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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Vere Johns

Producer. Ska

Active
1937-1966
Sunrise
November 28, 1893, Mandeville, Manchester, Jamaica
Sunset
September 10, 1966, Kingston, Jamaica

Joseph Vere Everette Johns was a journalist, broadcaster, and impresario whose talent contests were the way into the business for most of the first generation of Jamaican recording artists.

He was born in Mandeville, worked for the Post Office, served with the South Lancashire Regiment in the First World War, and left for the United States in 1929, where he wrote for several newspapers against the treatment of black Americans and drew the attention of the Ku Klux Klan. He returned to Jamaica in 1939. He had begun running talent shows in Savannah, Georgia, in 1937, with his second wife, the actress Lillian May, who performed as Lady Luck, and he brought the format home with him, opening the first Kingston Opportunity Hour in April 1939.

The Vere Johns Opportunity Hour ran in the downtown Kingston theaters he managed, chiefly the Palace on East Queen Street, the Majestic on Spanish Town Road, and the Ambassador in Trench Town. Winners were decided by audience reaction and were then carried onto his radio program, Opportunity Knocks. He financed the shows himself and, by several accounts, paid the travel costs of performers he thought should go further. From the late 1940s he wrote a column in the Star under the heading "Vere Johns Says," much of it about music. Coxsone Dodd and Duke Reid both scouted the contests for singers, which is how a talent show became a pipeline into the sound system business. Lloyd Bradley has described him as the most influential figure in Jamaican music in the second half of the 1950s.

The performers who came through the shows include Owen Gray, Millie Small, John Holt, Alton Ellis, Hortense Ellis, Derrick Morgan, Derrick Harriott, Laurel Aitken, Jackie Edwards, Lascelles Perkins, the Blues Busters, Higgs and Wilson, Jimmy Cliff, Desmond Dekker, Bob Andy, Bob Marley, and the dancer Anita "Margarita" Mahfood. Johns also acted, in the 1955 adventure film Man Fish, alongside Eric Coverley, and in a short documentary the following year. He departed in 1966 at seventy-two. He was inducted into the Jamaica Association of Vintage Artistes and Affiliates hall of fame in 2008.

Last updated October 23, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. The Gleaner says his writing against "injustices meted out to blacks" drew "the ire of opposing groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, precipitating his return to Jamaica in 1939." "Vere Johns unearthed musical talents, helped shape J'can music," Jamaica Gleaner, August 13, 2017, http://past.jamaica-gleaner.com/article/entertainment/20170813/vere-johns-unearthed-musical-talents-helped-shape-jcan-music. Wikipedia, citing Robert A. Hill's edition of the Marcus Garvey papers, gives the Post Office and the South Lancashire Regiment. "Vere Johns," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vere_Johns.
  2. The Gleaner says he started the talent show "along with his wife, Lillian, in Savannah, Georgia, two years earlier." "Vere Johns unearthed musical talents." Wikipedia gives her name as Lillian May, "known as 'Lady Luck'." "Vere Johns." Augustyn dates the first Kingston show to April 1939 and quotes the Daily Gleaner's review of the season's finals at the Palace on July 25, 1939; she calls Johns's wife Lillian Margaret May Johns in one post and Lucille in another. Heather Augustyn, "Vere Johns Is Santa," SkaBook (blog), December 4, 2015, https://skabook.com/2015/12/04/1124/, an excerpt from her Songbirds; Heather Augustyn, "Ska Takes Center Stage at the Palace Theater," SkaBook (blog), September 27, 2013, https://skabook.com/2013/09/27/ska-takes-center-stage-palace-theater/.
  3. "Vere Johns unearthed musical talents." Brent Dowe of the Melodians recalled that Johns kept "Opportunity Hour at the Ambassador Theatre in Spanish Town Road." Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 70. Bradley describes the Wednesday-night shows and the Boxing Day and New Year concerts at the Carib. Lloyd Bradley, This Is Reggae Music: The Story of Jamaica's Music (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 19. Augustyn says Johns managed the theaters and took the show from the Palace to others, among them the Majestic, the Ward, the Carib, the Queens, the Gaiety and the Ambassador. Augustyn, "Ska Takes Center Stage."
  4. Bradley says winning "was judged purely on the audience response" and that only acts who had impressed in the theatre shows could get onto the radio show, which he places on JBC. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 19-20. The Gleaner places Opportunity Knocks on Radio Jamaica. "Vere Johns unearthed musical talents." Augustyn says Johns held the two-pound prize over each act until the applause settled it, a system that invited packing the house with supporters. Augustyn, "Ska Takes Center Stage."
  5. The Gleaner says he "single-handedly funded" the shows "out of his own pocket" and paid "the travelling expenses for several aspirants to 'greener pastures.'" "Vere Johns unearthed musical talents."
  6. Bradley describes a weekly column in the Star that "discussed music more than anything else." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 19. Wikipedia gives the late 1940s and the column title. "Vere Johns." Augustyn describes the column as ranging over "politics to medical care to labor issues to the mistreatment of the 'bearded men'." Augustyn, "Vere Johns Is Santa."
  7. Dobby Dobson recalled that after his wins at the Opportunity Hour "both Coxsone and Duke Reid had heard of me." Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 66. The Gleaner calls the shows "more like an audition session for record producers." "Vere Johns unearthed musical talents." Leroy Sibbles, who ran Studio One's auditions, later said that they "were taking over from the talent shows like Vere Johns'." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 221.
  8. Bradley calls him "the most influential man in Jamaican music in the second half of the 1950s." Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 19.
  9. Bradley names Derrick Harriott, Alton Ellis, Lascelles Perkins, Jackie Edwards, John Holt, Laurel Aitken and the Wailers, among others. Bradley, This Is Reggae Music, 21. The Rough Guide has Derrick Morgan winning a talent contest at the Palace in 1956 against Owen Gray, Jackie Edwards and Hortense Ellis. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 19. The Gleaner's list adds Millie Small, the Blues Busters, Higgs and Wilson and Jimmy Cliff. "Vere Johns unearthed musical talents." Augustyn adds Desmond Dekker, Bob Andy and the dancer Anita "Margarita" Mahfood, who won in 1952 at twelve. Augustyn, "Ska Takes Center Stage"; Augustyn, "Vere Johns Is Santa."
  10. The Gleaner names the 1955 film Man Fish, with Eric Coverley, and the twenty-six-minute documentary It Can Happen To You. "Vere Johns unearthed musical talents."
  11. Wikipedia cites the Gleaner's obituary of September 11, 1966, under the headline "Vere Johns, journalist, dies at 73"; his birth and death dates make him seventy-two. "Vere Johns."
  12. Wikipedia, citing Mel Cooke in the Gleaner (November 16, 2008). "Vere Johns."

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