International Record Store Day – Jukebox jams on the corner - ‘Leggo Beast’ talks about the significance of record stores to our music
Published:Saturday | April 18, 2020 | 12:00 AM
Jukeboxes were to record stores and bars what sound systems were to street dances, creating seismic waves for Jamaica’s authentic sounds. According to Trevor ‘Leggo Beast’ Douglas, downtown Kingston was at the epicentre of this auditory movement. A quick chat with the legendary producer about International Record Store Day, which is usually celebrated on a Saturday in April since its inception in 2008, turns into a lesson about what jukeboxes and jammin’ on the corner meant for the music industry.
Prince Buster’s One Stop Record Shack, Rocker’s International Records, Joe Gibbs Record Globe, Randy’s Record Mart, Beverley’s and Techniques Records, he said, “all had one thing in common. Aside from being record stores, they were the meeting places for who would become reggae’s influential artistes.”
He said Dennis Brown, Bob Marley and The Wailers, Gregory Isaacs, Bob Andy, Jacob Miller and a host of Jamaica’s musical icons in the 1950s through the 1980s congregated outside the stores to hear if their records were being played inside; with some record stores doubled as recording studios, another attraction for emerging talents who anticipated a session to record their music.
The producer has not abandoned Orange Street, where several record stores, like his own record shop-studio dubbed Leggo’s Place, decorated both sides of the road. In fact, during his chat with The Gleaner, he sat comfortably in the doorway (of what is presently being transformed into a restaurant by his children) observing passers-by.
Rare commodity
“The record store does not exist anymore. Like most, it stopped doing business when the pressing plants became a rare commodity and the digital era took over, but the recording studio still stands,” Leggo Beast expressed.
Jukeboxes served as the pivotal promotional vehicles and tools in the trade of selling records. The 19th-century invention became popular in Jamaica in the 1950s when operators of the jukebox business like Isaac Issa, reggae producers Prince Buster and J.J. Johnson, introduced them into the cultural hub that is downtown – not only in the record stores, but ice-cream parlours and bars too. It was said that Prince Buster’s popularity as a producer and later a recording artiste was enhanced by his owning jukeboxes where his recordings and those of artistes he produced were available in them.
Leggo Beast noted: “It became as important as a sound system to promote our music, even though not every recording was made available. Over time, the collection would come to include many others. It was about one shilling to use the jukebox, you selected the records you wanted to be played.”
A record store’s diverse collection could also be determined by the jukebox compilation. Leggo Beast may not openly celebrate International Record Store Day, but highlights that it is an important part of history. This year, because of the pandemic, celebrations in the United States and United Kingdom have been pushed further down the calendar, from April 18 to June 20.
“What matters is the memories. These are significant elements to the history of our music, and things like these we remember on days like this. When you mention the jukeboxes which housed and played especially international records, exposing us to music from a wide cross-section of people in the earlier years, you come to learn where the various sounds that had some amount of influence on our own were heard,” he said.