Reggae music history was born from the fires of American music in the 1920’s. It was a fantastic time for musicians all over the world. The record player was quickly making an impression and radio was spreading the sound of music across the country and the world.
Jazz swept across the globe with the help of these radio broadcasts and records and by the 1940s places like the not so distant island of Jamaica was turning its ear to listen.
The Island
Through radio broadcasts and records, Jamaica, got caught up in the stylish and fun American Jazz music of the 1940s. At the time the average Jamaican lived in shanty houses, ghetto’s like Kingston and Trenchtown where becoming home to the majority of the population.
At the time it was a British Colony but Jamaica itself was beginning to change. Its mostly rural economy was eroding as people began flooding into the capital, Kingston, in search of their own piece of postwar prosperity.
Tourism in Jamaica back then was not like it is today but Jamaica being the beautiful island that it is it did attract people for Vacation.
Bands like Eric Dean's Orchestra sprang up to entertain tourists. Future giants like trombonist Don Drummond and sax man Tommy McCook learned Jazz licks from records and the radio while honing their musical chops.
The 1950s
In the 50's big band Jazz had given way to the smaller group oriented Bebop creating a faster and more youthful sound. Again the Jazz rage spread all over the world including to Jamaica and soon Jazz, one of America's great contributions to the world’s musical culture would become responsible for Reggae, as it swept around the world.
American popular music would begin to fragment further. In Jazz, Be-Bop and soon Hard-Bop became the new movement, Rhythm and Blues started coming on strong and the era of the jazz orchestra was slowly fading.
In America music grew faster, groups smaller in size became more dominant, more youths began to rearrange the songs of the big bands and writing there own. Eventually Rock n’ Roll would hit the airwaves making music more accessible to the “common” man.
These ideas began to spread to Jamaica through the radio and the record, just as it did to other parts of the globe.
On the weekends people of all ages throughout Kingston would gather for dances in the open spaces called ‘lawns' all over the city. DJ’s would spin records on Sound Systems. Throbbing sounds from the United States would be the talk of the town from week to week.
For many Jamaicans this was the only way to hear the new records. In the poor economy, many didn't own a radio so this was how you heard the new records.
The R & B sound swept Jamaica, both young and old found it captivating. The race to get the newest American record became a serious one. Sound System owners would travel to the U.S. to buy new records, or have agents import them. It was a constant war to have the newest, freshest music and a popular disc might be played 15 or 20 times during the course of a dance.
By the mid-50s Duke Reid and Clement Dodd where Kingston’s best Sound Systems. Competition between them was fierce, and would becoming one of the major catalysts for the fast growth of the Jamaican music industry.
Still there was more growth that needed to occur, the sound systems had no choice but to play American records because the island simply had no recording facilities and could not press their own records.
In 1954 the first Record Label, Federal, opened for business, but even then its emphasis was purely on licensed U.S. material. Stanley Motta had made some tapes of the native mento folkloric music, but it wasn't until the kick start of Rock n'Roll that homegrown Jamaican music would find its way to vinyl.
As Rock n’ Roll became the dominant form of music in America during the late 50's, the number of R&B releases dwindled to a trickle and it was not enough to satisfy the insatiable appetites of the Sound Systems. Something had to be done to keep this thriving business going.
Record One Jamaica
The first person to act was Edward Seaga. In 1958 he found WIRL (West Indian Records Limited) and began releasing records by local artists. They were blatant copies of American music but they were new and playable on the Sound Systems.
The same year, a well-to-do white Jamaican named Chris Blackwell got his own start as a record magnate, putting out a disc by the then-unknown singer Laurel Aitken.
Within twelve months both Reid and Dodd, seeing the possibility of having records available exclusively on their systems, had jumped on the bandwagon with Treasure Isle and Studio One labels, respectively.
Soon the pressing plant to be named Caribbean Records would be established on the island, meaning the masters no longer had to be shipped to America for pressing. The Jamaican recording industry was born and Jamaican music would find its own identity quickly to the surprise of all.
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