Jama was a UK-based reggae record label.
De Koningh and Griffiths in their book Tighten Up ; The History of Reggae in the UK quote singer Pat Rhoden as saying that the label was begun by himself, Tito Simon and Earl Martin, the reason being that the two labels he had previously been working with, Pama and Trojan, were not recording new material at that time.
It`s said that Jama was short for Jamaica. I have always wondered if the idea was to create something that could easily be mistaken for the output of the longer-established Pama, but that`s just speculation on my part.
Jama was active in the `70s and early `80s. The parent company was Jama Music and there were two or three subsidiaries, Eagle, Love and (I think) Wolf.
I have read that Earl Martin dropped out of the company later, to be replaced by Les Foster. However, that`s just from memory and I`ve not been able to check that*.
The top disc is one of Pat Rhoden`s own singles, Sweet Sunshine, which has the design and credits printed directly on to the disc.
The middle disc is Bill Gentles` I Saw You with a green paper label.
The last disc is another Pat Rhoden disc, Things Are Getting Better, a Jamaican issue with a paper label. As far as I know it was unusual for Jama to release discs outside the UK.
* Pat Rhoden and Les Foster, together with Denzil Dennis, also ran another label, Earth International.
