Interview with Steve Barrow on the Italian Reggae Vibes Website Q:In which way you started working with reggae? A:In 1974 when I left college I started a record shop called Old Change Records, in London with a guy called Ed Deppo, that later founded Mo Jazz, a big jazz shop in London and a guy called Graham Griffiths, that went to Mo'Jazz, and now is running the New Note distribution. Since 1975 I work with reggae: in october 1975 I started another shop called Daddy Kool. This shop became very successful since the first year: it was a tiny place but always packed of customers. We sold two thousand records in the summer of the 76. Q:Was it a shop with the style of the today reggae shops? A:Yes, I had a pile of records and I changed the records on the turntable every ten seconds as people spent money... Q:Did you sell mostly to black people? A: No, black and white people, a lot of people: people like Johnny Rotten, John Peel, Don Letts... Q: Why you left that business? A: My partner had the control of the business and he accused me of stealing, wich was untrue. So I said "I don't want to work with you anymore", and I left. I literally built the shop and spent all the time at the shop, but that people just passed at the shop once a week on friday, to pick up the money. Q: What was the next step? A:Next step was "Honest Johns" in Camden town. There was a big deal for Jazz too... And then another shop who was the first shop selling in London the Bullwackie records from New York, Ray Wackies and Lepke's DBC, the Dread Outta Control...There were the punk days....Then I went back at college again. In 1979 Trevor Wyatt from Island approached me to put a compilation of ska music together because the Two Tone thing was coming. So I did this one called "Intensified". They sold sixty thousand copies. So we did the volume two, "Too Intensified" and a Rock Steady one called "Catch this beat" Q: At that time what was the method of work? Try to find the original master tapes? A: Well, I didn't have the original master tapes. Island didn't have the tapes: we just transferred simply. I didnt supervise, I didn't have control over that process, I just had the cover concept and the track listing of the record. I went back to college again and in 1984 I did sleeve notes for Island on "Return of the big guns" (Skatalites) and in 1985 Trojan approached me. They found a tape called "Rhythm shower" and they didn't know what it was, so I said "That's Lee Perry!" At that time Trojan had a lot of tapes. They originally released some materials and had those tapes, but they don't have the rights to hold those tracks cause the property is of the jamaican producer. Q: This fact reminds me that in the Rob Chapman book there is mention of a Trojan double album of Studio One materials done without any permission... One of the records is a simple reissue of a Studio One album... A: Yes, Trojan have the Mr. Dodd's tapes and the second album is a my compilation from Studio One tapes like for example, Jackie Mittoo, that they have. In 1991 Coxsone told me that in 1974 he had written to Trojan a formal letter asking to desist manufacturing and distributing his products. I was completely ignorant on that: Trojan assured me that they had the rights for that material. Q: What exactly is your work for a standard reissue now? A:With Blood & Fire my method is really to do the job completely as we can in every way, so we don't have to do it again. That means try to find tapes, just listening to tapes and taking albums from that. We do a lot of that. For the first releases of Blood & Fire we went to Bunny Lees home in Jamaica. He was in England at that time, and he was buying a truck for having a business. We went to Bunnys studio and played a lot of tapes we ended up with more of 120 tracks and we made the "DJ was your trade" album with Tubby's mixings, because we felt that Djs music is important, firstly because is great, fantastic alive music and secondly is important because is being the influence on a lot of forms, particularly the rap, jamaicans were the first to rap on riddim tracks, from the sixties. They developed this from U Roy days, through Dennis Alcapone and Big Youth, into the mid-seventies, King Tubbys where DJs would voice version of songs. There was a lot of activity, a lot of Djng: at the beginning there was a few Djs, but in the mid-seventies there were probably fifty or sixty Djs working. Big Youth influenced a lot of people as Rasta. He opened that door. Coming back to the aspects of work we found a lot of stuffs that hadnt never been issued, that never came out, the Jazzbo's title track, and also "Good Memories" never been out. In the spring of 1993 we came back and we thought long time about what we gonna do with that material and we developed a program where we wanted to expose that developments in Jamaica, in the 70's, some of the best Djs working with Tubbys, in the King Tubbys studio. There was not only King Tubby, but King Tubby in my opinion was one of the greatest guys in the XX century music. His influence is been very large in the last twenty years, just in the way he amplify the sound, magnify the sound: you can recognize