Q: It seems to have a much shorter lifetime what is out there on the market nowadays, that's what you're saying, there's no lasting quality about it?

A: Yeah, totally.

Q: You had a nice point in that interview with Mike (Turner, in The Beat, Vol. 23 - No. 1, '04) when you said the sweetness of the music of that era, it helped to reflect the value of life and therefore the honesty and integrity of that music lasts.

A: Totally. And often times there are some things about it, Peter, that people don't want to admit. In the music business a lot of people don't really want to admit the fall or the lower step that reggae music has acquired because of this deejay stuff. A lot of the people who used to play the deejay music, people who couldn't sing, naturally they're broadcasters often times, and they get encouragment to play the music, so they play it. And the guy soon really come up singin' pretty and singin' good and singin' sweet and having good lyrics. You know, push that aside, and now people seem to be... I mean, you imagine that you for twenty-five years you've been feeding children on a particular music, all they gonna grow up knowing is that particular music. So we had to, as it were, re-educate our children if we really want to recapture some of the value of what good messages is in songs. We really have to go back in writing good lyrics and re-educate our children to, y'know, project positive things through the music. There is a lot of beauty out there, there is a lot of young people coming up with excellent talent, beautiful voices - good delivery, y'know, excellent control.

Q: It's so sad they don't get nourished the way they should, and a lot of the deejay music is blocking it as I see it.

A: Yeah, exactly. There's no sweetness to them, so that they can project that sweetness that they have learned from others. Often times the younger artists have to go back listening to the old guys, listening to them there is so much to benefit from, so that they can project themselves in a positive way to build a foundation whereby people start, as it were, going back. That's how you find a lot of Jamaican artists, a lot of them turned (to) singin' gospel.

Q: Todays music - a lot of it at least - is just a skeleton, there's no 'body' to it, no flesh, y'know what I mean, not only with the fact that it's not done by humans in that way, a 'living interaction'.

A: Yeah. It's really like a nation or like a people has lost their way, and when a people has lost their way, losing your way is much easier than regaining your way. You know, it's like you're travelling and you lose direction, and the ones who are following you because you have lost your direction, they lose theirs as well. So the music right now, I really haven't heard anything (coughs) right now to say... you know like you see a young plant shooting up, you have an idea that this plant is going to be like one of those plants that will bloom just like they had bloomed before. That I don't see or I haven't heard or seen coming up that I can say yes, it's really reflecting. From listening to what's coming up, the sense of direction where reggae music is concerned I somehow feel that it has been lost and this really has been contributing. The contributing factor for that has been the derogatory way that often times people talk about drugs and guns and women and all that sort of stuff. That really doesn't add anything to the upliftment of - to my mind - real roots reggae.

Q: Like there's less melodic textures within the music nowadays.

A: Yeah, it has been lost.

Q: No interest to create something above or beyond the grooves and beats, the fully structured music, apart from all the overdone stuff, the remakes. I can appreciate some of the beats, but it's a 'lazy culture' in one way, presently.

A: Yea. It seems now really the focus is more on money, how much I can earn without putting in the time. It's like you want to reap but you don't sow, y'know, there's no foundation! The foundation is like the foundation has been lost, that quite a few people are trying to sort of stay on the path, but man it's like you have to get a singular mind. You have to say OK, this is what I'm going to project, and even though people are not listening to it now but I'm doing it in terms of not just for now but also for the future. And then it would live through time, that when people does have a change of mind and a change of focus, you get back on track. Then the music that you've done, take time with it, write good lyrics, and do what you need to do. In time it will pay off. But you have to have that vision.

Q: If you compare the creative process then and now in Jamaican music, what's the outcome? Apart from the obvious difference in instrumentation and all that? The whole attitude in itself - the music reflects the modern society, so what have we?

A: Yeah it's like, y'know for instance time changes, nothing remain the same. The world that we're living in is always an evolving one. When a society or a people or a country has lost the real essence of living, of being in harmony with one another, that's where you lose your focus. That's where you lose the sweetness or the magic or the togetherness of the humanity in life. So when you lose that, you lose the real sweetness and the real essence of life. You see, if you lose feelings for someone else, then you lose the magic of life. When you lose togetherness with someone else, it's like you're in space, you're really not grounded. So music is reflective of ones period, ones time one living in and one fosters, what's going through one's mind. And if you can find somebody else of like-mind, or of singular mind, or can work in harmony with you, put everything... When I'm going to studio my thing is to put everything aside - leave all of the negative things that you have outside, don't bring it in the studio. If you bring it in we won't work that day. If you have any problems just leave it outside. When we're going to studio we wanna concentrate a hundred per cent on what we're doing, and have everything else shut out - bad music. And to get dedicated people who can and will work with you to divorce themselves of all the other stuff that is around for that period of time, often times it's real hard. But the wheels of life continues to turn.

