Swiss filmmaker Stascha Bader documents the joyful reunion of surviving pioneers of rocksteady, the slow-beat, skank-heavy sound of late 60s Jamaica. Heading from parts far and close, singers and studio cats (like drummer Sly Dunbar and guitar wizard Ernest Ranglin) converge in Kingston, Jamaica, to talk about roots, re-record big hits, and rehearse for an outdoor concert.

“The lovingly conceived, brilliantly executed Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae aims to achieve the same sort of museum piece-to-modernity transformation for Jamaican rocksteady that Buena Vista Social Club created for Cuban music of an earlier era… The assembled singers and musicians, most of them now of pensionable age, are still vibrant and affective; the singers, their voices cured and matured over the past 30 years, are perhaps even more enjoyable this time around. The music itself is, of course, pure pleasure.
Rocksteady – the transitional Jamaican style between mid 1960s ska and early 1970s reggae – was a slow burning orgasm of three part harmonies, irresistibly catchy tunes, deft picking guitars and jazz-informed horn arrangements. The tempos were slower than ska's but faster than reggae's, and the rhythms lively but sensuous: rocksteady was intended for couples to dance to. It's a soulful, mellifluous mixture and one that can still transport the listener three decades later.
The tunes are classics of the genre. Some, like the bittersweet “The Tide Is High,” originally a hit for the Paragons and later given international currency by Blondie, the magnificently moody “You Don't Love Me (No No No),” a 1967 hit for Dawn Penn, who sings it again here, and much covered internationally, and the evergreens “Stop That Train,” “Rivers of Babylon” and “Shanty Town (007)” are known beyond the rocksteady audience. Others have been less widely celebrated, but are just as delightful… While nothing could ever quite replace the original makeshift magic of the first-time recordings of these tunes, Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae gets surprisingly close. A glorious rewind down memory lane.” — Chris May, All About Jazz