Q: Moving up to around 1980 now, you hooked up with Sly & Robbie's Taxi label for 'Heart Made of Stone'. A: OK, I did seven songs for Sly & Robbie and so far one a them I know him release in Jamaica, and it's 'Heart Made of Stone'. Q: It took off in a big scale for the group or what became of it? It did only some good for the producer again, didn't it? A: That song? I hear that Island Music have it in England, I have never collec' not even a dollar for that song, they have never paid me nutten! Sly & Robbie, they have never paid me a cent for those music! Q: The same rip-offs you mean? Sad, if that's the case. A: Yes, my whole life in music is rip-offs.

Q: To stay in business after so many setbacks, you gotta have a great love for the music making process, like you seem to have? Perseverance is what it's about in the long run. A: Yes. Q: The love for music runs deep. A: Yeah man, I have a great love for music. And every time I say 'Alright, I going stop do it now', I get a better idea. Every time I say 'Well bwoy, me na get nutten from it', my wife quarrel with me every time, 'Leave it alone'. And I have a lickle guitar at home and every time I tek up the guitar and play it, it's like it tell me something. I have to keep writing songs, writing songs, yunno. Q: You wrote the majority of the songs in the early days for the group? A: Ninety-five percent! If not a hundred. Because, any guy in my group come with a song, I still have to help him to bring it out. He may come with the first verse and cyaan go no further, and I have to help him. And I na going take no credit, I just give him credit. Q: You did some work for Winston Riley too, even before the album you did with him. A: That is another crook. Q: 'Mission Impossible'. A: Yes, and I did an album for him named 'Chancery Lane'.

Q: That was later on. A: Yes, and that was in the eighties. And believe me you, that man malice me from him come back from England, him malice me. Him give Greensleeves my album, and he sell it out to Greensleeves and all now I cannot collec' a cent. Q: So it did nothing more than keeping the name out there? A: Nutten, nutten whatsoever. Q: The name is out there but there's no reward from it. A: Any reward at all for those music. And I'm in Jamaica, poor, and they are living big. Q: What about harmony work for others, you backed up Max Romeo on that 'Gun Court' track for Winston Riley. A: Yeah.

Q: You did a lot of this for other artists? A: Yes. Q: Do you recall doing anything specifically? A: Well, I back-up for Delroy Wilson, I back-up for Max Romeo, and a couple other people that I don't even recall. I do a lotta harmony sometime for people. Q: Circa '75 you decided to try produce yourself, you set up your own label Deliver I - you had the first version of 'Consider Yourself' on that one. A: No, 'Consider Yourself'... OK, OK! Yes, yes, yes. But as I said before, I didn't know the business end, so them outsmart me and take my t'ings out. 'Cause I never travel before, so I don't know what they do outside, y'know. It's just now I discover certain t'ings, because I leave Jamaica and can come to France, and France is the only place I've ever been.

Q: Never to the States? A: Never the States, never to England. Q: That's just too bad. But I truly hope you get the chance to tour around Europe and see the response from your audience, they are more in actual numbers than what you would ever believe, I'm pretty sure about that. A: Yes, I think I have a Europe tour coming up. Q: Apart from the Deliver I imprint, you had another outlet for the group named Nigga Star. You recall what you had for that one? A: Nigga Star? No, it wasn't my label. Q: Did you do anything else, any other producing on your own at the time? A: Yes, I have an album now. Q: But if we're speaking about the seventies still? A: OK. I did one, a song called 'Children Children' on a label - it wasn't really my label, it was a friend label and he let me use it, song is called 'Children Children'. Q: That one is on... yes that's the Nigga Star label I mentioned. A: That's the Nigga Star label? OK, yes. Q: But it was your production anyway. A: Yes. Q: No other songs was taped for that session, just this lone track? A: Yes. I did another song called 'How Living Blues', have you ever heard that one? Q: Never. A: OK. Well, I did that one. I don't even know who has it. At one stage of the game I get fed up, y'know, and seh well, bwoy, fe eight years I back out, and then I go back again. This time I have a new label now, named Vice Label. I produce this new album called 'Love Is All'.

Channel One (www.urbanimage.tv)

Q: When did you start work on that album? A: That album, I start record this album from about 1984. Q: At Channel One? A: Yes, with Roots Radics band. And it's like for nearly twenty years I have that album, and the first time I come into France that was January since this year, I finish it and bring it with me. Q: So there's recordings on it even up to now. A: Yes. Q: New harmony, instrumental overdubs and all? A: No, well, that album has never released, I have those songs put down for years. And then, it's like a new album anyway because nobody has ever heard it. Yes, and I just put a couple more tracks to it and then bring it to France, it release in France now. Q: Something blocked it originally because of... you simply didn't have the finances? A: Yes. But my money was limited so I put it to rest, y'know. It's done now and out there, and I start producing another one. Now I've got four tracks, hope to finish it when I get back home.

Norris Reid

Q: What about Norris Reid now, when I called you earlier this year you replied that he wasn't dead. This is a rumour that has refused to die - no pun intended - since he moved to the States in the eighties and passed away in the early nineties. A: No, he's not dead. He's living in Pennsylvania, USA. Q: You're still in touch? A: No, he's never contact me. From he left Jamaica (chuckles), people only tell me they see him and I have a friend in America who met him, yunno, and talk to him. Q: Yet some insists he is dead (laughs)?! A: He's not dead, man. I heard that he had a lickle band over there an' t'ing. Q: Speaking of members who came and went again, what happened to Daniel Bernard? A: Well, he (chuckles)... the last time, you see... Well, it's a long story, 'cause when he was living in Kingston, he was sleeping one day, and them run dung a man, gunman come run him dung and come kill him right inna him yard. And from him wake up and see that it's like him get delirious (?), yunno. Went away to the country, and it's like he's not himself from that. Q: Really paranoid, shocked? A: Yeah, the shock - the shock whe him get from seeing that is like... him head not that good. Q: He has never returned from the country, still there? A: Yes. I went there and look for him, and I take him to the Studio One 35th Anniversary ('91), and we did some stage show. But he went back and say he's not coming back to Kingston. Q: Why did Norris leave? He had his solo career going simultaneously, right? A: Yes. And after him joined the group, he had this plan to go away to America, yunno, and eventually leave. Q: When you recorded those albums for CSA and Greensleeves... A: That's the same Linval Thompson album, yunno.

Linval Thompson (photo: Dave Katz)

Q: Right, the one reissued in France on CD ('We Must Unite', originally out on Trojan and also now a Thompson Sound repress)? A: Yes. Q: You clearly felt the swing or sway for vocal groups when those LP's were recorded that harmony trios was on the way out, didn't you? A: Yes, it was hard but we still do our old time stuff whe we know, we didn't change. Yeah man. Q: How did you find working with Linval and the Radics in those days? A: Well, at first those guys go on like they're good people and you expec' them to do something for the group, but eventually they didn't. Q: So what happened, they came out and nothing fruitful became of it, the old story? A: They just want to rip you off, that's what 'appen. From them get your song, it's the hardest thing to see them to talk to. Yeah. Q: Who took care of your arrangements in those days, was Linval instrumental in doing this with the group? A: No. I arranged all my songs, I played the guitar. When I go to the studio I start playin' my guitar and singin' my song, all the band have to do is listen what I have and then they fall in. Yeah, because I gave them the idea, I played the guitar for them, showed them the chords I have, and I play and they follow. So the arrangements is mine.

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