Studios and labels

Lee “Scratch” Perry’s tiny backyard studio made rough equipment sound enormous.

The Hoo Kim brothers’ Maxfield Avenue room gave mid-1970s roots reggae a harder new engine.

Byron Lee bought WIRL in 1968 and made Dynamic one of the best-equipped studios in the Caribbean.

Ken Khouri’s Federal put recording, mastering and pressing under one Kingston roof in the 1950s.

Joe Gibbs and engineer Errol Thompson built one of late-1970s reggae’s busiest hit factories.

A small room at 18 Dromilly Avenue, Waterhouse.

Upstairs from Randy’s Records in downtown Kingston, Studio 17 became a busy 1970s crossroads for singers, producers and engineers.

Coxsone Dodd’s Brentford Road workshop: ska, rocksteady, reggae and generations of singers tested against the dance.

Duke Reid’s Bond Street room, where rocksteady found some of its sweetest bass lines, harmony groups and horn arrangements.

The Marley family turned the old Federal Records complex into a working Jamaican music institution.