Article : Kiddus I

Q: What led up to recording at Perry's Black Ark studio, how did that come about, that you chose Scratch?

A: Scratch Perry, I knew Scratch Perry for a while and I went there and I recorded some of my songs, it might have been between '75 and '76. And then in '78 after the Peace Treaty I went there and I recorded this track called 'Security', which was then released in '78, pertaining to the warring factors laying down the arms and coming together and create a peaceful sorta vibe going among people in the different communities at the time. We thought it was significant and important at the time, so I go out and did that track, 'Security'. Yeah.

Q: What about 'Too Fat'?

A: Well, 'Too Fat' might've been recorded a little bit before 'Security' but it was put on the track.

Q: That was pressed on a 12" at the time.

A: Yeah, that is what we call it, a 'disco 45'.

Q: And you formed your own Shepherd label to release it on, you really wanted to stay independent even though it takes a lot more to struggle with it, in terms of distribution, getting it played out and so on.

A: Yeah, well, we wasn't too interested in dealing with much of the producers who were taking advantage of artists, y'know, misusing and abusing and lying and everything. So we just said it would be better if we dealt with ourselves without having to be any animosity or any arguments with any Tom, Dick or Harry. So let us do the music ourselves, press it ourselves, market and promote it ourselves, and find people like ourselves who we can work with. Instead of some of the artists who were already in the business running to the people an' t'ing, taking advantage of the artists and various musicians.

Kiddus I

Q: 'Security In the Streets' now, did it take off at all, did it get any substantial amount of airplay?

A: It got a lot of airplay. I mean, that was played for maybe three years straight on one station, because one person used it as a sort of jingle. A lot of people use it, even the Minister of Security started using it as his theme for certain things, because of what identified with that peace that we were hoping for that would've remained in the streets of... you know? So it got a lot of play, it got dancehall play, radio it got quite a bit of play on that. It is possibly the most well-known of my songs too in Jamaica.

Q: It was a pretty limited pressing though?

A: I might have pressed about two thousand copies of it.

Q: And sold out quickly.

A: Well, all of the copies were sold and then... what you call it... Tuff Gong distribute it, I don't know if they did any more pressing on it in that period of time. They had gotten the distribution of the song, I think about 1980 I give them the song to distribute.

Q: A pity you didn't do any more pressing on it so it could've reached a wider audience, circulation, nowadays that record asks for a lot of money, it is pretty rare to say the least.

A: I know. Well, I have restarted the Shepherd label, and a number of these things will come back out on the old label.

Q: Good. I was gonna ask you about some of the other mythical tracks you did in that mid seventies period, such as 'Runaround Girl'.

A: Yeah, 'Runaround Girl'...? How did you hear about that?

Q: I think you told Simon Buckland about this years ago.

A: OK. Yeah, I did that track. Officially first at Scratch in '76 with Junior Marvin, not the singer but Junior Marvin from the Wailers. Yeah, '76, 'Runaround Girl'. I did that also again for Fatis' Xterminator when I came back from England, this is about 2003, or 2002. Wha' am I talkin' about, 2002?? 1992 (laughs)! Yeah '92, so I think I might've done that for him in about '92 or '93, I don't think a copy were ever released.

Original '78 ad in Gayle's Rasta paper Jah Ugliman
(Courtesy Russ Bell-Brown)

Kiddus I at Tuff Gong
(Photo: Brian Jahn)

Q: There was a title for the debut album at the time, I believe it was 'Jah Power, Jah Glory'.

A: 'Jah Power, Jah Glory' was never released, that was the name of my LP which I did for '79.

Q: I believe you had an ad for that one in the Jamaican 'zine Jah Ugliman at the time, you remember that?

A: Oh yes, yes, yes.

Q: Carl Gayle's Rasta paper.

A: Yes, yes.

Q: Announcing the 'soon come' arrival of the album, which never saw release. Talk about 'soon come'...

A: It never came out, no. I was stopped in the middle of the tracks.

Q: What happened?

A: I mean, all tracks were laid at the time, but I was stopped. Tuff Gong was distributing for me, and I had been working there for three months while everybody was on tour, and paying all of my bills and just about finished, and I came in to work this day and they stopped me from working, they wouldn't give me any studio time. So I came and paid the little money that was owed. But I mean, if I remember correctly, Tuff Gong which was built in 56 Hope Road was paid mainly by my money in the studio, working in the studio over that x amount of period of time and no one was there. And I felt a bit... you know...

Q: Ripped off?

A: Yeah! That they had distributing for me, if my music... When I finished, they going to have the distribution, and then still after laying twelve tracks in Tuff Gong, overdubbing - doing all form of works on them, just to finish as to finish the final stage. I mean, just a few little things to do and my LP would have been completed. And they stopped me laying me tracks, so... I released only one track offa that work, which was called 'Love Child'.

Kiddus I

Q: Oh yes, nice tune. In fact very good.

A: Yeah, that was the only track which was released from there, offa those works that I did. Life is funny, the main track, 'Jah Power, Jah Glory', I had on a two-inch tape was stolen somehow, five of them was stolen. So a lot of them music just disappear. Yeah.

Q: Nothing has been tracked down since?

A: No. I mean, I would imagine that somebody might have it, because they were like new tapes, new-looking tapes. So I just imagine that somebody who was maybe hungry, maybe - whatever, just sold them and wiped off my music and sold them to somebody. 'Cause at the studio where we left tapes - Music Mountain, Chris Stanley had gotten sick and was not able to oversee what was happening, and some people came in and were running the studio. Yeah, at the time we heard that... I was not there, I was abroad, but there was one or two junkies involved and I'm quite sure that one or the two of them might've just wiped off my music and sold it.

