In mid-1970s Malton if your kitchen pots were knockin’, Jerry Brown’s place was likely rockin’.
Brown created Summer Records, Canada’s first reggae label, from the basement of his Landen Court semi-detached home, metres from the airport, in 1974.
The house became a hub for Jamaican musicians and their fans. On any given Sunday, Brown and friends would throw down hooks and powerful bass beats that reverberated through the neighbourhood.
Literally.
As Brown recounted in the July 2024 National Film Board reggae anthology documentary Sound and Pressure: Reggae in a Foreign Land, one of his neighbours finally came over and asked Brown to turn the music down after a pot on the stove crashed to the floor.
That particular incident was thanks to DJ and sound engineer Prince Jammy who experimented with sound equipment in Malton for a few years before returning to Jamaica where he’d evolve into King Jammy, one of the creators of the modern digital dancehall or dub sound.
Brown’s little corner of Malton became a music city, with reggae artists such as Heptones lead singer Leroy Sibbles and Johnny Osbourne, one of the most popular reggae and dancehall performers landing on Landen Court soon after moving to Canada.
It’s also where you’d find influential Jamaican keyboardist Jackie Mittoo, who recorded his U.K. hit ‘Rockin Universally’ in Brown’s basement studio.
Brown’s desire to produce and promote reggae music started early.
Growing up in Kingston, Jamaica, Brown was drawn to music. In his teens, he and his friends Norris Weir and Martin Williams created a band called Cool Shakes. After two more singers joined, they changed their name to The Jamaicans and recorded two singles, ‘Pocket Full of Money’ and ‘Diana.’
While The Jamaicans would go on to achieve some regional fame, they did so without Brown, who left the band to focus on earning a steady income via an auto body repair apprenticeship.
That pursuit of financial stability brought Brown to the Toronto area in 1968, where he initially settled in downtown Toronto, finding work at an auto body shop at Queen and Spadina.
Brown was part of the second wave of Caribbean immigration to Toronto, spurred on by Canada’s newly implemented points system, which emphasized skills rather than nationality. Canada was ready to welcome the world.
Brown eventually made his way to the Little Jamaica neighbourhood along Eglinton Avenue West, where he met his wife Joyce and fellow reggae practitioner Oswald Creary.
Creary owned recording equipment, and together they began creating beats and rhythms in the basement of Brown’s newly purchased home in Malton.
They called it Summer Records, and the new label’s first single was 1974’s ‘Love Makes The World Go Round’ by Johnny Osborne and Bunny Brown.
Summer Records Anthology was released in 2007 to celebrate Canada’s first Reggae record label. (Photo courtesy Heritage Mississauga)
Summer Records founder Jerry Brown, who ran the label from his home in Malton’s former Victory Village. (Photo courtesy Heritage Mississauga)
The following year, Brown started bringing Prince Jammy to recording sessions. This created tension with Creary, who left in 1975 to form his own label, Half Moon.
Left without recording equipment, Brown was left to scramble, first with some glitchy used equipment, until he finally was able to secure a Soundcraft mixing board on credit. With a proper mixer installed, Jammy began to hone his engineering skills, experimenting with developing the heavy bass sound that would become a Summer Records signature.
While continuing to work as an auto body mechanic by day, Brown hustled to build Summer Records. He assembled a house band, Earth, Roots and Water, who also released their own albums.
Adrian Miller’s ‘Little Sixteen’ and ‘Right, Right Time’ by Johnny Osbourne made some money, but Brown struggled with trying to get the Canadian music industry to sit up and take notice of this brand-new-to-Canada sound.
He’d hand deliver newly pressed albums to radio stations and record stores, and while he’d sell some at reggae-friendly stories in Kensington Market and Little Jamaica, the larger culture largely ignored Jamaican culture and music.
Even fellow Toronto-area reggae fans doubted the quality of music made in Malton, so Brown slapped ‘Made in Jamaica’ labels on his albums to encourage sales.
Finally, in 1988, he closed Summer Records and sold the Malton house and all his recording equipment.
Today, Brown is celebrated as one of the founders of Canada’s reggae scene.
Earth, Roots and Water who recorded on Summer Records. (Photo courtesy Heritage Mississauga)
You can hear more stories about the people and events that helped shape Mississauga via our podcast, We Built This City: Tales of Mississauga, available on your favourite podcast platform or from our website.