Q: But what about this 'Everything Crash' LP, this is a very consistent album and one that is highly regarded by Ethiopians fans all over. If the Ethiopians name is dropped somewhere, you often hear talk of that record.

A: Yeah. You see, that album now, I just did that song over for Coxson and he called the album 'Everything Crash'.

Q: Most of those tracks was cut in the same session, or this was compiled stretching over a long period of recordings from the seventies up to the early eighties or something like that?

A: Yes, some of them.

Q: So how come you went back to Downbeat again?

A: Well, because I left the music scene for a while and the easiest way to be heard right now is the Studio One label, so I just went back and did that before I did my album. 'Cause whenever time you want to be known, yunno, the Studio One label is a label that really expose you. 'Cause everyone love Studio One and are familiar with Studio One, everyone rates Studio One. So you don't really - Coxson is a man that don't really pay money, yunno. You don't do music for Coxson for money, you do music just for the label's sake, to really expose you. Because Studio One label go wide, y'know.

Q: Is that the same period you cut tracks like 'The Prophet' and the great 'Incessantly', or this was earlier?

A: Yes, those are the period. Early eighties. Yeah. 'Cherry Pie', 'When Will Be The End', all those songs deh, y'know.

Q: But some of them didn't end up on the album though, they're still uncollected as far as I know, which is a shame, a great shame. He should have, but he didn't do it.

A: No, a lot of them don't come on the album. Right now Coxson have a whole heap a song, whole lotta songs. When I was living in New York I can remember I did thirty odd songs for him, and I don't think he released even half of them. But that's a guy who always have a lotta songs of artists that is not released, y'know.

Q: Tell me more of a song like 'Incessantly', that's one of my personal favourites if I should mention that.

A: Well, it's natural truth, 'always I fight to resist poverty', yunno. Sometime how I have to even survive is by really dealing in herb business. You see the ganja? You know, sellin' a lickle collie or some way, yunno, that was definitely true, a crying from the heart, man. 'Incessantly I man fight to resist poverty, mainly sellin' collie to collie, to keep I and I man family from going totally hungry', y'know wha' I mean? And those are natural things, man. Yes man, some have day to day surviving so, how you put it in music.

Q: And 'Prophecy'? That was an album you did for Nighthawk in 1986, with the Gladiators. The 'Dread Prophecy' album.

A: 'Dread Prophecy'? Well, for Nighthawk, yeah. Well, as you hear the words in it: 'One prophet come two prophet come all a dem to the same somet'ing', as was said. In this time - that time is any time, yunno. OK. Is just the natural positive things about what's really happening and what's gonna happen, y'know.

Q: And you did 'The Prophet' for Coxson too around that time.

A: No, is not a matter of prophet. I love prophecy (chuckles), I love history, y'know, and I'm a man who read a lot. And when it come on to everyday happening, prophecy, history - I'm there, y'know wha' I mean? Is all the things that I read upon.

Q: How has the nineties been for you, up to now? It's been the odd album, like 'On The Road Again' that you mentioned.

A: Yes, and this album again, 'Owner Fe De Yard'.

Q: Yes, but that was a Heartbeat compilation, some vintage recordings.

A: Yeah.

Q: Do Heartbeat compensate you in a proper way? They have at least three CD's in your catalog by now.

A: No sir, I get one of the hardest time from these company. You see Heartbeat, Niney, Sonia Pottinger - one of the wicked act. You know, Coxson is one too, but you'll get a lickle, you will get ten percent out of the hundred from Coxson, y'know what I mean? But, you don't get none at all from Niney, none from Sonia Pottinger, you see, is all rip-offs. Well, but you see the nineties right now I won't cry, because what I didn't see in the early, now I see it in the nineties. Beca' in the nineties I started to tour a lot. You know, started to do a lot of touring, not like in the sixties and seventies. Nineties has been a lot of touring. And I did an album there named 'Tuffer Than Stone' - got that one, eh?

Q: No, haven't seen it. For whom did you do that one?

A: That was for Sankofa Music in France. You know, Sankofa Blackstar.

Q: Who did you work with on it?

A: Eh? OK. These musicians was Eruption Crew. Yeah, that was a band that I used to tour with, now we split up since 2001, y'know. But that was a band that I used to tour with on Reggae Bash.

Q: And the latest record out is the 'Mystic Man' title for Coxson?

A: Yeah, that's the latest.

Q: All new recordings for him, or there was some of the uncollected stuff put in as well?

A: Yes, some of them is new, and some of them is some old songs that Coxson had a long while that didn't release.

Q: How do you feel about that, mixing different eras like this? New technology with some of the classic analog recordings, it would sound a bit strange to me at least, and I've only heard the odd track from it so far.

A: Well, you see, I don't see the sound different, yunno, because what I hear today is nothing to compare of what is there, and will be always there. No music that come out today is new. Because, number one: no creativity is there, they're doing everything on the old riddim. These guys did over on my 'Engine 54'. Sizzla take my number one riddim track and make a hit out of it. And so much of them keep using the riddim tracks, yunno, I can't rate dem music deh. Ca' they don't give me no inspiration, dem don't give me no - they don't listen me in a way that I may be creative, y'know. As I said before, man, they are eating out of dirty plates (laughs)!

