Q: How was the reception among the audience in England when you came up?

A: In the sixties? Wild! Wild, too wild! It was so wild. Not up to... up to a couple of days ago I keep saying it on the tour over and over, there's no excitement in the music now. In those days, man, they used to have to hide us from people. When I'm doing my last number, my agent always be at the door with my clothing over his shoulder. And when I left the stage he would throw a coat over me, and straight to the car and off we go. You know, he used to be...

Q: (Laughter)

A: If the car ever be there we have to lock up in there because is people around it, y'know. It was wild, man, it was too wild in those days. One night I see Desmond Dekker end up in a hospital, yunno.

Q: Yeah?

A: Yesss! Girls was getting at his scarf, one hold one end and one hold the other end, and was stroking him to death (laughs)!

Q: Crazy.

A: (Laughs) Yeah! I tell you, man, they were crazy in those days. Very, very crazy. I tell you, we used to have to hide from them, y'know.

Q: So they booked these tours for black clubs, the West Indian community, or for white audiences at colleges? I suppose it was both, but catered mainly to the Jamaican crowd.

A: Yeah man, white and black, yes. We play at lotta universities too. But the thing about it, you used to have to open up at a place called the Ram Jam in Brixton, and if you don't make it at Ram Jam, you won't be touring (chuckles). So you have to make the Ram Jam, and that's where we always open.

Q: So that's the key place in those days.

A: Yes. And you have another place called the West Indian Club, that was a late night show you had at two o' clock. We used to do two, three shows per night, yunno.

Q: Right, it was divided to several sets a night.

A: Yeah man, two to three shows per night. Now and again it's three, but regular two.

Q: How long was the set, usually? Circa forty-five minutes to an hour?

A: No man, hear how we show used to line up now: Everywhere we work this tour was, the tour was to an hour an a half. But we used to have an whole show, because we was to sing a part of the first segment, then we would dance. Because we have a way - we have some dancin' me and my partner, then we would dance. Then everyone would leave the stage and leave I alone where I have some comedian play weh I give some little jokes, y'know. And after that then we come up again with another segment of I and my partner singin'. That's the way we used to line up the show, you come and you see an whole show; you see singin', dancin', comedian, and singin' again. That's the way we used to do it.

Q: Sounds more like a variety type of thing.

A: Yes, it is. Yeah, yeah. When you come to see it, what you're hooked on in those days, you are seeing a complete show, not just straight singin'. We have a spot that we dance, beca' we used to be good dancers, yunno. Very good dancers. And after we dance I would still be on the stage and I would give some little jokes, a comedian, like. And after that we take a break, and then we come back now and close it up with both of us singin' again.

Q: Were you aware of the skinhead following in England at this time?

A: Weh yu call the 'skinhead'?

Q: So called British skinheads with a love for Jamaican music.

A: Dem days deh you didn't have much Rasta. You didn't have no Rastaman, you hardly see a dreadlocks. You hardly see that, yunno, you hardly see a dreadlock. When I say 'I am an Ethiopian' I sing for nations, I sing for the people.

Q: When did the working relationship with Sir JJ, 'JJ' Johnson, begin? Wasn't it actually before '68, like two years before that?

A: I met Sir JJ before England. I tour England '67, yunno, and I tour '68. But when I went home '67 I told JJ he must come now. I tour '68 and when I went home '68, I told JJ he must go to England to look after some of his business, because the songs them a singin' up there. That is how JJ went to England.

Q: What was your first encounter with JJ? He didn't have any experience in the business before this?

A: Well, no. Well, I just saw him and tellin' to ask him if he wanted some songs from me, and he say yes, he would be interested. Then he look up on me and said he want me to write a song, and the topic of the song must be 'Everything Crash', that's the only thing he said to me. So I left and I went home that evening. And the other day when I went to him and sang it to him, y'know, he is a man give big laugh. He give me his big laugh and say we going do it. And we went into studio an' even when we doing it people was laughing after us what the song we're doing.

Q: How come?

A: I dunno, because look now: 'Wha' gone bad a mornin'...' - nobody talk like that dem time on record, yunno. Everybody's stush and English an' upper grammar, y'know what I mean? They wasn't thinkin' about the way Jamaicans really talk - 'wha' appen', or 'wha' gwaan.' 'Everyt'ing all right.' Yu know wha' I mean? They want us to say 'everything is alright', and I mean, that wasn't really we. You know (chuckles)?

Q: Instead you wanted to put the native way forward.

A: Yes! That was what I was tryin' to push, y'know, the way how we did really did think. And I give thanks to the Almighty for that, beca' it last, yunno, an' it did a lot for me.

Q: Did you find other, contemporary artists questioning what you were doing with the language, the whole culture?

A: At those days? I was underrated, man! I was underrated, beca' we wasn't singin' 'English', yunno. And there's the guys dem, even the Wailers they was doing over Impressions songs an'... y'know what I mean? Blues Busters, these guys was singin' foreign songs doing them over and they rehearsed them and sing them... well, I didn't do that.

Q: What was JJ doing before he met you, what was he involved with?

A: He's a juke-box agent, yunno, and he have a record shop. He has a record shop and he's an agent for juke-boxes. He used to have a lotta juke-boxes, you could buy juke-box from him.

