Award Winning Documentary Play It Loud! How Toronto Got Soul to screen at The Pan African Film Festival at the Austin Film Society
When: Friday, July 31st @ 9:00 PM
Where: AFS Cinema – 6259 Middle Fiskville Rd, Austin, TX, 78752
Tickets: https://www.austinfilm.org/
Watch for giveaways of vinyl copies of Light in the Attic’s Jamaica to Toronto compilation courtesy of Austin’s Light in the Attic Records https://www.austinfilm.org/
Director Graeme Mathieson, producer Andrew Munger and Matt Sullivan, President of Light in the Attic Records will be in the house to introduce the film and for a post screening Q & A.
Austin, Texas – The soulful story of Jamaican Canadian icon Jay Douglas and Toronto’s vibrant R&B scene is coming to Austin. The multi-award-winning documentary Play It Loud! How Toronto Got Soul will be presented on Friday, July 31st, 9PM, at the Pan African Film Festival, presented by the Austin Film Society, at AFS Cinema.
After playing to enthusiastic audiences at festivals and cinemas across Canada, the United States (Detroit, New Orleans) the United Kingdom and the Caribbean (Kingston, Port au Spain), Play it Loud! How Toronto Got Soul is bringing its warm island vibes to one of America’s music capitals. During the late 1960s and early 70s, Toronto’s Jamaican music scene was unrivaled and second only to London, England as an outpost of the island music that Bob Marley, the Skatalites and others were bringing to the world.
Jay Douglas, lead singer of The Cougars and one of the biggest and brightest talents of that time, is the subject of a fantastic new documentary entitled Play It Loud! How Toronto Got Soul, directed by Jamaican Canadian filmmaker Graeme Mathieson, produced by Andrew Munger (Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band, the Emmy winning Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry it On). The executive producer is Clement Virgo (Brother, The Wire, The Get Down). Play it Loud! features music by Bob Marley and the Wailers, James Brown, Jay Douglas, Sly Dunbar, the Staples, DJ Supreme La Rock and many others.
Play It Loud! How Toronto Got Soul traces Douglas’ journey from rural Jamaica, singing in church choirs to bustling Kingston, capital of newly independent Jamaica. Here, the ambitious young singer encounters Bob Marley and auditions for legendary producer Coxone Dodd of Studio One Records before immigrating to Canada where he is reunited with his mother and brother in Canada. A serendipitous series of events finds the 17-year-old recruited as lead singer in Toronto’s hottest Caribbean band, part of a burgeoning Jamaican music community that included some of the biggest stars of Jamaican music, including Jackie Mittoo, Leroy Sibbles, Alton Ellis, and Wayne McGhie.
They were all in-demand performers, alternating between performing in smoky nightclubs (alongside acts like Little Charles, Bo Diddley & James Brown, recording and releasing numerous albums and singles, while maintaining “day jobs”. But Toronto lacked the Black music infrastructure of comparable cities like Detroit, Chicago or New York.
Without industry the records received little airplay and promotion and eventually went out of print and faced into obscurity.
In the early ought’s, West Coast DJ’s, including legendary crate digger Supreme La Rock discovered the records and began sampling them for break beats. La Rock brought the records to Matt Sullivan of Seattle (now Austin) record label Light In The Attic. Sullivan was astonished by the quality of Black music from a city he associated with hockey and classic rock. He released the landmark Jamaica to Toronto compilation, part of a series of 6 full albums from Toronto’s Jamaican musical pioneers, many of whom had long retired from music. Not Douglas. He continued to perform through the ups and down, feast and famine years, at weddings, on cruise ships, nightclubs. He was (and is) the ultimate working musician. But the Jamaica to Toronto record has had a profound effect on his career. Since the record’s release, Douglas has been more in demand than ever, including performances alongside legends like Marcia Griffiths, Luciano, Ziggy Marley and many others. It’s given him the notoriety and recognition he had long deserved.
CBC Radio: “Jay Douglas finally gets his flowers!”
Exclaim: “An entertaining celebration of one of the key architects of the Toronto sound”
JAZZ FM: “Beloved Toronto music legend Jay Douglas is finally getting his flowers! Proud to see his story come to life through this film!”
Reggae North: “A landmark event in Canadian music history!”
Sly Dunbar: “Jay is the Lou Rawls of Jamaican music”
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