Q: (Laughter)

A: Beca' we already eat out of them plates, yunno. Don't laugh (chuckles). It's true, isn't it?

Q: Yes.

A: Them must be creative, man. You know? Got to be creative. You know, is like, when I ask some of these producers you see that re-do these songs, I say to them: 'You are the one that is spoiling the music, ca' you don't want to pay musicians, you want to just come into the studio, jam a new t'ing, jam a old t'ing, an' that is it!' They expect to go faaar way with that, but yu cyaan run a way. Beca' we original went half-mile, you're gonna go two chain. You see? You can never go quarter-mile.

Q: With that in hindsight, the music is in a slumber, it's more or less standing still right now as you see it?

A: OK. That is why we, the veterans, have to wake up. And that is why I'm getting to the studio, that's why I'm laying some new riddims, riddim tracks. That's why I'm telling Coxson I'm not singin' on those old riddim tracks no more. He have to lay riddim tracks and, y'know, he allow me now to go in and lay riddim tracks. I only do that for him to know that my intention when I go down now you don't hear anyt'ing yet, when I go down now I'm gonna start work on an album. I have a couple shots already from it, I intend to go down now and complete a CD. This one is Ethiopian's produce again, then you gonna hear the difference now. You know, you gonna hear the difference again. Ca' whenever time I produce my t'ing, they are the ones that always go off.

Q: Who will release it?

A: Which company? Well, I cannot say that company yet, beca' I have to be scoutin' for the best deal. When I say the best deal, the best deal that I know where my royalty is supposed to be paid, will be paid. You know, I'm not even talking about the front money, I'm talking about the deal that secure pay when the time come, y'know.

Q: So that is what's ahead.

A: Yes, that's what I'm meditating on.

Q: Looking back on what you have achieved in the Ethiopians, how would you summarise it all at this point in time?

A: You mean if I like it? What I've been through?

Q: Yes, what do you feel about what you can see in that mirror?

A: Yes, the whole experience - I will do it again (chuckles)! I would do that same cycle again. Nothing to regret, y'know. Although these things in business is unfortunate, but these are all a learning process. I'd go through that same track again.

Q: Life is one long lesson, eh?

A: Blessed. True, true.

If there's one 'Voice of Thunder' already (the late Prince Far I), then we have a contender here in the warm baritone - or should I say' bass' when speaking - in Leonard Dillon, The Ethiopian himself. He is nothing but a monument of how vibrant and dynamic the music was in its foundational stage, and was a true pleasure to watch performing on stage while touring with Max Romeo; travelling with a band consisting of the Bobby Ellis-led brass section, Barnabas on drums, and a harmony section featuring the late Jennifer Lara in the winter and spring of 2004. He totally stole the show that evening in my opinion and 'charmed' the whole venue filled with hip, ragga-fed youngsters, slowly winning them over, one by one. He is the embodiment of what roots music is about, but in the most gentle of 'musical manners'; never too hard or forceful in style to alienate himself from his audience, an audience who knows what to get within the Ethiopians' musical frame of mind. It's simplicity in sound, a country style - 'less is more' so to speak, which makes it so much more effective, and peppered with topical lyrics. He is the quintessential Jamaican folk singer, dressed in a 'popular' musical costume. Coxson passed some months after this interview took place, and the Studio One family has yet to dig deeper into the Dillon catalog. The 'Everything Crash' LP would be a good move to reissue for a start, among many other gems for the label. As discussed within this space, Dillon does not benefit from much of the current output of the vintage material, except keeping his name historically and artistically 'alive' out there, perhaps. Hopefully that situation will be changed for the better, and pretty soon we hope. There are naturally a lot of stuff from such a vast catalog like Dillon's that should see reissue apart from the mentioned Coxson material, like for instance the GG's album 'Open The Gate of Zion' or the Nighthawk-produced combination with the Gladiators, 'Dread Prophecy'.

There are numerous great 45's that has been uncollected over the years that someone (maybe our man himself?), somewhere, should take care of and clean up for the rest of us unlucky enough not to own the original copies, to hear. He produced the Willows harmony trio on his own Opians label back in 1975, what else is there in the can from Dillon's production house? Only he has the answer to this. When historian Steve Barrow set his foot inside the house of Trojan Records in the mid eighties, he compiled probably the most comprehensive and substantial of all the Ethiopians 'anthology albums' out there, no wonder then that the 'Original Reggae Hitsound' LP has remained in print throughout the years. 'Reggae Hit The Town' was another complement (of several including Michael de Koningh's recent addition on Trojan to that one), released in the year 2000. It would surely be of some 'comfort' to know that Leonard Dillon has received some kind of compensation for this work, but it is more unlikely than anything else. More likely is his - and the late Stephen Taylor's - significant place in the history of Jamaican music. Honour and respect goes to the man we know as The Ethiopian.

7" single information courtesy Roots Knotty Roots.