Treasure Isle

Created by pioneering sound system operator, Duke Reid, Treasure Isle Records was one of the most powerful presences on the Jamaican music scene throughout the Sixties and early Seventies, rivalled only by Coxson Dodd’s Studio One enterprise.

During this period, an array of Jamaican best-sellers saw issue on the famed imprint and a number of sister labels, such as Trojan, Dutchess and Sure Shot, which featured the very best in ska, rock steady and reggae by such celebrated acts as John Holt, Alton Ellis, Justin Hinds & The Dominoes, U Roy and the undisputed queen of sixties Jamaican music, Phyllis Dillon.

Its Jamaican success was reflected in the UK where Duke Reid-produced records were firm favourites among the country’s West Indian communities, as well as young British mods and their successors, skinheads.

Treasure Isle‘s standing and credibility among Jamaican music fans in the UK was illustrated in 1968 when the nick-name of his celebrated sound system was repurposed by the London-based record company that would go on to dominate the British reggae scene until the mid-Seventies: Trojan Records.

Duke Reid‘s productions remained a cornerstone of Trojan Records and the reggae industry as a whole up until his retirement due to ill-health the mid-Seventies, since which time it has continued to exert an influence, both locally and internationally, with many of the catalogue’s recordings sampled and re-visited by numerous performers.

Among the songs that have been most successfully revived are The Paragons’ ‘The Tide Is High’ (a number one hit for Blondie), ‘Carry Go Bring Come’ by Justin Hinds & the Dominoes (covered by numerous acts, including the Selecter) and Tommy McCook’s ‘Reggae Merengue’ (sampled by Lily Allen on her hit, ‘LDN’) while Joya Landis’s version of ‘Angel Of The Morning’ inspired Shaggy’s international chart topper, ‘Angel’.