A walk through time: New tour spotlights Little Jamaica’s music history

'There's a lot of oral history here, not enough written history,' Phil Vassell said. 'We would like to research and document and preserve this.'

Lately, Phil Vassell has been spending his days giving music history walking tours of Toronto’s Little Jamaica.

Global News joined the executive director of the Canadian Black Music Archives for an exclusive walking tour down Eglinton West one hot afternoon, in the heart of the ethnic enclave.

“First stop on this tour is Wisdom’s Barbershop,” Vassell said, gesturing to the sign above the barbershop, which he says the late Jimmy Wisdom owned and ran in the community for over 41 years.

“He was a member of a (singing) duo called Bob and Wisdom,” Vassell said. “He migrated from Montego Bay to this part of town…. Singing became a side hustle, if you will, and in the basement of his store was a rehearsal space.”

In the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, coinciding with a wave of pioneering Jamaicans migrating to Canada, Vassell said it wasn’t uncommon to see some of the biggest names in reggae music, like Jackie Mittoo, Leroy Sibbles and even Bob Marley, meandering through Little Jamaica, rehearsing and recording in the basements of stores.

“There’s a lot of oral history here, not enough written history,” Vassell said. “We would like to research and document and preserve this so that generations of the future can have something to look forward to.”

Preservation, Vassell says, is key. He notes that years of LRT construction, gentrification and neglect have nearly wiped this community off the map.

It’s been a tough thing to witness for Jay Douglas, who witnessed and benefited from Little Jamaica in its glory days. In the ’60s, Douglas fronted The Cougars, a popular group in the Caribbean nightclub scene in Toronto and Montreal that played a mix of everything from ska and reggae to blues and funk.