Q: I think Lloyd the Matador was your first experience recording down there, wasn't he? A: It could be. Lloyd the Matador, could be. You know, it is so long ago I can't remember who the first ones were. But I remember I tried to develop a different style. You know, they wanted something a bit more than Federal had at that time. I revamped the mixer, added more inputs, I built an echo chamber. I tried to bring a little bit of shall we say - terrible phrase - 'state of the art', if you will, to the recording industry down there. And by this time Ken had also realised that time is always a factor in this business of music, and you had to have... there's a time concept. In those times - of course, there was a time when they cut it on a wax. They put it down on tape, basically. Stanley Motta of course would cut it on a acetate and he'd send the acetate away, usually to England and get it processed. But Ken actually put in an old Neumann AM131 fixed-pitch lathe, stamper plant, y'know, plating tank, so he could actually cut the records and manufacture them locally. Of course, he was the only one doing it, people would go there because time was the essence, and it was a lot cheaper of course. And if you got a demand on a record you didn't have to wait a terrible amount of time, x amount of weeks or months to get more product from out of England or America. So first the sound systems went - I've told this story several times: I could not understand why these people wanted the sound, so one night I took my wife out - by that time I was married to a Jamaican girl, a lovely girl, she's still there looking at me now as we speak - after forty-five years! But I said I had to go out and listen to these sound systems, what were they trying to achieve? And so I went out this night, I went with my wife and listened to the sound system on the spot. Then I realised, quite frankly, anybody can put something down on tape, you don't have to be (chuckles) a genius to put something on tape - it's how you reproduce it later on. You know, what is the process between the musicians and the studio, standing in front of microphones, putting it down on tape - that is the easy part. What you do from that process on to the people asking you to reproduce something, and that's when I realised these boys wanted the bass! They wanted the bass to drive hard, because what it will do is make people dance and what they do when they dance, they got hot and thirsty and bought more liquor.

Q: (Chuckles) A: (Laughs) And that's what it was all about, 'cause all these sound system operators were liquor distributors and they made the money on selling the liquor. Q: Main income, almost. A: Yeah. It was, shall we say, the essential - yeah, they charged admission but they didn't make the money on admission. Later on of course they started making money selling records, but initially it was to make people thirsty and spending more money. And it was amazing to me to hear this sound and of course, everything was in open air. You know, so you had the feeling and the humidity and the density of the air, it had such a tremendous effect on sound. I've had theories going for years and years that you could take a band and put it in ten different parts of the world and you get ten different responses to it because of the atmosphere when you listen, and of psychological reasons too. And all of these sound system dances were out in the open and so what carries in the open air, heavy bottom end (laughs). And these boys were using eighteen-inch Vitavox bass speakers, bass-drivers, and huge tube-amplifiers. It was my job to get them in the studio and translate it from in the studio to what it sounded like out in the open in this dance area, what was the process there, and I had to adjust it accordingly. Q: So you found out from pretty early on that the Jamaican attitude to sound was, basically, 'in the red' so to speak, both sound systemwise and recording as well, to have the bass as deep as possible. A: Yeah. There was an advantage of course, because these people hadn't been influenced by anywhere else. I was the king, y'know. If I told them I want to do it some way, there wasn't (chuckles) anybody there to argue with me! (Laughs) So it was my call, it was my shot. Q: But this was basically 'against' your initial training, on a level where you don't have it 'in the red'. A: Well, you gotta understand that being Australian there's a certain amount of rebellion in me anyway, most Australians are (chuckles) pioneers in the rebellion. When I was in England I was absolutely infuriated by the poor involvement of the recording studios, the poor involvement of broadcasting. You know, white coats and everything like that, that to me was an anathema, didn't make any sense (chuckles). And remember, y'know, I learned very early, early on, VERY early, early on, that you could not stay behind the glass window and put on this pretentious attitude to say 'I'm the recording engineer'. A recording engineer, a good recording engineer, is a part of the musical content, and he's gotta be. And when Tom Dowd years later, later on he told me that - I think I believed it all along - Tom Dowd, who is probably the greatest recording engineer of all time, I think personally, to me the greatness of a recording engineer is his achievement, what he's done, and Tom Dowd was the greatest. And Tom Dowd said that he always considered himself a musician and not an engineer. And you got a studio, you've got microphones, you've got monitors set up, it doesn't take you long - any band that walks in there, it takes you an amount of time to understand what they want, then get the hell out of the control room and go and sit down in the studio with them and become part of them. When you become part of them and not something separate distinct in a way, and that's the way I've always felt. And Federal Records, these boys were doing - everything was head work, y'know, there was no charts or anything, it was all done head. So they rehearsed the song and what did I have to do with it? You know, a fader could maybe be moved a couple of notches, a dB here, a dB there, it's not hard to do (chuckles). But get in the studio and try and find out what they're doing. And I remember several times I had a vocalist, Stranger Cole, Patsy, even Desmond Dekker, y'know, I had to teach them microphone techniques, you can't do that sitting in a control room. You gotta get in there and tell them exactly - one of the things I used to tell them, I remember Patsy, I said: "Well, remember that this thing is a microphone - you got a boyfriend, you got a man? Well, imagine he is in that microphone. You know, imagine him, just ignore the microphone, just imagine that that is your man in that microphone and sing to that man."And this simplistic stuff that they could understand, and that's the difference. And you noticed that in England in pop music, it only changed when the attitude to recording engineers changed. George Martin was the greatest. You never saw George Martin walk around with a white coat and screwdrivers in his pocket (laughs). He was right there, y'know, sitting down with the piano player playing a few chords with him.

