The Revolutionaries

The Revolutionaries were a Jamaican reggae session band that served as the house band at Channel One Studio in Kingston throughout the late 1970s. Anchored by drummer Sly Dunbar and frequently including bassist Robbie Shakespeare, keyboardist Ansel Collins, and others, they defined the rockers style of reggae — heavy, slower, more syncopated rhythms that replaced the earlier rocksteady bounce with greater weight and intensity. Recording for the Mighty Two (Joe Gibbs and Errol Thompson) production team, they backed virtually every significant Jamaican artist of the period and their rhythm tracks were the foundation of hundreds of releases across dozens of labels.