The Rhythmic History of Mississauga’s Summer Records

Summer Records Anthology Cover

 The Museums of Mississauga are home to countless fascinating historic artifacts that help to tell stories from our city’s history. One of them, perhaps not obvious at first, is a reggae music album called Innocent Youths by “Earth, Roots and Water”, produced by Summer Records.

It all started in a suburban semi-detached home at the dead end of Landen Court in Malton. Keith “Jerry” Brown purchased the home in 1972. He paid the bills by working as a mechanic, but he had a vision. Originally from St. Elizabeth Parish, Jamaica, he dreamed of bringing Jamaican music to his new adoptive home in Canada. Working from a basement studio in his house on Landen Court, the dream became a reality with the establishment of Summer Records, which was one of the first Black-owned record labels in Canada.

Innocent Youths Album Cover

Jerry Brown’s basement studio became a nurturing and welcoming place to scores of aspiring musicians and friends. Malton could be lonely at first, as there was not a significant Black population, but the growing suburban area became increasingly popular with young Jamaican families in the early 1970s, and Summer Records became a focal point of the emerging community identity.

“Earth, Roots and Water” member Colin Suban remarked: “We were kids, but blessed to be those kids that were invited to be there. Back then, everybody gathered. We were young men in a new place and Jerry’s thing was just coming together.” Fellow band member Anthony Hibbert remembered “From Jerry’s engineering to the music we made, it was more creative and relaxed. He considered the younger youth … where other studios were all older musicians. The styles we were doing wasn’t exactly what was happening in Jamaica either.”

Earth, Roots and Water

With an influx of Jamaican immigration to Canada throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, it should be of no surprise that elements of Jamaican culture and music found their way into Toronto and surrounding areas. There was an organic growth of Rastafarian culture and reggae-influenced music with immigrant workers and their families seeking to connect with the music they knew from home, but with a twist. Basement recording studios, such as Jerry Brown’s Summer Records in Malton, developed a unique and experimental Canadian reggae sound. Beginning in 1974, the Summer Records label began producing music, working with artists such as King (then Prince) Jammy, Johnny Osbourne, Jackie Mittoo, Leroy Sibbles, Stranger Cole, Willi Williams, Winston Francis, Noel Ellis, and countless others. Although commercially unsuccessful, Jerry Brown continued to craft music from his Malton home – sometimes to the dismay of his neighbours who often complained about the heavy bass rhythms emanating from the house.

Summer Records’ backing house band, dubbed “Earth, Roots and Water”, produced their only album in 1977 entitled Innocent Youths. The band featured, amongst others, Adrian “Homer” Miller (vocals), Anthony “Base” Hibbert (bass), Colin “Zuba” Suban (drums), Matt Shelley (guitar) and Tony “KB” Moore (keyboards). The final album also included Bunny Brown, Leslie Blackwood, Ben Bow, Conroy Lewis, Marilyn Carnegie, Carl Dawkins and Bobby Gaynair. Others who contributed to “Earth, Roots and Water” included Donovan “Ragga” Palmer, Scotty, Jerome Sammy and Junior Brown, amongst others.

An article in the National Post by Mike Doherty from March 4, 2008 recounted this seemingly unlikely Mississauga story:

“The music of the Summer Records label in the 1970s and ’80s conjured up the Caribbean islands rather than the Toronto suburbs. Owner and producer Jerry Brown … exploited this fact by stamping some of his releases with “Made in Jamaica,” despite their having been recorded in his basement in northern Mississauga … Earth, Roots & Water, the label’s house band, started playing shows soon after releasing their one and only album, Innocent Youths, in 1977. During the years when punk and reggae were starting to cross-pollinate, they opened for the likes of The Police and The Stranglers in Toronto … By ’77, Brown was coming into his own as a producer … it’s easy to imagine his being inspired by the aviation factories near his house, or the body shop where he worked his day job. Perhaps, 20 years after Brown shut his studio, the Malton sound that he crafted with his fellow Jamaican ex-pats will find its audience.”

By 1988, Summer Records drew to a close, and Jerry Brown left Mississauga for Brampton, before returning to his Native Jamaica, selling his home in Malton in 1990. The departure of Jerry Brown from Mississauga brought an end to this fascinating, if relatively uncelebrated, chapter of Mississauga’s story.

“Earth, Roots and Water” member Tony Moore referenced his time under the guidance of Jerry Brown: “It was a teaching and a learning process … it was a deep, deep, feeling about the spiritual and the physical between us … the work we did had a lot of heart and soul, defiant, and very passionate. With Jerry’s help, we made music with what we had … Reggae gave us a value and it showed us that people around the world were interested in what we had to say. It’s all about how a tune can hit a nerve with the listener. Good songs last for a long time.”

If you have stories and pictures to share about Jerry Brown’s Summer Records basement studio on Landen Court in Malton, we would love to hear from you!

Thank you to Amanda Barbosa, Stephanie Meeuwse, Tracy Oliviera, Robert Stanczyk from the Museums of Mississauga, and to Liz McQuaig, formerly with the Mississauga Library System, for their help with this article. You can learn more about the story of Reggae music in the Toronto area, Jerry Brown and Summer Records here and here.