World of Jamaican Music

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

Remembering Derrick Harriott (1939-2026), rocksteady singer and producer. Read his story →

Duke Reid

Producer. Ska, rocksteady

Active
1958-1974
Sunrise
1915, Portland, Jamaica
Sunset
1974 (cancer)

Arthur Reid was the other half of the rivalry that produced Jamaican recorded music, and the man whose Treasure Isle studio defined rocksteady.

He was born in Portland and served ten years as a policeman in Kingston before leaving to run his wife's liquor store, Treasure Isle, on Bond Street. He started a sound system to promote the shop, called it Duke Reid the Trojan after the Trojan truck he carried the equipment in, took the downtown title from Tom the Great Sebastian, and by the mid-1950s was one of the two dominant operators on the island, the other being Coxsone Dodd; in July 1959 he was crowned "King of Sound and Progressive Jazz" for the sixth consecutive time. The rivalry was real and occasionally violent, and Reid, who carried firearms openly and was photographed wearing an ermine cape and a crown, cultivated the menace.

He began recording in 1957, survived a bankruptcy in 1961 that cost him the sound system, and built a studio above the liquor store. Through the ska years he recorded Stranger Cole, Derrick Morgan, and Justin Hinds and the Dominoes, but rocksteady was where Treasure Isle became untouchable. Between roughly 1966 and 1968 he made the records that define the style: Alton Ellis's "Girl I've Got a Date," the Paragons' "The Tide Is High" and "On the Beach," the Melodians' "You Have Caught Me," and everything Phyllis Dillon recorded. The house band was Tommy McCook and the Supersonics, formed after the Skatalites broke up.

The Rough Guide calls Reid the producer who best exemplified rocksteady's cool, elegant feel. The studio, built of wood above the liquor store, had a warm, responsive acoustic suited to expressive singers, and the house players, among them Ernest Ranglin and Lynn Taitt on guitar and McCook on saxophone and flute, gave the records their polish. Brent Dowe of the Melodians remembered Reid chasing a "symphonic sound," with many horns, many backing voices and dense arrangements, soft rather than sharp or ragged, and noted that, unlike most big producers, Reid was in the studio most of the time. Reid was reportedly ruthless in the studio and would keep a session going until he had what he wanted.

His last major contribution was to deejay music. In 1970 he put U-Roy over his own rocksteady catalog, and "Wake the Town," "Rule the Nation," and "Wear You to the Ball" held the top three positions on the Jamaican chart simultaneously. Reid was in his mid-fifties and had been dismissive of the form; the records nonetheless launched it commercially.

He departed in 1974; the cause was cancer.