Dennis Sindrey (The Caribs)

Dennis Sindrey (The Caribs)

Q: If we go back to what we spoke about in the beginning, Island, how did you first bump into Chris Blackwell, was that at Federal? A: No, no, no. I met him at a wedding reception, there was an Australian band there who you've probably heard of... Q: The Caribs, yes. A: Caribs, and Dennis Sindrey is my brother-in-law, and of course Australians tend to gather together living in a foreign country like that. So they were great friends of mine. Dennis, Lowell Morris, Peter Stoddart, Max Wildman, and myself.

The Caribs

Q: When did The Caribs arrive in Jamaica, was that after you came there? A: That was about 1958, Dennis now lives in Florida and we speak regularly, we're best friends. But they came out there, they were imported by I think it was Abe Issa who brought them in to play at a nightclub, The Glass Bucket in Kingston. Because he wanted to establish a nightclub, so they came out there to play as professional musicians as his band. But of course then Chris Blackwell started recording and everything... well, more than that actually, before this Lowell Morris met a very, very lovely Jamaican lady called Faith Houchen, I'm still in touch with her, she lives in Australia now, a very, very lovely lady and she worked with my wife and my wife's sister at British West Indian Airwaves, BWIA, and Lowell met her, fell in love with her and when they decided to get married, well, we all went to the wedding. But one of Faith's friends, close friends, was Chris Blackwell, and so he was at the wedding. And it's a rather tedious story but he was sort of trying to date the girl I actually married (chuckles), and I didn't like that and I went up to him and was rather drunk, and he says something to me like, "Well, why don't you stop messing around, there's music to be made". And he had this thing - Chris' thing was that his family always tried to get him to earn a 'legal' living (chuckles), a hard working living so to say, justifiable living, and he tried several things. He tried renting scuba gear, he tried renting motor scooters, and then a friend of his, John Elliott, he had the Wurlitzer juke box concession in Jamaica, and so Chris talked him into leasing I think half a dozen juke boxes which he placed around in clubs. Chris was getting upset that he had to import all these records for juke boxes, that was more R&B stuff, y'know, that was in the local bars. And so he decided to make records and he met the Caribs of course and he met me and realised that - as Chris only can realise, he's got a great attitude for that - and he said, "I hear you know something about recording. Stop messing around and make some records". So that is how it all happened, and in fact I was making records in Radio Jamaica studios after hours. Q: How did you find Blackwell? A: Chris is a very charming man. Q: And shrewd. A: Very, very shrewd... oh, and he's from a very, very wealthy family of course. I'm upset in that he later developed this attitude of getting people and discarding them after you've found 'em useful, y'know, the people, and just discarding them. But that developed later on. But in those particular times he was charming, fun, and had a great attitude to life and we were all very, very friendly. But I think later on when his - probably I think his attitude changed with 'My Boy Lollipop'. And I think that all of a sudden he realised he could be the Howard Hughes that he always wanted to be.

Chris Blackwell

Q: (Laughter) A: (Laughs) Q: OK, that was simply the goal (chuckles). A: Yeah. But that's not bad, I think that expressed it pretty well (laughs). And I've always said of Chris Blackwell that he'll be a Howard Hughes, he'll probably make ten fortunes and lose five (chuckles). Q: He always take chances anyway, so... A: He was a better gambler, yeah. Very much like that. Q: That's obviously his strength, what he succeeded with. A: And also he's got a very, very good ear for talent, and a very, very good eye for talent too. Q: Yeah. A: Don't take that away from him, I've always said that. And he could spot them a mile off. He was the one who spotted something in Millie Small that nobody else could see. And in fact, Leslie Kong and I had to get this sixteen-year old over to England, and of course 'My Boy Lollipop' was recorded in the UK, in Pye Studios.

