeman) says he’s going to arrest him and threatens to shoot if he attempts to run away. Sugar explains to the officer that selling herb is how he supports his family: "The children crying for hunger/ I man a suffer, so you’ve got to see/it’s just collie that feed me." To underscore his urgent plea, Sugar wails in an unforgettable melody, "Oh, oh DC, don’t take my collie." 

The irresistibly bubbling bassline of the riddim nearly obscures the song’s poignant depiction of Jamaica’s harsh economic realities and the potential risk of imprisonment, or worse, that the island’s ganja sellers faced at the time. Sugar’s revival of a Studio One riddim and reutilization of 10 Studio One riddims for each track of his 1977 album Live Loving brought renewed interest to the treasures that could be extracted from Mr. Dodd’s vaults.

Special thanks to Coxsone Dodd’s niece Maxine Stowe, former A&R at Sony/Columbia and Island Records, who started her career at Coxsone’s Music City, Brooklyn.

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