Soundman Session VII - Sir Tommy's Sir Tommy, born Howard Mapp, is a key soundman/selector/producer in the story reggae in New York. He grew up in the Maxfield Park area of Kingston and came to New York to be with his mother in 1971. He attended high school in Brooklyn and came of age as reggae was first being exposed to the city as a whole. "I used to go to Chin-Randy’s at Schenectady and St. John’s. You buy your records, as a Jamaican in New York, you try to keep up with your heritage. Finally one day, someone asked me to play at a party and it goes on and on and on.” Sir Tommy’s taste reflects the same ‘golden era’ of reggae that he helped promote from its emergence in the 1970s but he made his mark in the recording studio during the next phase of reggae’s development. His Sir Tommy label was launched in the mid-1980s with a series of singles and showcase albums, recorded at Channel One in Jamaica, featuring the likes of Sugar Minott, Trevor Junior, Little John, Admiral Tibet, Roland Burrell, Pinchers, Nathan Skyers, Patrick Andy, and others. He captured the best of the transitional period from analog to digital reggae on a small catalog of albums that have become highly collectable. "I started producing 1985. First time I went to the studio, honestly, I never know nothing about producing. I knew Trevor Junior and Little John and them and Trevor say, 'why don’t just we lay a riddim and record me and start produce some songs.' First time we went to Channel One, Peter Chemist ran the session. I still give him credits and props for that. After a while, you learn and you do things yourself.” Tommy’s ran his studio on Herkimer Street in East New York from 1991 but closed it several years ago. The studio was a creative center and insider community gathering place, home to ‘marathon’ parties on the major holiday weekends where selectors from the community would bring 45s and stay up late playing their favorites in a ‘round robin’ style, from dusk until dawn. #reggae #dancehall #soundsystem