Last updated October 31, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. Bradley says "the years between 1966 and 1968 really were all about Treasure Isle," and calls Reid "rocksteady's most prominent and most fondly remembered producer." Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 171, 186.
  2. Bradley says Reid was a former West Kingston policeman whose wife's lottery win let the couple open the Treasure Isle liquor store in the early 1950s, in the area he had patrolled for ten years. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 29. The Rough Guide adds that he was a champion marksman, and names his wife Lucille. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 14, 18. Wikipedia gives the address as 33 Bond Street. "Duke Reid," Wikipedia, accessed October 1, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Reid. Katz writes that "his ten years in the police force had left him with a fondness for firearms, a close association with the Jamaican criminal underclass, and strong links with certain factions of American organised crime": David Katz, People Funny Boy, quoted in Heather Augustyn, "Duke Reid Crowned 'King' 6th Time," SkaBook (blog), June 12, 2015, https://skabook.com/2015/06/12/duke-reid-crowned-king-6th-time/.
  3. Bradley says the sound was named after the model of Bedford truck that hauled the gear, though the name was chosen "as much for its allusion to invincibility." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 29. See also Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 18.
  4. The Rough Guide says Reid was crowned "King of Sounds and Blues" for 1956-58 at the Success Club, and that "you were either a Coxsone fan or a Reid fan." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 13-14. A Star advertisement of July 1959, reprinted by Augustyn, reports that Reid was "crowned King of Sound and Progressive Jazz for the 6th consecutive time" at a dance in honor of the mayor of Kingston, Iris King: Augustyn, "Duke Reid Crowned 'King.'" In a Gleaner account of 1995 that Augustyn reprints, his son Anthony says he had first taken the downtown crown from Tom the Great Sebastian: Heather Augustyn, "Duke Reid the Trojan," SkaBook (blog), January 10, 2014, https://skabook.com/2014/01/10/duke-reid-trojan/.
  5. Bradley describes Reid at dances in "an enormous fake-jewelled coronet and 'ermine'-trimmed red cape," never without "at least two guns close to hand," firing into rivals' equipment at sound clashes; Prince Buster says Reid used criminals he knew as a policeman to break up Coxsone's dances. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 30-31.
  6. Bradley says Reid began producing his own sessions at Federal in 1957; the Rough Guide says Dodd, Reid, and Buster "began recording in 1957." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 41; Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 20. The Rough Guide dates the studio over the liquor store to 1965; Bradley gives its address as 33 Bond Street. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 37; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 166. The same Gleaner account says a failed construction venture bankrupted him in 1961, costing him the sound system, and that he recovered with a loan on his wife's house, reopened 33 Bond Street and built his studio there: Augustyn, "Duke Reid the Trojan."
  7. The Rough Guide says Derrick Morgan was with Reid in 1960 and that Reid returned with Stranger Cole's "Rough & Tough" in 1962. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 21, 30. The Observer names Justin Hinds and the Dominoes' "Carry Go Bring Come" and the Skatalites' "Eastern Standard Time" among his ska hits. "Duke Reid: Here Comes the Trojan," Jamaica Observer, July 31, 2017, https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2017/07/30/duke-reid-here-comes-the-trojan/.
  8. The Rough Guide and the Observer list Alton Ellis's "Girl I've Got a Date," the Paragons' "On the Beach" and "The Tide Is High," and Phyllis Dillon's "One Life to Live" among his rocksteady hits; the Rough Guide calls Dillon "Treasure Isle's most successful female singer." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 64-66, 68; "Duke Reid: Here Comes the Trojan."
  9. The Rough Guide credits the Supersonics, with Ernest Ranglin, Lynn Taitt, Tommy McCook, and Herman Marquis, as Reid's session band, though it also lists a ska-era "Real Cool" by Tommy McCook & the Supersonics. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 64, 28. Bradley credits Lynn Taitt, who came to Treasure Isle after the Skatalites split, with consolidating the style there. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 166.
  10. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 64.
  11. Dowe, interviewed by Bradley. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 172.
  12. Brent Dowe told Bradley that Reid wired a speaker from the studio down to the liquor store, so that he heard every take and would come up when a mistake was made. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 172.
  13. Bradley says "Wake the Town" and "Rule the Nation" went to the top of both the JBC and RJR charts and stayed there long enough for "Wear You to the Ball" to catch them up, "giving the music the top three positions in both charts for several weeks." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 298.
  14. Bradley says that Reid knew about the unauthorized U-Roy dubplates at King Tubby's dances "and how they could rock a crowd until daybreak," and "wanted a piece of it for himself." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 297-98.
  15. Wikipedia says he died in 1975 after a cancer diagnosis. "Duke Reid," Wikipedia, accessed October 1, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Reid. Both books date his sunset to 1974: Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 98, 453; Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 303. The Gleaner has given 1975 and, in 2022, September 26, 1976. Howard Campbell, "'Duke' Dubbed OD," Jamaica Gleaner, October 16, 2007, https://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20071016/ent/ent3.html. "The Enigmatic Duke Reid the Trojan," Jamaica Gleaner, June 19, 2022, https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/entertainment/20220619/enigmatic-duke-reid-trojan.

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