King Tubby like you can recognize soon as you heard a Phil Spectors record, or others classics blues, r&b or jazz sounds. Its a distinctive studio sound. Q: Who got the idea to create Blood & Fire? A: Working on a thing for Island, called "Tougher than tough", the box set, I finished my work in early 1993, and I got a phone call from my friend Steve Barker on BBC radio, hes got a show called "On the wire", he said Simply Red mangement want to reissue some old reggae albums, their favourites... Q:Why? Because the Simply Red singer is a reggae fan?? A:Yes, they're all reggae fans, in the management, and they all got into reggae in the late seventies and they remember the albums in that time, all great albums and they want to put them on CD, like "Social living", like "Pick A Dub", like "The heart of Congos", albums that there wasn't on CD yet. We had a meeting and I said "Yes you can reissue those albums, you gotta start a company to do that and deal with Jamaicans properly" and they said "Yeah, great! Let's do it", so Bob Harding, now my partner in B&F, he came up with the name Blood & Fire. Q: He particularly choose that name?? A: Yes... Q: Why?? Because he was a Niney's fan?? A: No, not only because of the Niney record, there are a lot of other records that mention Blood & Fire or simply just blood, or fire... Q:It's a sort of symbology... A:Yes, it was really a kind of a cliche, a couple of words choose for a particular sound. The words that evoke that music....theres blood and fire in that music and thats we want to evoke...We named the company the same as a record, a famous and brilliant record by Niney, the great producer. We got vexed with that : In Jamaica Niney suddenly started a company named "The original Blood & Fire". I think that this is a very great compliment from Niney, fantastic...That's nice! I had a contact with the design group Intro, we worked together since Trojan days, we did the "Tougher that tough" book. I wanted to work with them for Blood & Fire, with the interest and the entusiasm that you can put in a work for a top selling group for having everything OK. Me and my partners in Blood & Fire are saying that if you think that this music is so great, you must do with it the same way you would do with the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen or Miles Davis. Its music very spiritual that come from poor people, but the fact is that poor people knows how to live the life better than rich people. Thats why rich people are so sick... Q:Concerning B&F records: wich work gave you more satisfation?? I bet the Congos... A:Yes, the Congos is great, I love that. That was a nice idea because that album has a lot in it, there is a lot of imaginery in this: we came up with the idea of the puzzle of the cover. There is a frame of an F111 engine, we put Jamaican images, fruits, candles, pieces, vegetables, fishes, and the original album cover as the center of the decoration. I gave Matt the tape and he said "Let's do an ilustration for every song" and I said "How do that?" and he did those illustrations in two days, he and another guy. (Steve show me some of the original sleeve works) When Cedric Myton saw the finish thing he said that those things are in his mind when he was singing those songs and that was brilliant. That's exactly what we wanted to do: it was doubly satisfying, it's the right thing. You know how you make money: you spend money to sell it, but what we gonna sell is the truth about ghetto living for all people worldwide, which is what reggae is. If you listen those records you can feel those vibes, wich is like getting together and dance and jump up. Congos is one of my favourites, for me the Jah Stitchs album is a great album, I love that record, Bunnys riddims are wicked and Stitch is at his best on it. I like it because of the story behind Stitch: he got shot, but Give Jah the glory is before he got shot and the other tracks are after he got shot. The record shows the guy coming back.... Q:How your work is considered by the Jamaican producers you're dealing with?? A:Every producer we worked with likes what weve done, and every artist. I think they're glad cause we recognize the efforts they put into it, and we trying to do the best to put that music on the same level of the other stuffs. Its a good investiment because of the relative cheapness. This is a cultural question: I just want to say that one thing about why we do that is a cultural question, and is a political question. This is the truth from people who lives this life, who lives in conditions wich most people in modern urban metropolitan environment wouldnt tolerate for a minute, so this people goes for a lot of tribulations and from then comes a very essentialized music, very essentialized thoughts and that enables you to survive in that situation, like Bob Marley said: One good thing about music, when it hits you, feel no pain... Q: It's a sort of fever... A: Yes, it's a fever, and it's a mutual enjoinment, everyone enjoys the same things. Q:About the Arkologys work: did you personally choose the songs? A: When I was doing Tougher that tough Island spoke to me about various others projects, but I got