Studios and labels

Lee “Scratch” Perry’s tiny backyard studio made rough equipment sound enormous.

The Hoo Kim brothers’ Maxfield Avenue room gave mid-1970s roots reggae a harder new engine.

Byron Lee turned the former WIRL operation into one of the Caribbean’s best-equipped recording centers.

Ken Khouri built the industrial backbone Jamaican producers needed before many owned studios of their own.

Joe Gibbs and engineer Errol Thompson built one of late-1970s reggae’s busiest hit factories.

A small Waterhouse room where faders, filters, echo and silence became composition.

Upstairs from Randy’s Records in downtown Kingston, Studio 17 became a busy 1970s crossroads for singers, producers and engineers.

Coxsone Dodd’s Brentford Road workshop: ska, rocksteady, reggae and generations of singers tested against the dance.

Duke Reid’s Bond Street room, where rocksteady found some of its sweetest bass lines, harmony groups and horn arrangements.

The Marley family turned the old Federal Records complex into a working Jamaican music institution.