Q: Moving into the fifties now, did you branch out and play something else beside the swing and jazz repertoires? Was R&B taking hold among musicians and clubs around this time, or this was mainly played on the sound systems, not among the local bands?

A: Yes! American R&B we used to listen to a lot. All we had to play it in the dancehall, that's how come we get converted over to our type of music after a while. Because, is like a cross between R&B, it have a lickle a this and a lickle a that. It have a lickle amount of mento in the rhythm section of it and then we would put on top, somet'ing like an R&B melody or anyt'ing like that. It kinda have a mixture of both.

Q: And some boogie-woogie as well.

A: Yes, it is more like a boogie-woogie what we develop. It's like when anybody ask me I always tell them it's like what you'd call 'amateur boogie-woogie', that's what I tell them. Some people agree with me, some don't. But from my analysis that's what I see it work out to.

Q: Some of the Jamaican jazz musicians left in the fifties for the States to try their luck and someone like Joe Harriott ended up being successful in the UK. Was that something you tried to do, like get overseas? Did you get the opportunity to play overseas in the fifties for example?

A: No, no. I never (chuckles) got those type of overseas t'ings. Really and truly, you have to say it's very late fifties to early sixties, that's when you'd call my musical career start taking shape.

Q: That's when the local recording industry was in it's infant stage, you were there from the beginning.

A: Well, I never really started when the local recordings start, yunno, right away. I went in those batches because when our music started, right, I was playing I think with Tony Brown at the time, a band named Tony Brown Band. I don't remember, but I was playing more with a bigger band. So I was never - I wasn't really into it until after independence, after Jamaica get independence. That time I was with the Mighty Vikings. And that's where I really started, it was Headley who... No, how I started, the Mighty Vikings band was voted as the most popular band for that year, I think around 1963. I had a tune, right, and the manager for the band knew Coxson, and we went and did a recording of my tune, two Joe Higgs tune and one Bob Marley & The Wailers tune - four tunes they did that day. I think all four tunes was successful on the sales-market, yunno.

Q: What was the name of the tune?

A: My tune now (chuckles) did name - it was an instrumental named 'Cyrus', I remember Joe Higgs did one tune, 'There's A Reward (For Me)'. And the Wailers did a tune (laughs) - I don't know its flip, man, it's a simple named tune, yunno (chuckles).

Q: After 'Simmer Down'?

A: It was after 'Simmer Down', I think that was around them third success tune, right.

Q: 'It Hurts To Be Alone', the ballad? I don't really remember the order of those songs to be honest.

A: No, no. 'Hurts To Be Alone', that is a ballad. I'm talkin' a direct t'ing now, I dooon't... remember. But it sold very good. It was - call it around three out of four, and then I was with the band...

Q: Before you go further, how did you join or form the Mighty Vikings band? What was the line-up for that particular band?

A: Well, it was really some Chinese, the guy named Chin-Qee was workin' at the bank at the time, and they had mostly like some school guys, guys weh jus' leave school, yunno, some school guys. I don't remember how I got into them, I think it was a guy named Tony Wilson, he was the contact, 'cause he was the secretary at the union. I think he told me and I went by them, when I went they had the Wong brothers singin', and they had a guy named Esmond Jarrett, he played with Byron Lee after a while. And his younger brother used to be with Third World, that they call 'Carrott'.

Q: Right, the percussionist.

A: Yeah. Well, Esmond, I want to tell you it go farther than that. Esmond father was one of the leading drummers in Jamaica at the time - Don Jarrett, right. Then you find Esmond, then the last one is Carrott (chuckles), what you call Carrott.

Q: That's what you'd call 'the apple don't fall far from the tree', right?

A: Oh yeah! And 'chip don't fall far from the block' (laughs)!

Q: Exactly.

A: Yeah (chuckles). And a guy named Danny Moore, he was playing the vibraphone, or what we call xylophone (coughs). And his father was a third-way bass player also, right, and you had the Wong brothers and you had the Miles brothers, one played trumpet and one play bass. And then this guy named... ahh, who was the bandleader...? Oh gosh, can't remember his name though.

Q: What instrument did he play?

A: Guitar, he was the guitarist. All of them, I was the oldest one at the time, some was still going to school. After I was there for quite a few years, by the time I left I started jumpin' around. I found myself in that time to be playing with Hedley Bennett, we call him 'Deadley' (coughs). He was playing with Coxson, he was also playing with the Mighty Vikings band. He was also playing up at Coxson's, recording. Coxson wanted somebody to write the music, yunno, and Deadley recommended my band. That's how I get to 'get into' the recording business.

Q: What was the competition like at this time, you didn't have many to compete with, but not many outlets either?

A: No, it wasn't really that big, especially if you lookin' somebody to own a band or for arranging and all these things.

Q: As far as playing 'live' on a sound system in those days, was that something you could see even back in the fifties? Was this something that could happen, if you could recall any such things?

A: No. Well, probably that could have been, but I never really play. It was one time when I was with Soul Brothers and Roland (Alphonso) was the leader at that time. We used to play at some lickle clubs, with sound system, yunno. But it was not for me, actually.

Q: Who in your opinion deserves credit for being instrumental in shaping the ska sound, the gradual process by using elements from R&B and mento, who would you choose among those among the 'current elite' at that time?

