Q: I saw the video for it, it's available on the web now, the filmed version of the tune. A: 'OK Fred'? Q: Correct. A: Yeah, but I haven't got no copy, nothing. There's so much work I did in Europe, 'cause when I was workin' with Celluloid they did a lot of good work, I did a lot of radio interviews, TV, and papers, like. Q: The whole promo kit. A: Yah. From Luxemburg, Monte Carlo, south of France, Rome, as far as Rome. I did the national TV in Rome (Italy). Q: It became a big pop hit in Europe anyway, no doubt helped by that campaign. A: Yeah (chuckles). But I never did any live concerts in France. Q: None? Why? A: At the time probably the company that I was workin' with, Celluloid, they wasn't comfortable with that. They were just sellin' records and gettin' me exposed.

Q: But on the same album you did - at the time it must've been a hit somewhat, too, 'Rush Me No Badness'? A: Yeah (laughs)! Those was like a twelve-inch 45, a 12"-inch single. Q: One pressing on D. Brown's DEB label. A: Yes, that a Dennis Brown, he was workin' with Castro Brown. And they had DEB Music so I licensed that song and the other song, 'cause those were two songs that I released before the 'OK Fred'. Those were songs that was recorded before 'OK Fred'. Q: I think it was a deejay featured on that discomix version too? A: Yeah. Q: Forgotten if Dillinger toasted the track. A: No, it wasn't Dillinger. Who was it again...? Ranking Dread!

Errol Dunkley (Photo: David Corio) www.davidcorio.com

Q: Ah. A: (Laughs) Q: Good deejay, when he wasn't into something else. A: (Chuckles) Yeh, Ranking Dread. Q: But Ranking Dread was on the cut of 'Stop Your Gun Shooting' for Tapper Zukie's Stars label as well? A: Yea, quite a few songs during them times. Some of dem I don't even remember (chuckles). Q: That must be one of your best periods, around that album, 'Profile', so the late seventies. A: Yes, '79 and '80, up to '85. And after, I had other hit songs like 'Happiness Forgets', that song come after 'OK Fred' in England, big song. I had another big song called 'Betcha By Golly Wow'. Q: That was a cover of the Stylistics' original. A: Yes, Stylistics song I did over (sings): 'Betcha by golly wow...', and the other one, 'Happiness' (sings): 'Happiness forgets what loneliness remembers...' (chuckles). That was another one too. Those two songs were made in England. Three hit songs I had in England and those three songs that's made there (chuckles).

Q: How about that for irony. A: As I tell you I was afraid of the English riddims, y'know. Q: (Laughs) A: (Laughs) Yeh. Q: But did you see any reward from all this? A: Oh, nothing! Just the average hand-to-mouth. But 'OK Fred', I was benefitting from 'OK Fred', I made some good money from that. 'OK Fred' is still one of my biggest songs until now. Q: This same album, 'Profile', a lot of it was made in Channel One, you went over there a lot for your own productions in those days, didn't you? A favorite studio, like. A: Mmm. Q: It was the best in those times anyhow. Who did you rely on and work closely with, it was Ossie Hibbert, the keyboardist? A: Ossie Hibbert, yea, Bunny Lee. 'Cause Bunny Lee was like the producer, y'know, he was producin' all those songs for those riddims, for Jo Jo, right. Jo Jo of Channel One, that was it. Q: You sort of depended on Ossie for arrangements and stuff? A: Ossie, he knows the business. And he plays the instruments, he plays the keyboard. Q: I believe he was mixing engineer as well, or simply engineered the sessions. A: Yeah, mixing at Channel One. He was like all-around, y'know wha' I mean (chuckles). And he and Sly & Robbie, they were like good friends. 'OK Fred' was done by Robbie Shakespeare and Sly Dunbar.

Errol Dunkley

Q: Moving up to the early eighties now, you cut an album for the Lovella label, 'Militant Man'. A: That was self-produced. The album, I gave the tape, the album, the tracks, to Koos? Q: Lord Koos. A: Yes, and he went to America with it and his father steal the tape, and he pressed the record and put it out. Yeah, that's what they did. And up to this day I haven't received a penny from that album. All the tracks are mine. I produce it, I finance it, I pay my musicians to do my things, and the studio. Q: Reggae: the rip-off game. A: Yeh, that's true, but since that I don't deal with them. Q: That album had great songs like 'You've Been Bad' and a few other good shots. A: (Chuckles) Most... they're all original songs. Q: So you're not in possession of the master anymore? A: No. Q: Let's say you'll find the album again, would you give it a reissue? Copy it, run it through a computer and clean it up nicely. A: If I would put it out again? Q: Right. A: What I'm really interested in, I waan find a distributor. 'Cause at the moment I've got a lot of young artists that I'm workin' on in Jamaica, along with myself. I've got so much music. But I need a good distributor, someone I can trust, and say 'Listen, put these tunes out, let's make something'.

