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One index for everything published: records, stories, watchable media, community memories and places. 49 records match.
The open-air venue on Negril's seven-mile beach, and one of the fixtures of Jamaica's live circuit outside Kingston. Its long-running weekly reggae nights matter because they are where a working band plays to a mixed room of Jamaicans and visitors — the tourist economy and the music economy meeting on the same sand.
venue · Well supportedAmazura, Jamaica, QueensLarge concert hall at 91-12 144th Place in Jamaica, Queens, that emerged by the late 1990s as New York's premier reggae and dancehall venue and a marquee stage for World Clash and East Coast sound clashes.
venue · Well supportedBiltmore BallroomThe Biltmore Ballroom was a Crown Heights, Brooklyn dancehall and concert venue remembered as New York's “Mecca of Sound Clash.” From the late 1970s until its 1999 fire, it hosted Jamaican artists and diaspora sounds including King Addies, Soul Supreme, Bodyguard and LP International.
venue · Well supportedBob Marley MuseumMarley's home and studio at 56 Hope Road, Kingston, bought in 1975 and operated as a museum since 1986. It housed Tuff Gong before the move to Marcus Garvey Drive, and it is where the December 1976 shooting took place two days before the Smile Jamaica concert — the bullet marks are preserved. Jamaica's most visited music site.
venue · ProbableBourbon BeachBeachfront live-reggae venue on Negril's Seven Mile Beach, established in the late 1980s (formerly DeBus), long a leading stop for live roots and reggae performances. Artists seen there over the years include Culture with Joseph Hill, Gregory Isaacs, Yellowman, John Holt, Toots and the Maytals and Bunny Wailer. Source note: Jamaica Gleaner Hospitality Jamaica and venue listings.
venue · Well supportedCatherine Hall Entertainment CentreOpen-air entertainment and sports complex in Montego Bay that has served as the primary home of Reggae Sumfest, the island's largest annual reggae and dancehall festival. Its main stage and grounds host the festival's flagship nights each July. Source note: Reggae Sumfest official site and Jamaica Gleaner.
venue · Well supportedCho-Co-Mo LawnOne of the open-air dance lawns of 1950s and 1960s Kingston, and part of the circuit — with Forresters Hall, King's Lawn and Success Club — where the sound systems fought out their reputations. A lawn was a yard with a fence, a bar and a rig: no stage, no seats, and the sound itself as the entire attraction.
venue · Well supportedCue ClubBasement club at 5a Praed Street, Paddington, London, opened by Jamaican sound pioneer Count Suckle in 1964; open seven nights a week, it mixed ska, soul and funk and staged Jamaican and US acts including Prince Buster and Edwin Starr.
venue · Well supportedExodus Night ClubNightclub formerly located at Northside Plaza and remembered by Gary Exodus as “the spot to be.” His father was part of its management; after the club closed, the family built the mobile Exodus Sound System from which Exodus Studios later developed.
venue · ProbableForrester's HallHistoric dance venue at 21 North Street in Kingston, one of the great sound-system halls of the late 1950s and early 1960s alongside Chocomo Lawn and Club Havana. Sir Coxsone's Downbeat and Duke Reid's Trojan were regular fixtures, and it hosted celebrated early clashes between the two rigs. Source note: Jamaica Gleaner 'Music Diaries'.
venue · Well supportedFort Clarence Beach, Hellshire, St CatherineThe beach at Hellshire in St Catherine, and a long-running venue for stage shows and beach parties. Its significance is that the dance did not have to be indoors or in a lawn: a sound could be strung up on the sand, and a good part of the summer season has happened there.
venue · Well supportedGoldenEye (Island Outpost), OracabessaFormer Ian Fleming estate at Oracabessa, St Mary, developed by Island Records founder Chris Blackwell into the Island Outpost resort and a recording hideaway on the north coast.
venue · Well supportedGrizzly's Plantation Cove, Priory, St AnnSeaside events venue at Priory, just west of St Ann's Bay, best known as the home of the roots-reggae festival Rebel Salute since it relocated there in 2013.
venue · Well supportedHouse of LeoThe Kingston lawn on Cargill Avenue, Half Way Tree, that was dancehall's central venue through the 1980s and into the 1990s — where Metro Media with Sky Juice and Peter Metro, Stone Love and the other big sounds played to hardcore crowds and where the era's style, dances and reputations were made and lost. Opened in 1979 by Olga May "Mama G" Lee (named for her own zodiac sign), it hosted Stone Love's long-running Thursday-night session through the mid-1980s. The venue closed and was later revived, reopening 1 April 2023 under Kelvin Lee, Mama G's son. Its name recurs constantly in accounts of the period as the room that mattered.
venue · Well supportedJames Bond Beach, Oracabessa, St MaryPeninsula beach and concert lawn at Oracabessa Bay, St Mary, that has staged reggae and international shows; named for the Dr. No scenes filmed nearby.
