TREASURE ISLE
Duke Reid’s Bond Street room, where rocksteady found some of its sweetest bass lines, harmony groups and horn arrangements. Treasure Isle made elegance hit hard in the dance.
Arthur “Duke” Reid moved from operating the Trojan sound system into record production and built his Treasure Isle studio above his liquor business at the corner of Bond and Charles streets in downtown Kingston. The studio was active through ska, but its great run arrived as Jamaica slowed into rocksteady in the second half of the 1960s. Tommy McCook & The Supersonics became the house band, with musicians such as bassist Jackie Jackson and guitarist Lynn Taitt helping give the sessions their deep, economical pulse. Alton Ellis, The Techniques, The Paragons, The Melodians and Phyllis Dillon cut defining records there. Treasure Isle also became part of the version and deejay story when Reid’s catalog was opened to U-Roy’s voice around 1970.