Catch This Beat: The Rock Steady Years album art
This 1980 compilation of rocksteady music – a precursor to reggae – recorded in the late 1960s shows that Estro by Aldo Novarese was something of a friendly workhorse for record labels in the postwar era.
Island Records was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell and two partners, and although it found great success in the rock & roll genre (U2, Roxy Music), reggae and Caribbean-influenced music was always a key part of its roster (Bob Marley, Toots & the Maytals). After relocating the business to the UK in 1962, Blackwell and Island were instrumental in developing the market for reggae on both sides of the Atlantic. This compilation album – a sampler assembled by Steven Barrow and Rob Bell – provides a small piece of that history.
Display type is set in Estro, while text is set in Univers. On the record labels, the “fine print” is in Univers Condensed (perhaps Univers 47).
