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Duke Reid
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Arthur Duke Reid was a Jamaican producer, disc jockey and record boss, born in 1915. He was a police officer for ten years, and afterwards took over the family shop with his wife Lucille, the Treasure Isle Grocery and Liquor Store in Bond Street in Kingston. In 1953 he started a sound system, a mobile open-air disco, which quickly became the most popular in Kingston. He was known as The Trojan, and also presented a radio programme, Treasure Isle Time. Reid himself was a lover of jazz and blues.
Music and breakthrough
In the late 1950s he began making records, first in other people's studios and later in a studio of his own above the shop. He had several labels, of which Treasure Isle became the most important. In the 1960s he dominated the Jamaican music scene with ska and rocksteady. He at first found ska too simple and too focused on the drums, but still made a long string of hits in it. A fierce rivalry with Coxsone Dodd and his Studio One ran throughout the 1960s, including in the battle between their sound systems. At toasting competitions Reid appeared in an ermine cape with a golden crown, revolvers and a shotgun.
Influence
In the 1970s Rastafarian roots reggae emerged, which he banned from his studio. As a result Coxsone Dodd gained more room. When he became seriously ill, he sold Treasure Isle to Sonia Pottinger. He died in 1975. Reid showed how a producer who owned a sound system could define the sound of an island, and in 2007 he was posthumously awarded a Jamaican honour.
Listening
Mentioned in other articles
- Soundsystem Technology
Owners such as Duke Reid and Coxsone Dodd began recording records themselves in order to have something their competitor did not have.