Best Of Studio One – Heartbeat Records

Alton Ellis is the natural doorway into Heartbeat’s Best of Studio One set, and “Can I Change My Mind” sets the tone for a compilation that pulls from the label’s deep rocksteady-and-reggae well with real care. Dennis Brown, Marcia Griffiths, Slim Smith, Sugar Minott, Johnny Osbourne and The Heptones all land here, but it’s the sequence that matters: sweet vocal cuts, tough roots sides and a little dancehall-era bounce from Michigan and Smiley’s “Rub A Dub Style. ” Heartbeat had already started treating Studio One like a living archive by this point, and this collection leans into that idea without feeling museum-locked. “Melody Life, ” “Roots Natty Roots” and “Baby Why” are the kinds of cuts that remind you why Coxsone Dodd’s catalog kept getting mined again and again, and this volume sits right at the start of Heartbeat’s long run of Studio One anthologies.