Graeme Goodall

Graeme Goodall

Q: Is that true about the Rod Stewart rumour that refuses to die, that he played harmonica on that session? A: I'm not certain, I wasn't there. Probably Phil Chen who later on played for Rod Stewart. I guess you could find that out from him, I don't know. If Rod Stewart played on it, I guarantee that Chris Blackwell paid him little enough for it (laughs). Q: (Laughs) A: 'Cause he was gathering the musicians at that time. But I'm not certain, I wasn't there and I never really kind of... Chris let them later - 'cause his second attempt was a strange record, you might want to do some research on it, called 'You Don't Have To Be A Baby To Cry' by The Velvettes. There you are, there's a little anecdote for you (laughs). Q: (Chuckles) Right. So back to the fifties again, he started a label called R&B or something like that, didn't he, Chris? A: R&B was one, Island was the host company if you like, that's how he started everything. And R&B Records was the other one, and he was basically putting it in his juke boxes. But then that's how he market - no, he's hitting the middle class people in Jamaica. And this is music that could, with a lot of effort, a lot of push and a lot of force, could be heard on the radio stations eventually, y'know, they started to play it. The first person who started to play records - locally produced records on radio stations - was Duke Reid, he had 'Treasure Isle Time' on Saturday afternoon. And his theme song was 'My Mother's Eyes' which I later on covered in England, I made a record with that song. Q: He bought like half an hour of airtime for this show. A: Half an hour airtime on a Saturday afternoon. Q: And Coxson started his some time after him? A: Yeah, Coxson went on some time after him. He was buying his airplay, which incidentally was copied later on by pirate radio stations in England (laughs). You had to either buy the record or give Radio London... give them the B-side publishing.

Duke Reid (middle) with Fats Domino (lower right).

Q: What was Blackwell's relationship to people like Coxson or Duke in the fifties, early sixties? A: I don't think they took any notice of him frankly, and I don't think he took any notice of them. He was more interested in the Owen Grays, the Laurel Aitkens, I think it was so distinct. I mean, I don't think Chris ever went to sound system dances frankly, he didn't see it that way. Then later on when Jamaican music became established in England he became more, so to say, closely interested in the ska music. Q: The grass roots scene, right. A: Yeah. I think Chris was more interested in promoting the more well-produced type of thing. Q: The polished, uptown stuff. A: Yeah. Q: So who was among the first artists you recorded at this time, was it Laurel Aitken or Owen Gray, those two? A: I think Laurel Aitken was the first and then Keith & Enid. Laurel Aitken, Owen Gray, I think it was Laurel who was the first one in there. Wilfred Edwards... Q: Jackie, yeah. A: Yeah, well he hadn't changed his name then, Chris changed the name to Jackie when he went to England, because it was more of a 'pop' connotation than Wilfred. Q: Where would they be found, at talent contests or something like that? Like 'Opportunity Hour'? A: No... Yeah, Chris would go to Opportunity Hour and places like that, and Chris would bring them inside. And it's self-propagating, because once you got one of them in there and they had themselves a record then the other guys would come along and say 'Hey, I can sing, I can sing!', y'know. And so it became self-propagating, people would find Chris. I mean, he would determine if they are any good or not, and he was very good at it. His Keith & Enid, 'Worried Over You' was absolutely phenomenal in a small market, but I mean the percentage of sales, the interest in sales of a record was incredible.

Owen Gray

Laurel Aitken

Q: So 'Boogie In My Bones' (Laurel Aitken) was basically the first release Blackwell put out? A: I'm afraid I have to say my memory escapes me, it was such a long time ago (chuckles). It's a lot of records which went under the cutting needle. Q: Of course. But this was basically R&B music we're talking, ska was not invented as yet. A: Yeah, exactly. Q: So how do you remember things taking shape musically, from the local R&B to a more distinct Jamaican music, genuinely JA? A lot of people credits the pianist, 'Easy Snappin'' for changing the beat to what it became. A: Oh, Theo Beckford? Q: Yeah. A: He was part of it. If there's one common denominator in the whole thing, not as far as the musical content but as far as the whole process, that was Ken Khouri, Papa Khouri. Because he was the one who had the foresight to develop the industry, y'know, build the studio, build the pressing plant. He was a very successful Lebanese businessman, but I mean he was the lynchpin of the whole thing. As far as changing the music, again I would think that probably... there was one, Smith Hi-Lite, who was very influential. I think there was just a building up. Theo Beckford definitely had a feel to it, Jah Jerry (Haynes) with his Fender, the backbeat off his guitar, I think he was influential. Drumbago (Arkland Parks) on drums with his rimshot. But there again, the rimshots - Duke Reid was the one that pushed me in accenting the rimshots. But again, I don't think there was one common person, it was just a group of them, y'know. Theo Beckford was one, Jah Jerry, Charlie Organaire on harmonica, they all just come together and remember, the musicians played on everybody's session. They were a session group of musicians, even though they didn't know it at the time. I think that, again, not to sell anybody short, Coxson was very, very instrumental, and Duke Reid too. You know, they were competitors, and they all worked for something different. It was for me to try to come to terms with what they wanted from me and how to bring this into practice. And of course, if they wanted something then somebody else would say 'I want the same thing that you got on Duke's thing', y'know. And of course 'Yeah OK, fine!' and let's do something else as well, and so it just sort of grew like that.

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