A: Well, the guy I would honour by name is Theophilius Beckford, yunno. He did this song 'Easy Snappin''.

Q: Right, for Coxson in '58.

A: Yes, for Coxson. I think that's where it start. That's where I come to the conclusion that it was a 'amateur boogie-woogie'. 'Cause the boogie-woogie would go (hums) 'tum tu do tum tu do tum tu do', and that was 'tum-a tum-a tum-a', yu understan' (laughs). So that's how it come I arrive at that conclusion.

Q: That just came about by accident, but what a 'lucky' accident by Snappin' though. His own way and style came through quite clearly on that one, didn't it?

A: His own style, he couldn't double up with it 'tum tu do tum tu do tum tu do', so it's 'tum-a tum-a tum-a tum-a', yu understan'? So, that was the feel.

Q: And the ska sound evolved. Do you think Don Drummond had a lot to do with how it got its 'final' sound?

A: Eh? Yea, the Skatalite ya now, the old Skatalite aggregation I would give that to. They popularised it, the old Skatalite aggregation. I wouldn't give it to no (coughs) one person, I just give it to them, who maintained that.

Q: How much was the audience influencing the demand for local recordings when the industry took off in a big way, you saw it more as a natural 'take-over' from the musicians, not what the audience wanted, like something 'genuinely Jamaican' in the dances.

A: Nooo, no. How that really came about, you have to give Coxson the credit. Yes. Because you see Coxson used to went abroad, was buying records an' t'ing. He was very instrumental in all the recordings. Because, before that we used to - there wasn't recordings done in Jamaica before.

Q: Only the mento recordings.

A: The mento music, right. It was mostly Lord Fly and Lord Flea and all those people. And they would do one like every two years (chuckles) or so - or a year, yunno, they are a lickle thin. And they (coughs) develop their repertoire before long. But the real, regular t'ing that becomes what we have today, you have to honour it to the Skatalites as a band on a whole: Tommy, Don, you had Johnnie Moore, you name them - Lloyd Knibbs, Brevett, the whole a them. The whole a dem play their part, yu understan'.

Q: Apart from the Skatalites, was there any band that Coxson or Duke used in the ska era? I guess Byron Lee and the Dragonaries wasn't a studio band as such at the time?

A: No man, Byron Lee never cope playing our music...

Q: (Chuckles)

A: (Laughs) Byron Lee could never! Always try, but could never, right. What really happened, you have to give it to them, they were the band that were used the most, yunno. And I want to tell you, one of the greater exponents of ska - and I don't think him play with the Skatalite no time at all - was Baba Brooks, the trumpeter. And Rico (Rodriguez), Rico was before (laughs) the Skatalite formed.

Q: But he migrated to England though.

A: Ahh, yu understan'. So those are the fragments, yunno. That's why I tell a man, seh 'Yu cyaan...' - I wouldn't hand it to no personal person, right, I would just hand it to seh 'who did well contribute towards the music'. That's how I feel, contribute towards it (chuckles), 'who did well contribute towards the music'. 'Cause is a lotta people claim this and drop out, is a lotta people come in and drop out after a while.

Q: You had Carl ('Cannonball') Bryan and Stanley Ribbs and these people.

A: Ahh, right.

Q: You never joined the Skatalites for a short period while at Coxson's for instance, you basically recorded with the Mighty Vikings at Studio One?

A: Yeah, I play with the Mighty Vikings and then the Soul Brothers. I play with Soul Brothers, that was after the Skatalite break up, and some went one way and some went the other way. I was playing with the Soul Brothers, because I play on the Roland Alphonso album, the bandleader, and then he left. Those were part of the Skatalite that was up by Coxson, while the next part was at Duke Reid's. That's the Tommy McCook group, he did that side, and Roland Alphonso would be at Coxson's side. Tommy McCook would be the Duke Reid arranger. Well, I went to the Coxson side, that's how you call it now I become a permanent member of the recording group at the time.

Q: So did the Mighty Vikings cut several sides for Coxson, stuff that never saw the light of day, or the band had several releases at the time? I haven't seen much to be honest.

A: No, they never really record, they was just a road band until I left it and some time after they dissolved.

Q: What happened to it, a dispute over money or the usual 'creative' disagreements?

A: I don't know (chuckles), I left it and after a while, a few years after, they dissolved. I think what really happened is that the manager left for a job in America, that's when they start dissolve.

Q: So now you were one in the Coxsone stable. What other producers did you record for at this time? Matador, King Edwards, Harriott?

A: Oh yes, yes. Matador, and I do a lot, quite a good amount of recordings. Even for Duke with Tommy McCook.

Q: With the Supersonics.

A: Just down at Duke, mind you I don't think the name yet mentioned in the country, yunno, but I did a lot of recordings. The last t'ing I remember I did for Duke, right, was 'Never Ending Love' with Sporty, a guy named Sporty.

Q: King Sporty (Noel Williams)?

A: King Sporty, yeah. That was the last tune I did for him. I wasn't pleased, right. There was a raise-up there in how the t'ing - he never want to give it to me, that's why I just never bother with him. And then after that now I try in the Lynn Taitt band. After I left Coxson I joined the Lynn Taitt band - The Jets. Quite a few years with them.