Q: How did you find the whole scene there at Brentford Road (nowadays renamed 'Studio One Boulevard')?

A: Well, to be honest to Coxson... he knows that you have the ability, he will spend the time to give you whatever, 'cause he used to spend all of the time with me to give me things to do, like give me songs to listen to. And also if I learned a song he said 'OK, let me hear it'. And if I'm recording for instance doing the music, doing the background music, I would do the background music and then when I'd start voicing he would tutor me as to how - because I used to be accustomed to singin' like gospel and sing like, y'know, love songs. And when you're singin' gospel and when you're singin' love songs, the different mould that you sing reggae music in. So he used to teach me to sing, or to cut the words, the end of the words, and also to sound apiece. I mean, when I left the training in the Youth Corps, it also helped me and he continued in his seering with me how I should be singin' the song, how I should do it, I should hang on to the end. As reggae music is different, when you're singin' blues you have a lot of time to explore the song, with reggae you have a shorter time to explore the song. You know, so it was different there. But going through audition with Studio One, but I had sung for them first, like in about '68 I think. But when I went there, I did some solo songs. Because the guys who initially should come with me for rehearsal or come with me for audition, they didn't turn up. So when they didn't turn up I didn't sort of did that persuade me, what I had I took the audition. And I think it was Lee Perry who auditioned me and he passed me through, so I got through that day to start recording for Studio One, and that was where I shed the broom. Because to me I said well, if we're going for an audition and I tell them listen, we have to be there at ten o'clock, and they didn't turn up; what's the point in having guys that to me didn't have the dedication to even turn up for audition? I mean, we're turning up for an audition that could mean, y'know, you win or lose. But if you have what it takes you can win. I feel one of the things about life, Peter, is that I feel that the directions that we take in life often times pre-destine that we walk certain roads, and we walk that road either alone or together. But one have to have the strength of character and also the strength of conviction of whatever you wanna do, that whether with someone else or alone you're gonna travel that path, you're gonna travel it.

Q: What was the Blenders feeling afterwards, when they found out you got a record deal and, like, 'OK, so what about us?'

A: (Laughs) Well, I mean, as a matter of fact a friend of mine went to Canada recently, and actually got me one of the guys who used to sing bass. He gave me his number to give me, and I have this number. As a matter of fact I need to call him, so...

Q: Right, you will find out (laughs)!

A: (Laughs) But I hear rumours and thing that 'you let them go', but I mean it wasn't my fault!

Q: No, no - they had themselves to blame.

A: Yes (chuckles). So if you don't have anybody but yourself to blame it's like trying to hang something on you but it's not going to fit! I mean, to me, I was so embused (?) with saying that if whether I was hungry or whatever, to me my first commitment was to my singin'. And to me for instance, if we're going to rehearsal and they start getting popular and they see a girl and, y'know, the girl show fancy to them, they forget the rehearsal. To me...

Q: Hasn't this been witnessed from time; it's dangerous to have the other sex around when you're doing music, right (chuckles)?

A: (Laughs) Yeah, but to me you have to have a certain commitment with yourself.

Q: Exactly.

A: You know, you have to be committed to something that you are a hundred per cent committed to what you're doing, that during that period of time that you're going to work, nothing will dissuade you. And to me they didnīt have the commitment I was looking for. So I heard afterwards that - years afterwards - I heard there was a little grumbling that I sort of bailed out and leave them, but they couldn't blame me, they have to blame themselves (chuckles). This week won't pass really without making that call (laughs)!

Q: (Laughs) Yeah.

A: But you know I had not seen - that same guy had recommended to some people to have me over in Canada to sing, and he hadn't seen me for over twenty-five years, and the people he had recommended me to he said to them whichever artists I recommend to you, that particular person said that I hadn't seen him for twenty-five years and I know that that type of person is a person you could invite to your home and you'd be safe that he's a family member. I mean, for twenty-five years I hadn't seen these guys and they have not lost respect for me. Not that I'm the type of person that I belittle myself in any way, shape or form, meaning that there is a certain way that I live and I maintain that.

Q: Well, I suspect they somehow realised afterwards that they weren't as committed as they first thought, otherwise they would've been around for longer, right? I guess they didn't record more than the odd Coxson track?

