Here's a good one you can pull with your record geek friends, assuming they're geek enough to know record labels. Ask them to name someone who has recorded for Sun Records and Chess. They'll likely puff out their chest and say "Howlin' Wolf". That's when you get them with the follow up question. Who recorded for Sun, Chess and Studio One? This will throw them off. If they're strictly into roots type music, blues, r&b, rockabilly, soul, they may not know Studio One. Studio One was a Jamaican label, owned by Coxsone Dodd, and had a long track record starting with rhythm and blues tinged boogie, then ska, rock steady and reggae. They were like the Stax of Jamaica, the dominant reggae label. The answer, if you haven't guessed by that publicity photo above, is Rosco Gordon. Anyway, whether they know reggae and Studio One or not, you've likely won yourself a bet. You will note the absence of the Studio One single below. It's such an oddball that I wasn't able to find it on YouTube. It really isn't as good as his older stuff, recorded likely in the eighties when both Dodd and Gordon were living in New York. But it does exist because I have a copy.
Really though, you need to dig the stuff he recorded at Sun (much of it licensed to other labels). If you have paper route money laying around spring for Let's Get High - The Man About Music From Memphis. It's 54 cuts of raw filthy r&b. Dirty, honking. (Under twenty bucks online.) Just check "Decorate the Counter" and "Booted" before you take your bath.
Rosco Gordon - Rosco's Boogie mp3 at Rocky 52 1951
Rosco Gordon - Booted mp3 at Internet Archive 1952
Rosco Gordon - Decorate the Counter mp3 at Internet Archive 1952
Rosco Gordon - No More Doggin' (streaming) at YouTube 1952
Rosco Gordon - Shoobie Doobie mp3 at Rocky 52 1956
Rosco Gordon - Just A Little Bit mp3 at Rocky 52 1964
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