Vere Johns

Joseph Vere Everette Johns (28 November 1893 – 10 September 1966) was a Jamaican journalist, impresario, radio personality, and actor, 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 in World War I before finding success as a newspaper columnist in the United States in the 1920s. 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. His talent contests began as theatre shows held in downtown Kingston venues such as The Majestic, Palace and Ambassador theatres, with the winners judged by audience reaction, and going on to appear on his radio shows. Lloyd Bradley, 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 also worked as an actor, performing in Shakespeare plays and solo recitations, and taught acting. Victory Medal In 2012, former Minister of Culture Olivia Grange called for Johns to receive a posthumous honour in recognition of his contribution to Jamaican popular music.