Blue Beat Music

The term, blue beat, is synonymous with the more familiar word – ska. Blue Beat, however, was the Jamaican record label that produced and released ska music as well as Jamaican rhythm and blues music during the 1960s. The term blue beat was eventually used as a description of any early Jamaican music and not necessarily music from the Blue Beat label. A subsidiary of the Melodisc record label based in London, the Blue Beat label released approximately 450 records during its existence in the West Indies. The most notable release from Blue Beat was Prince Buster’s Al Capone (1967) and Whine And Grine (1967).

Blue beat music became an integral part of the skinhead and mod cultures of the 1960s. In 1989, the Blue Beat record label was licensed to Buster Bloodvessel from the ska band Bad Manners. Several records were released by the reborn record label during the ska revival of the 1990s. The last Blue Beat records song to hit a chart was in 1989 when the single Skaville UK made it to #87 on the British music charts. The Blue Beat catalog remains some of the rarest and hardest-to-find ska music ever produced.