Lawn kings of downtown Kingston

Tom Wong's sound, and by common account the first of the great Jamaican sound systems. A Chinese-Jamaican hardware merchant, Wong ran it in downtown Kingston from the late 1940s, and its reputation for equipment and for records nobody else had set the terms every sound after it competed on. Duke Reid and Coxsone both came up in its shadow. Count Machuki's deejay career began as a dancer at Tom Wong's Luke Lane set in the 1950s, where his energetic footwork drew its own following before he was promoted to selector and began developing his chatting style. When Wong later moved to an uptown residency at the Silver Slipper club, he pointedly left Machuki behind, apparently judging a street-style "scatting" deejay too downmarket for that more genteel venue, the snub that sent Machuki to Coxsone Dodd's Downbeat instead.

Collective name for the mid-1950s Kingston sound-system powers - Sir Coxsone Downbeat, Duke Reid the Trojan and King Edwards the Giant - whose rivalry after Tom the Great Sebastian's heyday drove exclusivity, dance-war tactics and eventually local record production.

King Edwards the Giant was a powerhouse Kingston sound system built by brothers Vincent and George Edwards, active roughly 1955-1967 and counted with Coxsone's Downbeat and Duke Reid the Trojan among the 'Big Three' of the foundation era. Known for imported R&B and fierce sound clashes, its associated record shop drew aspiring musicians including a young Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff.

Dance lawn at 153 King Street, downtown Kingston, described in retrospectives as among the most popular lawns of the 1950s sound-system era alongside Forresters Hall and Chocomo Lawn.

Clement Dodd's sound system, and the dominant set of the late 1950s. Downbeat's rivalry with Duke Reid the Trojan is the founding contest of Jamaican sound-system culture — fought with exclusive American R&B pressings, then with Dodd's own recordings once he began producing to feed the sound. Studio One grew directly out of that need.

The 1950s practice of Kingston sound men flying to US cities such as Miami, New Orleans and New York to hunt exclusive rhythm-and-blues records for their sets, a supply line whose drying-up helped push operators like Dodd and Reid into recording local music.

Arthur Reid's sound system, named for the Trojan truck it travelled on, and Coxsone Downbeat's great rival through the late 1950s. Reid was a former policeman who ran the sound with a well-documented showmanship, and like Dodd he moved into producing to supply it — the path that led to Treasure Isle and the rocksteady catalogue. As late as 1963 Reid was still an R&B loyalist, contemptuous of the new ska beat as a passing fad, and preferred running imported American records to paying for further sessions; attendance at his dances thinned during that stretch, which is credited with pushing him to finally commit to the style. Once he did, he produced some of ska's strongest work behind the Skatalites and singers including Slim Smith, Justin Hinds, Alton Ellis and Stranger Cole, and was the ska producer most inclined toward Jamaica's older mento tradition.

Kingston dance-scene title contested in the late 1950s, with Duke Reid crowned King of Sounds and Blues at the Success Club on Wildman Street for 1956, 1957 and 1958 and honoured at further crownings into the early 1960s, including one at King's Lawn attended by Fats Domino.

Chinese-Jamaican hardware merchant who ran Tom the Great Sebastian, widely called the all-time giant of the first sound systems; he gave early breaks to Count Machuki and Duke Vin, moved his dances uptown to the Silver Slipper club in Cross Roads amid downtown rivalry, and died in 1971.

Fenced open-air yards - lawns - that hosted Kingston's sound-system dances from the late 1940s, with gate money, food and liquor sales making the dance a complete economy; Forresters Hall, Chocomo Lawn, Jubilee Tile Gardens and the Success Club anchored the downtown circuit.

Dance venue at 63 Wildman Street, downtown Kingston, central to the 1950s sound-system circuit; Duke Reid was crowned King of Sounds and Blues there for 1956, 1957 and 1958.

Historic 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.