Early 1960’s Toronto was a mostly white, Anglo-centric city. Beneath this veneer of Conservative respectability, an exciting underground music scene emerged, created by a Jamaican diaspora including newcomers like Jackie Mittoo, Wayne McGhie and a teenageJay Douglas. Battling racism and indifference, they made an indelible, but little appreciated mark on Canadian music and culture. Six decades later, Jay Douglas is still carrying the torch for Jamaican music, and enjoying the recognition and respect he has long craved.

Douglas’ life mirrors the emergence of Jamaican popular music, both in its birthplace, and his adopted country. He’s a witness and participant to the birth of ska and reggae, the Jamaican out migration to the UK and Canada, and the flowering of a uniquely Canadian black music culture. Through Jay’s personal story, the film will tell an important and largely unknown tale of cultural transformation. 

Douglas was part of a cohort of Jamaican ex-pats, mainly from the music hotbed of Montego Bay, including Jackie Mittoo, Leroy Sibbles and Jay’s friend Wayne McGhie, who brought Caribbean vibes and rhythm to their new home. Shut out of the Canadian mainstream, they struggled to create a vibrant  musical culture through basement recording studios, independently owned record stores, house parties, and gathering places like Club Jamaica, The West Indian Federation Club and Club Trinidad.

Douglas performs a popular doo wop song, “You’re My Angel”, in a confident baritone voice, exciting the crowd. Word of his talent spreads through the community, and the teenager is recruited into The Cougars, a popular band of Jamaican expats. Soon, The Cougars, with Douglas as their front man, are headlining Le Coq D’Or, Toronto’s premiere nightclub. They’re only the second Canadian band, and first Jamaicans ever to play the storied club. 

Douglas and the Cougars are the hardest working musicians in town, recording records (with musical legend Jackie Richardson on backing vocals), touring across Canada, and headlining shows in their hometown. National TV appearances follow, along with opening slots for popular American acts like Cissy Houston’s Sweet Inspirations, Arthur Conley  and Joe Tex.

But the tiny, myopic Canadian music industry has no room for home grown Black music, especially performed by Jamaican immigrants.  Their records aren’t played on radio nor sold in record stores. The gigs begin to dry up. Bandmates take day jobs. Some return to Jamaica. Not Jay Douglas. He reinvents himself as a solo performer, playing weddings, banquets, hotel lounges, and hits the cruise ship circuit, performing for well-fed tourists on board and in exotic locales like Singapore and Hong Kong. No matter how large or small the audience, Jay never loses his love of performing. It’s what he was born to do. 

In the early 2000s, American hip hop DJ’s and producers began sampling and remixing “rare grooves” from long forgotten records by Toronto’s Jamaican musicians.  Everton Pablo Paul’s drumming on Wayne McGhhie’s “Dirty Funk”, is sampled by top producers like Q-Tip and DJ Supreme La Rock.  Vancouver musicologist and crate digger Kevin “Sipreano” Howes is intrigued, and discovers a rich trove of Toronto’s lost Jamaican music. He teams up Matt Sullivan, of Seattle record label, Light in the Attic, which specializes in rare re-issued records. 

Sullivan loves the obscure, funky music. After a year-long paper chase, by fortune he tracks down Jay Douglas, who reconnects with his old friend, the now reclusive Wayne McGhie. Sullivan re-releases McGhie’s long lost record Sounds of Joy, featuring the hit, “Dirty Funk”, to rapturous acclaim. But McGhie has been struggling with mental health issues and isn’t able to enjoy his music’s newfound popularity. 

The success of Sounds of Joy compelled  Sullivan to dig deeper into this Jamaican musical treasure chest, resulting in the release of Jamaica to Toronto, a compilation featuring Douglas and his band The Cougars. Jamaica to Toronto is a critical success and breathes new life into the careers of Douglas and his contemporaries. Five more full length reissued albums recorded by Jamaican Canadian artists follow. Douglas is the unofficial Jamaica to Toronto ambassador and introduces  the music to new and receptive audiences across the country. Overnight he goes from playing weddings and banquets to packed concert halls and festivals. Following more then four decades in music, Douglas is an “overnight sensation”. Douglas never stopped making music; it just took the world a while to take notice. 

Today, after more than 60 years in show business,  Jay Douglas is one of the most respected, loved, honoured and busiest performers in Canada, and is the unofficial “godfather” of Jamaican-Canadian music. He’s a multiple Juno award nominee, and the living embodiment of a musical and cultural movement,  recording and headlining shows with his band, The Jay Douglas’ All Stars, along with young artists like Dubmatix and Michee Mee, forging a link between the past and present. Pioneers like Douglas blazed a trail and made possible the success of today’s Canadian black music stars. Drake, The Weeknd, Daniel Caesar, Jesse Reyez & Alessia Cara stand on the shoulders of these artists.

Play it Loud! features appearances by legendary producer Sly Dunbar (of Sly & Robbie fame) rapper Cadence Weapon (Rollie Pemberton), singer Jackie Richardson, Everton “Pablo Paul”, reggae stars Adrian Miller and Carlene Davis, former Much Music host Michael Williams, and many others.