A: No, no. I mean, there's some people that from beginning they might not be talented enough to be on stage or to do the actual singin' but they might get into production or get into something else that help them to be connected to the music. But I don't know - as a matter of fact I haven't talked to Gil, and he and I have to talk. I haven't talked to them in probably about five or six years or so. So it might be interesting to find out what's happening with them and see what they're doing, if they're doing anything on the music side. Sometimes they do promotion but they're not doing the actual music. But they remember it and they love it and because you love something you might stay close to it.

Q: So they're called Bill and Gil?

A: Yeah, Bill and Gil. They used to call themselves the Blues Blenders, and I was the leader of the group.

Q: So to the recordings over at Studio One, you did something like 'Before and After'?

A: Yeah. Yes, I did a lot of stuff. A lot of Sam Cooke things, like 'To Each His Own', 'When A Boy Fall In Love', I think I did 'Tammy' as well (sings the chorus).

Q: 'Across the Bridge'?

A: Yeah. 'Guilty' (hums the melody). 'Circle Will Be Unbroken', which was a real popular song for me. I did 'Circle Will Be Unbroken' both for him and Dynamic Sounds, in a reggae-gospel. Then I did 'Circle Will Be Unbroken' for Studio One in a gospel mould. A lot of these things was to me - Coxson has some good stuff on tape and I wish I was... I would like to get my hands on. But I suppose he's sitting on them and warming them up (chuckles).

Q: Ahh, yeah. But of course there's other tracks for him in the same vein, like 'Amazing Grace', 'Nobody Knows'?

A: Oh yeah. Yeah, 'Peace In the Valley', 'Just So Close To War' (?).

Q: Coxson did put out an album on his Tabernacle imprint, the gospel subsidiary to Studio One - 'Keep Your Eyes On Jesus'. That's your first and only album for Studio One?

A: Yeah, 'Keep Your Eyes On Jesus'.

Q: And those recordings was supposedly done over a longer period, like a two year period? I don't know for how long you stayed at Studio One?

A: Well, I stayed at Studio One probably about two years plus I had signed a year contract with him, it might've been a two year contract with him, and then after - the two year contract was that fruit for me, and I left Studio One and went and did some tracks for Bunny Lee. When I talked with Bunny, Bunny was telling me that one day he went to Downbeat record shop and he was introduced to the tracks that I had done. And then the wife listened to it and said 'Oh, Ken Parker he should be singin' gospel'. And it was after that that I went back to Studio One and did 'My Whole World Is Falling Down' and 'Chokin' Kind', which was a hit. And then afterwards he wanted me to sign a contract with him, but I didn't go back. Because, I mean, I heard after that a company had made him a big offer but they needed my signature, he needed that on paper to give him the fuss he wanted. So I wouldn't sign. Because to me the treatment that... one of the things about it, Peter, is that really the treatment that producers that I know from Jamaica, if they paid other guys, good luck to them. But my experience of them is that they're OK to talk with, y'know you run a joke and thing, but where money is concerned it's a different ballgame. So it's not an encouraging adventure - my experience of it. I'm encouraged in other ways that, y'know, the songs that I have done has stand the test of time and people recognise me and appreciate it and also love the songs that I have done. You know, I get back satisfaction from that side. But where money is concerned as to payment for things that I have done, people selling my records right now and over the years I don't get any money out of this. I mean, I'm not sort of holding my breath, y'know what I mean, say OK, I'm holding my breath until the money comes...

Q: I would strongly advise you not to (chuckles).

A: (Laughs) That's the only advise I would have to take! So I'm not sort of sitting around and looking for... it's like you gonna sit around and wait for the stars to fall (laughs)!

Q: Exactly, talk about waiting in vain.

A: (Chuckles) But I'm not bitter about it either. Often times when I deal with these people and see the years pass and they look no better (laughs)! Not how they used to look. It just sort of show me that really to me dishonesty is no blessing that will come to you. My belief is that all blessing comes from God, and for that reason I try to do good to others. And I try to sow seeds because I believe that life - we must sow seeds in life, and the seeds we sow is our kindness to others; those who are in need, or helping our brother or sister if they need our help, thinking of others as you would have them think of you and do unto others as you would have them do to you. There is different things in life that I believe help to enrich our lives, and whatever you do, check it like you're proud of what you're doing, that it's contributing to the well-being of others. And that's how I pattern my life and I'm very pleased with the way that God provides for us and look after me and keep me alive and keep me well, and help me to be of help to others. I'm more pleased and satisfied with that, than in thinkin' about who gone with what and who is sellin' what and (laughs)... You know, I look on some of them and, y'know, you're sorry for them. The way they look and they earned all this money and they look no better. And one of the things about it as well is that they can't take back a dime with them when they pass, and it might not be of help to those that they leave behind. It might be more destruction than help to them.