Joseph Vere Everette Johns (28 November 1893–10 September 1966"Vere Johns, journalist, dies at 73" ''Kingston Gleaner'', 11 September 1966, pp. 1–2. ) was a
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
n
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...
,
impresario
An impresario (from the Italian ''impresa'', "an enterprise or undertaking") is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays, or operas, performing a role in stage arts that is similar to that of a film or television producer.
Hist ...
, radio personality, and
actor
An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...
, who helped to launch the careers of many Jamaican musicians through his popular talent contests.
Biography
Johns was born in Mandeville in 1893, and after working for the Post Office, served in the
South Lancashire Regiment
The South Lancashire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 to 1958.
The regiment, which recruited, as its title suggests, primarily from the South Lancashire area, was created as part of the Childers Ref ...
in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
before finding success as a
newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...
columnist in the United States in the 1920s.Hill, Robert A. (1992), ''Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers: November 1927-August 1940 v. 7'', University of California Press, , p. 540. While in the US he divorced his first wife and married his second, actress Lillian May, known as "Lady Luck". He began running talent contests while in the US, and continued on his return to Jamaica in 1939. In the late 1940s he began a long-running "Vere Johns Says" column in the ''Jamaica Star'' newspaper, often on the topic of music.
He made a major contribution to Jamaican music with his "Vere John's Opportunity Knocks Talent Show" on RJR Radio and helped launch the careers of several major recording artists including
Lloyd Charmers
Lloyd Charmers (born Lloyd Tyrell, 1938 – 27 December 2012, also known as Lloyd Chalmers, Lloyd Terell, or Lloyd Terrell)Ruddock, George (2012), ''Jamaica Gleaner'', 29 December 2012. Retrieved 29 December 2012 was a Jamaican ska and reggae s ...
,
Hortense Ellis
Hortense Ellis (18 April 1941 – 19 October 2000) was a reggae musician, and the younger sister of fellow artist Alton Ellis.John Holt,
Bob Andy
Keith Anderson CD (28 October 1944 – 27 March 2020), better known by the stage name Bob Andy, was a Jamaican reggae vocalist and songwriter. He was widely regarded as one of reggae's most influential songwriters.
Early life
Anderson was bor ...
,
Desmond Dekker
Desmond Dekker (16 July 1941 – 25 May 2006) was a Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae singer-songwriter and musician. Together with his backing group The Aces (consisting of Wilson James and Easton Barrington Howard), he had one of the earlie ...
,
The Wailers
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
Dobby Dobson
Highland Ralph Dobson OD (5 July 1942 – 21 July 2020) was a Jamaican reggae singer and record producer, nicknamed "The Loving Pauper" after one of his best known songs.
Biography
Dobson began singing while a student at Central Branch Sc ...
,
Boris Gardiner
Boris Gardiner (born 13 January 1943) is a Jamaican singer, songwriter and bass guitarist. He was a member of several groups during the 1960s before recording as a solo artist and having hit singles with " Elizabethan Reggae" (in 1970), " I Wann ...
,
Laurel Aitken
Lorenzo "Laurel" Aitken (22 April 1927 – 17 July 2005) was an influential Caribbean singer and one of the pioneers of Jamaican ska music. He is often referred to as the "Godfather of Ska".
Career
Born in Cuba of mixed Cuban and Jamaican desc ...
, and
Millie Small
Millicent Dolly May Small CD (6 October 1947 – 5 May 2020) was a Jamaican singer and songwriter who is best known for her 1964 hit "My Boy Lollipop". The song reached number two in both the UK and US charts and sold over seven million ...
.Larkin, Colin (1998), ''The Virgin Encyclopedia of Reggae'', Virgin Books, , pp. 54, 94, 124, 256.Bradley, Lloyd (2000), ''This is Reggae Music'', Grove Press, , pp. 19-21.Millie not so 'small' anymore ", ''
Jamaica Gleaner
''The Gleaner'' is an English-language, morning daily newspaper founded by two brothers, Jacob and Joshua de Cordova on 13 September 1834 in Kingston, Jamaica. Originally called the ''Daily Gleaner'', the name was changed on 7 December 1992 to ' ...
