Count Suckle
Producer. Ska, rocksteady, reggae
- Active
- 1950s-1986
- Sunrise
- c. 1931, Kingston, Jamaica
- Sunset
- May 19, 2014
- Also known as
- Wilbert Campbell, Wilbert Augustus Campbell, Q Club, Cue Club
Count Suckle was one of the two soundmen, with Duke Vin, who brought Jamaican sound-system culture to London, and the one who took it uptown. Bradley argues that he has been all but written out of reggae's British history.
Born Wilbert Campbell in Kingston, he supplied American records to Jamaican sounds such as Tom the Great Sebastian before stowing away to London on a banana boat with Vincent Forbes, later Duke Vin. Soon after Vin set up Britain's first big rig in 1955, Suckle built his own, and the two Ladbroke Grove sounds became rivals, so much in demand that they were booked up for dances across London and in coach trips to other cities. The rivalry played out against growing racial hostility in the area: in 1958 a house was firebombed while Suckle's sound was playing in it. Prince Buster sent him exclusive tunes at five pounds each; when one turned up on sale on the Blue Beat label, the dispute led Buster to his deal with Emil Shallit.
Recommended to the Flamingo club in Wardour Street as the man with the biggest following, Suckle brought crowds that blocked the street, and the Roaring Twenties on Carnaby Street then put his sound on every night, playing ska "in the real Jamaican way" to black Londoners, tourists and young white Londoners alike. Later he opened his own Q Club below a cinema in Paddington, one of the plushest black clubs ever to open in London, where he presented Prince Buster and members of the Skatalites and later soul acts, and ran a short-lived Q Records label through Trojan; the club, renamed the People's Club in 1981, ran until 1986. "We've always moved with the times," he told Black Music; "when we opened ska music was the thing." Of losing the Praed Street lease he said, "That was my downfall."
Last updated November 5, 2026
Connections
- Prince Buster (collaborator)
- The Skatalites (collaborator)
- Tom the Great Sebastian (worked with)
- Duke Vin (rival)
Notes
- Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 115, 147.
- David Katz, "RIP Count Suckle, London Soundsystem Pioneer," Red Bull Music Academy Daily, May 29, 2014, https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2014/05/count-suckle-rip. Katz dates the voyage to 1952; Bradley and Duke Vin himself date Vin's arrival to 1954. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 115; Duke Vin's account in Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 12.
- Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 115, 116. Bradley names the rival sounds as Duke Vin the Tickler's and Count Suckle's.
- David Katz, "Count Suckle Obituary," Guardian, June 4, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jun/04/count-suckle.
- Prince Buster's account in Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 128.
- Jah Vego's account in Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 143, 144, 145. Katz dates the start of the Roaring Twenties residency to July 1961 and says a percussionist in the club's house band invited him. Katz, "RIP Count Suckle."
- Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 146. Katz dates the opening to 1964, gives the Skatalites and soul bookings, and says the club closed in 1986 when its lease expired. Katz, "RIP Count Suckle." Katz says it began as the Cue Club, after the billiard hall it replaced, on Praed Street, was renamed the People's Club in 1981, and that the Q Records label, a Trojan subsidiary, issued records by Freddie Notes and the Rudies and Jimmy Lindsay. Katz, "Count Suckle Obituary."
- Christopher Silvester, "Count Suckle," Times, June 7, 2014, https://www.christophersilvester.com/count-suckle.
