World of Jamaican Music

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An illustrated map of the creators of Jamaican music and how they are connected.

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Bertram Brown

Producer. Reggae, roots

Active
1975-2008
Sunrise
February 17, 1950
Sunset
September 8, 2008
Also known as
Freedom Sounds, Redemption Sounds

Bertram Brown ran Freedom Sounds, one of the most consistent roots labels of the late 1970s, from 14 East Avenue in Greenwich Farm, the West Kingston district where young singers gathered in hope of being discovered by Bunny Lee. He launched the label in 1975.

Brown recorded at Channel One and Randy's, mostly with the Soul Syndicate, and took his tapes to King Tubby at Dromilly Avenue, who mixed every version side; the Rough Guide hears those riddims bringing the founder of dub back to vintage form. His singers were mostly his Greenwich Farm neighbors. He had grown up with Prince Alla and persuaded him to start recording in earnest, and Freedom Sounds also issued Earl Zero, Phillip Frazer, Brent Dowe, Michael Prophet's "Poverty" (1979), and Rod Taylor's hits "Ethiopian Kings" and "In the Right Way." Bradley called the label's style "remarkably straightforward but correspondingly effective." Its dubs were later collected on Freedom Sounds in Dub.

In the early 1980s he ran the High Times label with Earl "Chinna" Smith, home of early records by Frankie Paul and Mutabaruka, and helped his friend Don Mais set up Roots Tradition; he later revived Freedom Sounds, which ran into the 1990s. He lost his life in a swimming accident in 2008, at 58.

Last updated October 23, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 186, 240.
  2. "Bertram Brown / Feb 17, 1950 - Sept 8, 2008," Peace and Rhythm, February 17, 2017, https://www.peaceandrhythm.com/blogs/news/bertram-brown-feb-17-1950-sept-8-2008. The Rough Guide places the label in "the last half of the 1970s." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 240.
  3. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 186, 238; Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 323.
  4. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 186; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 366. Rod Taylor recalled Prince Alla, Earl Zero and Phillip Frazer as the label's house artists. Angus Taylor, "Interview: Ten Big Tunes with Rod Taylor," United Reggae, July 22, 2012, https://unitedreggae.com/articles/n1044/072212/interview-ten-big-tunes-with-rod-taylor. Katz names Prince Alla's "Stone," "Lot's Wife" and "Bucket Bottom" as sellers in Britain and Jamaica, and gives "In the Right Way" as the British title of Earl Zero's debut album, "Only Jah Can Ease the Pressure." David Katz, "Bertram Brown," Guardian, December 5, 2008, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/dec/05/obituary-bertram-brown-roots-reggae.
  5. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 366.
  6. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 240.
  7. Katz says he died "aged 58 while swimming off Jamaica's north coast," and gives his dates as February 17, 1950, to September 8, 2008; he also covers High Times, Roots Tradition and the later Freedom Sounds releases. Katz, "Bertram Brown." See also "Bertram Brown," Peace and Rhythm; "Bertram Brown," Discogs, accessed October 6, 2026, https://www.discogs.com/artist/437738-Bertram-Brown.

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