Q: What did you work with during the rest of the 1980's? A: The rest of the 1980's, the remainder of the eighties? Q: Yup. A: I was just makin' songs and not puttin' them out. Because it's like I wasn't seeing what I was workin' on at the time, y'know. So I was like not doing much recording, doing a lot of tours because I was like every year in the late eighties, I was like going to Germany. There was this female discjockey called Sister Ann, she used to keep concerts like every year in Germany, so she would send for me. And people would send for me in Jamaica, I would go to Jamaica and do some shows. I would go to Miami - this is the late eighties comin' in to the nineties, and all through the nineties. Because you see, the thing was, what I realised in the late eighties was that the people dem in the western part of the world was kinda forgetting who was Errol Dunkley. 'Who is Errol Dunkley?', y'know. So I decided that I was gonna have to concentrate more now on America, 'cause England is my place. 'Cause, like, they was sending for me from Jamaica to England for the last three years, for New Year's Eve concerts. First I went with Half Pint and Thriller U, then the next year they bring me back with... let me see... they bring me back with Ken Boothe and Pat Kelly, the three of us is here now. The same three of us was here before last, I mean three years ago in England. Then the next year they bring me back again alongside Sugar Minott and Eric Donaldson. So I was mostly penetrating on that side, on the western side. I realised that all I had was to come back home. I went back home and I did an album for Studio One. Mr Dodd released it before he died. Q: 'Love Is Amazing'. A: Yeh, 'Love Is Amazing'. Q: You used to have a record shop in London. A: That was like in 1985. Q: That was when you worked with the Natty Congo label? A: When I had the 'Happiness Forgets', yeah.

Errol Dunkley

Q: Did you record a lot there? A: That was just a one-off thing. A producer hear the song and like it. He was my friend, like. Q: Trevor Bow. A: Trevor Bow, from the Sons of Jah. Q: Right. A: He died now though, you know that? Q: That happened in Jamaica. A: Yeah, yeah. Q: There's a recent album for Tapper Zukie too. A: Tapper Zukie and I own that album, it's called 'Selective Songs'. They're all cover songs. It's a good album but Mr Palmer ain't doing any work with it.

Tapper Zukie (Photo: Teacher)

Q: There's usually a serious lack of promotion behind those albums. A: That's right. He just put it out, if it sells it sells. If anybody come near and see it they'll buy it, if they don't see it they don't know 'bout it. That's foolishness, man. Q: They're supposed to do their part in promoting it properly, setting up interviews, spreading the message and so on, to make sure it receives the exposure. A: Yeah. Record companies supposed to guarantee you that, guarantee the artists that. Q: But apart from Celluloid, have you ever experienced that from anyone else you have worked with, like really getting behind the record? A: No. I've never had (chuckles)... I had a contrac' with a big company, but what I did, I kinda tie up all my business now. You know, I've got all my things covered. I'm getting my publishing, my publishing rights, I'm getting my performance rights. All of my songs now is under one shelter, Sanctuary. 'Cause I license about three albums to Creole Records, and those other songs that other people license to Trojan, like Bunny Lee and Sonia Pottiger, Sanctuary bought the 'rights' to all of that stuff. But what Sanctuary do is like they just put compilation albums and they're all sellin' like five or three hundred thousand, six hundred thousand (chuckles). That's good going, 'cause reggae never used to sell like that. And you see Sanctuary now, they have their co-op, their reggae corner in all the big major shops. Q: So you have a fair deal for their compilation of some of your stuff, the Trojan 'OK Fred' anthology? A: Yeah, I get my royalty statement from Sanctuary. Q: Good to hear. A: Beca' what they used to do, they used to pay like producers, and the producers like what I told you before, they don't pay us. So what I had was to do to go to England. They had about sixty-eight songs of my songs that I self-produced, songs that is part-produced and songs that I did for other producers. So I had was to show them what's mine and what's what. So I showed them to make sure that my royalty doesn't go out to the producers, it comes straight to me. I just tied that up jus' about two years ago, this year make it three years ago. But Sanctuary, they're not payin' you for records that sold before they buy out these companies, like Trojan, they're payin' you from the time they took over.

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Article: Peter I (Please do not reproduce without permission)