Q: Most of the so-called 'producers' only financed the sessions back in those days - and up to now, never actually participating in the arrangements, the musical aspect of the production. How was JJ in this regard?

A: He was one like that, yunno. He was one like that. He send me to the studio, and sometime we finished and waiting on him, sometime he come and catch it. Sometime he would come to the studio from the beginning. If he hear something that he like and have an idea, he'd put it there. But he always allow me to be creative and he can only join in and try to make me, what I have, presentable, y'know.

Q: So you took care of most of the JJ productions, you got the space you needed.

A: Yes man, one of my best producer. Free hands, that is why I get so much hit songs. Ca' the majority of these songs - all the songs that I did for JJ - ninety-five/ninety-six per cent, is I who arrange these songs. The horns - my mouth would play them first, the bass pattern, my mouth play it first, y'know.

Q: What was JJ like, personally, on a private level?

A: Very... listen now, very quiet, humble man, nice man, a man to his word. At those days a producer would want you to sign with him, and he look on me and him said, "Bwoy, me nah sign no contract, yunno, we nah have to sign any contract. We a two big man, all we have to do is live up to we words". He was like that. That's my best producer, man. JJ, he's the best man I ever believed in. If you come for your money on the tenth of the month, remember, he won't forget the tenth when you get there, it is there and you're not waiting long. Ca' he have it like the day before, waiting on you, y'know. He was a different man. And that's why I say he got so much hits. If you notice my catalog, the majority of the hits is for JJ. And what is not for JJ is for me. I am the one who produce those, y'know. Coxson have a couple in it, but that was as far as the production concern goes.

Q: So JJ negotiated and secured the deal with Lee Gophtal at Trojan for the debut album, when he went up to the UK in '68, and this was released the year after.

A: That is the time when I told JJ to went to England, and he did a deal with Trojan.

Q: Then they had the 'Reggae Power' album out.

A: Yes. OK, that's my first album. With a girl on the cover, that's one of the first. It was an English girl, yunno.

Q: And those three pictured on the back of the cover, that's Charlie still in the group?

A: No, that's not Charlie, that's Melvin. That's 'Mello', he came in the group 1968, the same time that I met Sir JJ.

Q: Melvin...?

A: Melvin Reid.

Q: Did he join you after being in a different group?

A: No. He was just one that go and come, go and come. The guy had never toured with us, yunno, he never been around. He come and he will sing, he sing three-four songs with us, and we don't see him for a while. Then we see him again another time. He wasn't like a permanent one.

Q: So what became of the group when Ethiopians entered the early seventies, the situation changed pretty much.

A: The situation change, and we were going through slow time. And there now Stephen went on... was buyin' gas at the gas-station, an' sell the gas after the gas-station closed in the night. And that's how he got died.

Q: What really happened there?

A: He got killed. It was a transportation that knock him down, killed him on the spot.

Q: That was in 1975.

A: Right. You have the dates, you got everything right, eh (laughs)?

Q: Right (chuckles). Tell me more personal details about Stephen, because not much more is known about him, other than being 'the other half' of the Ethiopians.

A: It was a great guy, man. Great guy. He's a guy like this: he may take a lickle time to make what he's doing, but when he do and hold on to it and he shut his eyes - whenever time I see Stephen shut his eye, remember I'm relaxed, beca' he got it (laughs)! Yeah man, it was a great guy, great guy to have around me. And then, you know, every short man can dance good, you know what I mean? And he was very good with him legs too, y'know. So that's why we used to dance so much on stage. But he was a good guy, miss him a lot.

Q: Oh boy, how did you react when you heard the news what he...?

A: Well, how I react... what got to me, for over two years I was sick, I was sufferin' from shock. I would be talkin' to you and every ten and a half seconds I would make a deep breath, and hhhhhh... you know what I mean? And that was happening to me for a while, so I leave Kingston and go to the country. And after still going back to Kingston for medication and until I was kinda relaxed, and started to breath normal again.

Q: Did Stephen leave a family at that point?

A: Yeah, he had his family but he only had one son, he only got one son. And now, I've been searching for that son over a couple years now and I cannot find him. Beca' what I want to do - and this is a t'ing I've been trying to say in this interview, yunno, I want to sign some of the songs to him. Beca' although it is I who write my songs, I write all the songs the Ethiopians ever did - I'm the writer, arranger, composer for these songs, and there are some, like 'Skaville', 'One Heart' - we didn't write those songs, I only have the horn section, y'know, when we're going to the studio and we just jam to what's happening. So each man put in what he had. And when I got my royalties, Stephen, I always give him some money. And ever split it even, because... y'know wha' I mean? But he always got some money. So right now I'm feeling so guilty not having his only son around to collect somet'ing, beca' I wish I could find that boy. I would sign some of the songs to him that me go on collect for life, y'know, but I can't find him. I've said this a lot of time and I just can't find him, I wish I could find him.

Q: Could be living in the States, or Canada perhaps.

A: I know that his name is Anthony Taylor. In your writing, when going up to your website, you can do this for me, you can put it on that I wish to find my partner's only son, which is Anthony Taylor, y'know.

Q: Of course I will.

A: Yeah man, I need to get in touch with him. Because his father did a lot of work with me and I think he should eat, his children should eat, you understan'?