busy doing the Blood & Fire stuff. Last year they said Do you wanna do the Upsetter? and I said Yes, get the tapes and they said We get the demos and I : No no no, get the tapes, not the demos. A:You mean the old four tracks tapes? Q: Yes, the original tapes, cause Island got a lot of original Black Ark tapes... I had experiences with Scratch's tapes at Trojan, and theres always extra stuffs and longer. When we got the Congos tapes from Cedric, to do the Congos one with Blood & Fire, there was another fifteen minutes more than the original album, so I was curious to see and listen to the Island tapes, they got sixteen tapes from their central archives. When we listened to that it was a revelation because half of the stuffs we listened to was music that I never heard before. It was variant mixes, things like that, different from the jamaican or Island release... A:At the time you were a Black Ark expert? Q:Yes, I love Lee Perry records but David Katz is the guy, he puts the Upsetter magazine out, he knows Scratch really well and he was the ideal guy... A: Is he from the USA? Q:Yes he's from the States, Dave knows a lot Lee Perry. So we sat down, Dave and myself and we went through the tapes. As to the compilation, basically me and Dave got the running order. I said the first track must be Dub revolution and the last one Roast fish and corn bread. I was very pleasant about how the work came out . Personally, theres no my design... A: I think that they stole a little by Blood & Fire design... Q:Yes, but if Blood & Fire done it, it wouldnt look like that. I would done it completely different. I like some of the things that they did. The Art Director of Island came with the title Arkology, and I said Right, cause this is what it was: listening to those sixteen tapes...when we heard the tapes for the first time, me and Dave, we said WHAT???...really discovering stuffs as you do with this music, every day you can find something new with this music, every day. Because it's so big, first of all! With Arkology it was like going through James Joyce's papers and finding a missing chapter of "Ulysses", cause this is a missing Lee Perry's chapter... A: True philology... Q: Yes, is definitively that 'cause this was the Lee Perry guiding hand: OK, there were other people, Max Romeo, Doctor Alimantado, but this is definitively Lee Perry work as producer and he said "I'm the Dub Sheperd". This is a very serious stuff, cause this is the guy who really did Bob Marley, he wrote a lot of Marley songs. His contribution it was great, and we can look for the contribution before Bob Marley, the Studio One days... Q: Do you think that the Scratch madness is just acting or that Lee Perry is really mad? A:I mean , no one can answer for what another man does, but Lee Perry is as sane as you or I, in my opinion. He has a particular way of expressing himself at this period of his life, wich he finds satisfactory, but compared to what he was doing when he was in full control of Black Ark, for me he lacks something, is directionless, in my opinion. In conversation he can be seriously funny, or funnily serious as well... Q: What is the Reggae Archive Project? A: It's a project that started with Chris Blackwell, with the aim to collect in a video archive interviews with many people involved with reggae music as possible. We started with old time movers and we did 38 or 40 interviews the first year and 44 the next year. Q: Very long interviews? A: Yes. I went to Jamaica with Don Letts, and we had Carl Bradshaw, the actor that was a sort of manager and linkman. It was good. We got Prince Buster, Count Matchoucki, Delroy Wilson, King Stitt. We got Stitt and Matchoucki in Studio One, talking about Studio One, because Coxsone doesnt give interviews, not so much. We tried to approach him a couple of times. Hes a really nice guy, I like him and he likes me, but when I come for interview him its a different think. I mean for example: when I left Trojan I had to be in New York with Bunny Lee and I met Coxsone and I explained him that I was unaware of anything about contractual links between Trojan and Studio One, and he was sure of the opposite, and he said "Fine" and he was nice. Q: What do you think about the Pressure Sounds releases as for example Voodooism?? A: Its a good set! There are good stuffs on there.. Q: I think that they're working copying old records... A: Yes they're all from disc, and it's a real pity. I would put that material on a different order and I wouldn't included a couple of tracks, cause they don't fit on there, they're wrong there. The same with Heartbeat: there's a mix of materials done by Heartbeat. They just released a Lee Perry dub album that is nearly all Black Ark except for two tracks that I don't need on there. When you put together materials and do some releases, you're asking people to spend money to buy it, and if you don't do a good thing they don't do!. With reggae, particularly re-issuing old back catalogues materials, theres always been something wrong. For example, my dissatisfaction with the works I did at Trojan personally is in the sound quality, it could be a lot better. The problem was in vinyl quality.