Conducted by Steve Barrow An Interview with Legendary Producer Clive Chin Recently, WKCR reggae director Brian Linde, alongside William Taylor, spoke with Clive about the new album, The Impact All Stars 'Forward the Bass' as well as his career then and now. On The Album What people really like to know about the album is how it came about: who's idea was a dub album, or was it during a time when dubs were at a high fashion in Jamaica? And my recollection was that project back in '71 was basically for the sound system purpose, not so much for a commercial purpose of doing it on a wide scale. Now all these tracks that are compiled on this one particular album, were taken over a period of 5 years. It's a compilation of two Randy's albums that were done simultaneously. The first one, 'Java Java Dub' which was done around '72, and then 'Randy's Dub' that came out in the later part of '74. Blood and Fire licensed this album back last year, and decided to take tracks from two albums and make one, which is a good idea. You have a blend of different musicians and different concepts; it mixes it up. This is just like a little tip of the iceberg. I have enough material in the pipelines for at least another forty or fifty albums. There is a lot more stuff to come. How they're going to come about, time has to work that out. Right now, I am working on another Skatalites [reissue] project for my dad, and also possibly between now and the end of the year, we will do like a Randy's greatest hits. Also, The Wailers stuff, more various artists, more dubs, more DJ's. It's enough material to keep flowing. On the 1972 Reggae Hit, 'Java' How that rhythm actually came about is that my school mate ... you know if a man knows that you're into the music business, and he knows that you can help him out by putting him on a record, or even a dub plate (that was the biggest thing back in Jamaica then) ... because during my time in school it was like upcoming singers and musicians were abundant... and this particular artist came to me one lunch time back in '69 and said he had a tune. Well, he had several tunes, but he had a particular tune that he wrote about his girlfriend, and he'd like to sing it. So, I told him , "This is the wrong place to do it. Let's go down to the studio after school, and we can hammer it out." It so happens that he came at a time when there was a session going on. It was under the watchful eye of my father, and he was recording Lord Creator and some other guys down there. It so happens the musicians weren't tired enough; they felt they could have done some more recording. So, I said, "I have a tune." He came into the studio all nervous and shaking and so forth, and I told him, "Just sing. We'll do our best to come up with a good rhythm." But, it was actually the musicians themselves, including [Earl Smith], that had the whole arrangement of the song under their belt: the introduction, the melody lines, and so forth. They could hardly hear what he was singing because he was sort of mumbling the words, but the whole ideology of the thing was that the musicians that we were using during the early 70's were all the cream of the crop. And so when that tune was recorded, we just decided that rather than wasting it on a young singer that couldn't sing the tune, just make it into a number one instrumental. And that's how 'Java' came about, and that's how 'Jaro' came about, and that's how 'Maro' came about, and the rest of the Java rhythms. On His Partnership with Recording Engineer Errol Thompson Errol and I go way back; we went to school together. So we had a young and energetic frame of mind during the early 70's, and we would experiment for hours in the studio. You must remember that we were not paying for studio time; we were experimenting for production for the label, Randy's Impact (which is my family). So we had unlimited studio time for our exposure. And during the early 70's, the more original we could be, the more fun it would be for us. That was the whole thing about doing music in the 70's: to be creative, to come up with fresh ideas that Studio One didn't have, Duke Reid, Derrick Harriott, or even Lee Perry for that matter. During that particular time, Errol and myself, we were creating a unique dub version which was not even in anyone's mind per se. You must consider one thing: King Tubby's made dub what it is today. He's like a mentor; I respect the man, no doubt about it. But, the fact of the matter is that Errol and myself, as two youths putting our heads together and coming up with a song like 'Extraordinary Version'.... when we finished it, we looked at each other and smiled and said to each other, "Could it of ever happened ten years ago? No, probably not. But, could it have happened twenty years in the future? Probably yes, could have" - but with microphone chips and computerization. It's so unique. It's like we were ahead of our time. And we never really planned this or documented it - which we should have, really, because when I looked back on it with Errol a couple months ago, we laughed over it. We reminisced: this is creativity in its own right. You know, I'm a person that never excludes when a man has an idea - even if it is a violin or a cello. I put him in, because this is where I find fresh sounds. On Today To be honest, I haven't been in a recording studio in a while. It's just lately I got involved in production with a young set of musicians from Brooklyn, The Slackers. I ran into one of the musicians last year. He said to me, he would love for me to come down and sit in on one of the recordings. These guys, they all intrigued me so much that I got involved in the production. They're all young musicians in their twenties, and they have fresh ideas: reggae, ska, rocksteady. And when I worked with them for a couple weeks, they laid down all the tracks at Coyote in Brooklyn. And when it came down to mixing time, I went down there and mixed a few songs for them. I felt like I was going back into the past. I started feeling so comfortable around the board, that to tell you the truth, a feeling of purity came back into me; I was energized. I tell you something, this record opened my eyes: that what I've been doing for the past twenty years since I've been up here, I've been wasting time. I should really get back into it 100%. It sort of gave me confidence in myself; it opened back my morality to see where I can contribute more. Because I felt at one time that I had lost it totally. When I say I lost it, I mean I felt insecure that if I walked into the studio, I couldn't even put up a phaser on the board, or even try to listen to a bass line, or even try to brighten up a guitar or a piano. But working with these guys, it brought me back a lot of confidence. And I really feel good about it within myself. I feel very confident that I can do it. That's just to tell you that I've kind of been very isolated for the few years that I've been out of the music. But, it's coming right back. The more I get involved, the more products that I tend to reissue, and the more demand I get - people might say to me, "I'd like you to come in and do something" - it makes me feel good. It makes me feel that there is a need to take one foot forward into the twenty-first century. The Time with Lee Perry and The Wailers That was an extraordinary time in my life to see Bob, Peter, and Bunny wail, just a wail. That's the only studio in the history of the recording business that run 24-7, 12 months of the year from 1969 up until 1978. That studio was never once locked unless it had to be cleaned for a next set of musicians that were going to be coming in. The air was just a mist: it had a certain smell, a certain sound that no studio will ever have. We weren't at our peak until the beginning of 1971. I mean Lee Perry would not use another studio, and you can quote me, "he would not use another studio other than Randy's." Bob [Marley], at one stage, asked me back in 1975 - and he's in heaven right now looking down and he could tell you - would my father lease him that studio, exclusive, to do his albums for Island, because he knew the sound. He could never get it from Harry J., he could not have gotten it from Dynamic Sounds, he could not have gotten it nowhere - even if he had gone to Nassau to do it, because Nassau or London were just for overdubs and commercial mixes. But when you want hardcore, when the beats slam against the wall and don't move, they just stick, that was Randy's. My time that I worked, I wouldn't regret it and I will never regret it. And if I have to do it again, to all my glory. I don't think I would have ever done it any better because I've worked with the best. I have enough history on the music to write a book.