Foey man johnny melody biography

Photo by Aston Chin

By Brian Keyo

Rock Steady, the bridge between Ska and Reggae, had clearly evolved by September of 1966, and by late 1968, it had peaked. Musically, the relentless rhythm of Ska was slowed and the acoustic walking bass style supplanted by hefty electric basslines.

According to Tommy McCook and Rolando Alphonso, who didn’t often agree, Treasure Isle was where Rock Steady started and where the music was first recorded.

“It’s Tommy that started the Rock Steady.

Yes, to be frank, it was Tommy at Treasure Isle and no one else,” declared Alphonso in an interview with the author on August 1, 1995 in Apache Junction, Arizona. McCook, when informed of the remark a year later at his home in Stone Mountain, Georgia, agreed with it, before deferring to the followers of Duke Reid.

“Duke Reid came to me after I had been at Treasure Isle a little while and said that the people who come to his dances were getting older and they couldnR