John (Reginald) Stratton was born on August 1, 1931 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and died January 2, 2001 in Toronto. He was a baritone singer, record historian and producer, and philosophy professor at the Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto (1971-1991).
Stratton attended Upper Canada College, a private boys' school in Toronto, before attending Trinity College, where he obtained his Bachelor of Arts (BA) in 1954, followed by his Master of Arts (MA) in 1958, and PhD in Philosophy in 1969. He studied voice with Gina Cigna and Aksel Schiøtz at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and Florence Easton and Herbert Janssen in New York.
He wrote articles for the Record Collector, the Journal of the British Institute of Recorded Sound, Opera Quarterly, the Association of Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) journal, and gave several lectures on early recording practices and vocal styles. In 1986, he received a Grammy nomination for his work on the liner notes that accompanied the Mapleson Cylinder Project collection, published by the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives, Lincoln Centre.
Stratton collected records from the 1940s until his death, with a focus on solo vocal and opera recordings. In 1966, he founded his own record label Cantilena, distributed by Rococo Records.