TROJAN RECORDS

Although seemingly inconsequential at the time, July 28th 1967 proved to be a momentous date in the history of Jamaican music. For it was on that day that Chris Blackwell and Lee Gopthal from Island Records, one of the UK's leading independent record companies, launched a sub-label that would come to symbolise and forever be associated with the reggae style that was to make Jamaica a musical superpower.

The imprint was of course Trojan. A subsidiary created specifically to showcase the productions of one of Jamaica's most popular and successful producers, Arthur "Duke" Reid, who himself had acquired the moniker from the make of the British-built seven-ton truck he had used to transport his powerful sound system around the island since the fifties.

The company took its name from Reid's Trojan sound system and eponymous Jamaican label active at the same time -this has a different design, depicting two bulls [fighting in the label ring] and Tarus (sic) inscribed on the right.