[1] Their mother died when Winston was young, and their father, Val Blake, began supplementing his income by selling radios and amplifiers, establishing his Mighty Merritone sound system in 1950.
[3][4][5] Winston Blake said: "We were here before reggae, when R&B records were played alongside calypso, mento and country and western, that's what filled Jamaica's dance floors back then...
"[4] He organised talent competitions, and started producing locally successful records by artists such as Hopeton Lewis, Beres Hammond, the Mighty Diamonds, and Cynthia Schloss, who became his wife.
[4] In 1997 he was awarded the Order of Distinction for his contributions to Jamaica's entertainment industry, and, after his wife's death in 1999, he organised a series of memorial concerts in her honour, featuring some of the island's top musicians.
[1] He suffered a stroke in January 2016 and died in the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston in February, aged 75, as a result of complications from asthma.