DESCRIPTION:
Tabernacle Records was an early Coxsone Dodd record label, along with World Disc and Port O Jam, all being used to release music several years before the more well-known Studio One and Coxsone record labels.

The latter record labels burst onto the Jamaican, U.S and British consciousness after Coxsone Dodd had purchased an old building at Brentford Road in Kingston (a building that previously was a club called 'The End') to house his new recording studio.

Coxsone Dodd would then be in a position to compete sonically with his father's old friend, the ex-policeman, Duke Reid, who had been recording some of the best-known artists of the day above his parents store in Bond Street, Kingston and releasing them on his Trojan, Dutchess and Treasure Isle Record labels.

Tabernacle Records, as the moniker would suggest, was purely for Revival Zion and Pocomania recordings.

This record uploaded is a wonderful record (whether you are a believer or not). Stuffed full of feeling (again whether you are a believer or not) to a high tempo mento beat.

I know nothing of The Marvetts, the vocal group, I would think that perhaps Jah Jerry was involved in some way with the sharp guitar style, perhaps other members of the Skatalites were involved?

Sonia became involved in music after her marriage to Lyndon Pottinger, the entrepreneur who produced mento and ska hits for the likes of Lord Tanamo, Winston Samuels and Jimmy James.

In 1964, Lyndon stopped producing and sold his studio equipment to Reid, but retained Disc Pressers Limited, his pressing plant, as well as the Tip Top record store, based along Orange Street in Kingston.

The following year, Sonia Pottinger decided to have a go at production, and scored a huge hit with her first attempt, the sentimental, soulful ballad ‘Every Night’ by Joe White & Chuck Josephs, backed by the Baba Brooks Band.

Throughout the second half of the Sixties, Pottinger oversaw the recording of such rocksteady hits as ‘It’s Hard to Confess’ by The Gaylads, ‘Swing and Dine’ by The Melodians, ‘That’s Life’ by Winston Delano Stewart, ‘Won’t You Come Home’ by The Conquerors, ‘The Whip’ by The Ethiopians and ‘Guns Fever’ by The Valentines, often backed by the guitarist Lynn Taitt, and released on her labels Gay Feet, Tip Top, Rainbow and High Note.

One of the rarest record labels that she was involved with, was Glory, a record label purely for religious recordings.

Being a devout Christian, she would relish these sessions, and one of the main artists was Otis Wright, who was from Merrywood district in St Elizabeth, and was known for gospel classics such as ‘Man From Galilee’, ‘Some Day’, ‘It Soon Be Done’ and ‘Stand By Me’. Otis moved to Kingston in the late 1950s and first recorded as a secular artiste. One of his songs, ‘Crackers Rush’, was produced by Bobby Aitken.

The Don Sam Group, I know nothing about.

Some history about the Revival movement in Jamaica below.

Revivalism began in Jamaica between 1860 and 1861 as a part of a religious movement called the Great Revival. It is a combination of elements from African pagan beliefs and Christianity and has several forms, the two major forms being Revival Zion and Pocomania. The Revival ritual involves singing, drumming, dancing, hand-clapping, foot-stomping (the "trampling" of evil spirits) and groaning (hyperventilation) along with the use of prayers to invite possession. It also includes music and songs from orthodox religion.

This unprecedented evangelical awakening began among the Moravians in St. Elizabeth Parish, in the southwest. It soon spread like wild fire, first to the three parishes of St. James, Hanover, and Westmoreland, causing a sensation in local congregations, regardless of denomination. Eastwards the movement quickened Mandeville and spread along the coast to villages and hamlets, eventually affecting the entire island - from Montego Bay to St. Thomas, from St. Ann’s Bay to Savanna-la-Mar.

Great crowds were awe-struck. Conversions of the most depraved characters was followed by their untiring ministry on behalf of others. New converts by hundreds went from house to house all day and often at night, entreating sinners to repent. Private homes became holy meeting places for public prayer and Bible reading, with fifty or a hundred crammed together in each place. Sales of Scriptures from the Kingston depot had averaged 4,700 a year but 20,700 copies were issued during the extraordinary awakening of the years 1860 and 1861.

Convicted sinners were sometimes smitten ‘deaf and dumb’ or gnashed their teeth, or screamed, or tore their clothes. Some were unconscious for a day or more, others speechless for a week or so. It was not “the fear of hell, but a sense of sin” which brought about distress, they said. Often people told of seeing special visions. ‘Unaccountable’ prostrations were sometimes followed by terrific bodily contortions or by jumping, by shouting, and by wild actions.