Q: What a shame, destroyed a lot there.

A: Yeah, trust me. I mean at the time it was said it was the strongest LP coming out of Jamaica, right, and I wonder if that had anything to do with it also. But we won't bother go over that history. But at the time, trust me, everybody was sort of...

Q: Expecting the goods?

A: Great expectations, the people around the place were all enthused and yeah, a lot of energy. So that was just spoken my way to make sure that things didn't... a stumbling block them, per se.

Q: Exactly. At the time, in the late seventies there, did you get any feedback what your music created in terms of impact overseas, what it did for you in foreign?

A: Yeah, it was always - whatever song I got, it was always positive. Yeah, it was always positive, more so after the movie was released.

Q: Right, 'Rockers'.

A: And all the Europeans, from different parts of Europe I met in the eighties, like '81, Australians, people come down and... Yeah, it seemed as if people really appreciated what was happening and what I was doing, y'know.

Q: What about this track from the Perry sessions, 'Flying 30 000 Feet Above the Sea', was that one lost as well?

A: Oh gosh, yeah. Shit, I... a whe you take that outta - Ugliman (laughs)?!

Q: (Laughs)

A: (Laughs) That song, I had gone to the Bahamas to do some work in '78 or '79, thereabouts. And myself and Third World were together, we shared a little house together. They were recording 'Now That We Found Love', that LP of theirs. I recorded actually when I left Compass Point (Chris Blackwell's famed studio) in the Bahamas coming over, that track was written. I had a Walkman and I was thought apprehensive of flying and I still don't love it too tough, but at the time I wasn't too keen on it. So I started, I got the inspiration, y'know, 'flying 30 000 feet above the sea, can't be anywhere else but in yourself, you might cast your reflections here and there and everywhere, but you still can't be nowhere but in yourself' (chuckles). So that was it. I got the entire song and captured it on my Walkman. But the idea was that I was flying back from Compass Point, Bahamas, to Jamaica. And I recorded that at Tuff Gong. Trust me, that was a very, very big music. I'm sorry I can't find it.

Q: Yet another loss.

A: Quite likely, I don't know if down the road it might appear. Because I left some tapes in England and there's some that is in Santa Monica, Los Angeles also. I was there in 19-... what time was it now?

Q: I think it was '84 or thereabouts.

A: '83 to about '86. And I recorded a track for a guy called David Kulik.

Q: Kulik. David Koolrock, 'Koolrock' was his alias, right.

A: Kulik, he had recorded at Music Mountain and other places with the best of Jamaican artists on an LP, and he took different local artists and made... gave them each one a song, Dennis, Gregory, Joe Higgs, so they choose one for me and I did one called 'Champs Elysee' (chuckles). Yeah, promenade down Champs Elysee, a French song, hook up a French thing. So I did that one, and at the same time I took some of my tapes to maybe clean up and do some work, and they start... how you say now... 'stripping' the acetate? Started stripping on the machine. When it went on the machine, my tapes started 'stripping', the acetates started stripping, meaning that they weren't pristine, they were getting old. And I was advised then that they couldn't be used, because all of this wax was coming off on the head of the machine. So about four of my two-inch tapes was sorta disposed of, which is unfortunate that I did that. Because I mean ten, fifteen years afterwards the technology of 'baking' came about.

Kiddus I
(Photo: David Corio)

Q: Or 'cooking' them (chuckles). True.

A: You 'bake' the tapes and transfer it. I'm done now with a number of my tapes, because even this Japanese who is releasing a compilation of some of my earlier works, a number of the tapes were also in the same state like those I used to have in L.A., and I thought were disposed of. But on baking them you are able to transfer them and recapture the music, so it's unfortunate at that period of time we didn't have this technology of baking, or know about it so we could've maintained some of those music that we had put on. So in that area, well, I lost quite a bit of music that time too.

Q: You've lost a track called 'By the Sweat' as well?

A: 'By the sweat of ones brow, Jah Jah live...'. That one, yeah. That was done in '72, with 'Careful How You Jump' at Joe Gibbs. Yeah. But I wanna tell you that the original two-inch tape, I gave it to Jack Ruby to cut some dubs, off a dub-plate after. It might've been about '76 or '78, some of the tape there. And I never did take it back from him. So I don't know if that tape could be still in his sons' position or somewhere, but that was actually the first two-inch tape that I recorded on. 'By the sweat of man's brow Jah say we shall all eat bread, but not when the sweat's for someone else who wants it all, Lord I've been sweating all my life for this ya man who has it all, sweating in his canefields, coalfields, goldmines, by the sweat for all the money that now adorned his desires, while we owned no homes, got no car, cannot the dark sheep keep a shelter from the rain, I see no justice, by the sweat of man's brow, Jah said, Jah said...' (snaps fingers). Yeah, that one.

Q: Boy, that's some memory.

A: Mmm, that's it. A powerful song at the time. I saw it did - I took some parts of it and did an update of a track called 'Mr. Too Fat'. No, not 'Mr. Too Fat' - 'Who's Gonna Pay' (titled 'Better Equity'). 'Who's gonna pay for the restoration of the world today, 'cause the world was fresh, fresh, fresh, streams were running, rivers flowing with a whole lotta fish a jumpin', and the lakes were laiden, but you destroyed this bout by polluting everything in your sight, tell me who's gonna pay for the garbage dump on the world today, for this earth wherever you are has been worked for many thousand years, and throughout the age of the workers cry, hey, can you accume in, can you listen to the voices crying out...' (chuckles). Heh, yeah!

Q: Right, that's one of the tracks on the new album, or part of the lyrics at least. Great track by the way.

A: Part of... yes, yes. Similar, yes.

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Article: Peter I
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