ENTITY · PERSON (ARTIST, SELECTOR, PRODUCER…)

Hedley Jones

Well supported

Jamaican audio engineer, musician, inventor and trade unionist (1917-2017) whose 1947 hand-built high-fidelity amplifier, made to play records outside his Bop City shop in Kingston, became the template for the sound system; he supplied amplifiers to Tom Wong, Duke Reid and Coxsone Dodd, built an early solid-body electric guitar, and received the Gold Musgrave Medal in 2011.

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At a glance

Type: Person (artist, selector, producer…) →
Era: Sound-system revolution →
Confidence: Well supported
Sources: Stolzoff, Wake the Town and Tell the People (Duke University Press, 2000), ch. 1.

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Connections

Media & sources

Footage

Meet Hedley Jones, the Jamaican Inventor Who Beat Les Paul to the Electric Guitar

YOUTUBE · rights discovery only · documentary

Independent music-history channel feature on Hedley Jones; discovery-only embed.

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Jamaica's Very First Sound System

YOUTUBE · rights discovery only · documentary

Independent history channel feature on the first Jamaican sound systems; discovery-only embed.

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Articles & sources

Open source ↗

Jamaica is Where Sound Systems Begin: Enter Hedley Jones

WEB · rights discovery only · press source

Sonic Street Technologies research article reference.

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Open source ↗

Hedley Jones: The Renaissance Man Who Pioneered Jamaican Soundsystem Culture

WEB · rights discovery only · press source

Red Bull Music Academy Daily feature reference.

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Open source ↗

Wickedest Sound (99% Invisible, episode 510)

WEB · rights discovery only · press source

99% Invisible episode reference on Jamaican sound-system engineering.

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In stories

Story · Well supportedHouse of Joy: the cabinet that built a nation's bass

How a wartime radar technician's amplifier and speaker cabinet set the template for sound-system bass.

Story · Well supportedThe amp men of Kingston

From a 1947 shop-front amplifier to King Tubby's workshop, engineers built the sound system before anyone sang through it.

Story · Well supportedThe electronics men and the birth of the sound system

Before there were selectors and deejays, there was the amplifier, and the men who built it.

Story · ProbableFoundation sounds before the famous three

Long before Coxsone, Duke Reid and Prince Buster became reggae's founding trinity, a wider field of 1950s operators built the culture — and its DIY engineering habit followed Jamaican emigrants to London.