'', 15 October 2006, retrieved 2010-05-03 His talent contests began as theatre shows held in downtown Kingston venues such as The Majestic, Palace and Ambassador theatres,O'Brien Chang, Kevin & Chen, Wayne (1998), ''Reggae Routes'', Temple University Press, , p. 31. with the winners judged by audience reaction, and going on to appear on his radio shows. Producers such as
Clement "Coxsone" Dodd
Clement Seymour "Coxsone" Dodd (26 January 1932 – 4 May 2004) was a Jamaican record producer who was influential in the development of ska and reggae in the 1950s, 1960s and beyond.
He was nicknamed "Coxsone" at school due to his talent a ...
and
Arthur "Duke" Reid
Arthur "Duke" Reid CD (21 July 1915 – 1 January 1975) was a Jamaican record producer, DJ and label owner.
He ran one of the most popular sound systems of the 1950s called Reid's Sound System, whilst Duke himself was known as The Troja ...
scouted for talent at the shows, taking singers to record at
Stanley Motta
Stanley Motta was an electronics store proprietor who established a record label in Kingston, Jamaica and opened the first privately owned recording studio in Jamaica in 1951, jump starting Jamaica's music industry.
Career
Motta recorded cal ...
's studio to cut records to be played on their
sound systems
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...
Lloyd Bradley
Lloyd Bradley (born 21 January 1955) is a British music journalist and author.
Biography
Born in London to recent immigrants from St Kitts, Bradley discovered Jamaican music during his teenage years, while going out in the North London-based s ...
, in his book ''This is Reggae Music'', described Johns as "the most influential man in Jamaican music in the second half of the 1950s", a period in which indigenous Jamaican styles were coming to the fore. Johns, despite his antipathy towards Jamaica's
Rastafarian
Rastafari, sometimes called Rastafarianism, is a religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by scholars of religion. There is no central authority in control ...
s, also provided exposure for
Count Ossie
Count Ossie, born Oswald Williams (23 April 1926Ancestry.com. Jamaica, Civil Registration Birth, Marriage, and Death Records, 1878-1995 atabase on-line Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. – 18 October 1976Moskowitz, David V. ...
's group of drummers after singer
Marguerita Mahfood
Anita "Margarita" Mahfood (died 31 December 1965) was a dancer, actress, and singer in Jamaica. She was called "the famous Rhumba queen" and headlined performances. She also performed reggae music, writing and singing her own music, one of the firs ...
refused to appear on his show unless she was backed by Ossie's Mystic Revelation group; The group proved popular with the audience and went on to perform regularly in Kingston.Thomas, Polly & Vaitilingam, Adam (2003), ''The Rough Guide to Jamaica'', Rough Guides, , p. 412.
Johns also worked as an actor, performing in
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
plays and solo recitations, and taught acting.
Vere Johns died in
Kingston, Jamaica
Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley Inter ...
on 10 September 1966.
Honors
*
Military Medal
The Military Medal (MM) was a military decoration awarded to personnel of the British Army and other arms of the armed forces, and to personnel of other Commonwealth countries, below commissioned rank, for bravery in battle on land. The award ...
, November 1917
*
British War Medal
The British War Medal is a campaign medal of the United Kingdom which was awarded to officers and men of British and Imperial forces for service in the First World War. Two versions of the medal were produced. About 6.5 million were struck in si ...
"Vere Johns gets military burial" ''Kingston Gleaner'', 16 September 1966, p. 4.
* Victory Medal
* Member of the
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...
, June 1953
* Seprod Award, 1964 and 1965
In 2008, Johns was posthumously inducted into the Jamaica Association of Vintage Artistes and Affiliates (JAVAA) Hall of Fame.Cooke, Mel (2008), JAVAA opens Jamaica Music Hall of Fame" , ''Jamaica Gleaner'', 16 November 2008, retrieved 2010-05-03. In 2012, former Minister of Culture
Olivia Grange
Olivia "Babsy" Grange , DSE (born 27 April 1946) is a Jamaican politician. She has served as Member of Parliament for Saint Catherine Central since 1997 and as Jamaica's Minister of Sports, Youth and Culture for the duration of the Jamaica La ...
Jamaica Observer
''Jamaica Observer'' is a daily newspaper published in Kingston, Jamaica. The publication is owned by Butch Stewart, who chartered the paper in January 1993 as a competitor to Jamaica's oldest daily paper, ''The Gleaner''. Its founding editor i ...