Weekly Journal, The, 03-30-1995, pp PG. A word with the Don: Dotun Adebayo talks to Don Taylor, the man who claims to have made both Bob Marley and Jazzie B millionaires The Bob Marley song So Much Things To Say, could have been written about Don Taylor. For the tall, larger-than-life figure with the mischievous grin and a much-touted "Midas Touch", loves nothing better than to hold court and, believe it, he's got "nuff chat". Three decades in artist management for starters. Known affectionately as "DT" or by his distracters as "Jaws", Taylor' s legend goes before him and it ain't all good. Depending on who you speak to, Taylor is either a "ne'er-do-well" flitting from artist to artist, demanding his 20 per cent and anything else he can get, or he is one of the shrewdest black businessmen in the industry, music's equivalent of boxing's Don King. The similarities with the big fight Svengali go beyond their Christian names. They wear the sharpest suits of the finest cloths and still manage to give the impression that they are straight out of the ghetto - three o'clock roadblock and all. They are confident to the point of arrogance and always full of themselves. And they could have both graduated with distinction from the same school, where they learned to charm the ducats out of your wallet while smiling and making a fool of themselves loudly. Perhaps the only thing they don't share is a barber. Ironically, both King and Taylor seem to have risen to the top of their professions with only one talent - the ability to walk in and out of contract negotiations with their pockets stuffed with more money than their clients had ever dreamed imaginable. "You're interviewing Don Taylor? Count your fingers after you shake hands with him," an ex-employee warns. Taylor is unruffled by all the "su-su" (rumours). He is a successful Jamaican from the old school and it'll take more than gossip to break his stride in the middle of a good story. "I made Bob Marley a millionaire!" he declares confidently and then a moment later adds, "I made Jazzie B a millionaire!" This ability to make his artists so wealthy has, as much as the single quality of being one of only a handful of black faces at the top echelons of his profession, endeared Taylor to many of the top names in black music. You can't argue with a CV that includes Marvin Gaye, Little Anthony & The Imperials (from way back when), Martha Reeves and The Vandellas, LA & Babyface, Jazzie B, Jimmy Cliff, Sam Cooke, Gregory Isaacs, Burning Spear and of course Bob Marley, the subject of his controversial debut book entitled, with typical Taylor tongue-in-cheek, So Much Things To Say (Blake?.99). Taylor is in fine form on his whistle-stop publicity trip to London. The book has already sold 10,000 copies in Jamaica (a phenomenal amount for the Caribbean), where it was the subject of television and radio talk shows as well as countless column inches in the island' s newspapers, and Taylor is enjoying doing what he does best - self- promotion. Marley And Me, as the book was originally titled back-a-yard, was controversial as much for its content as Taylor's irreverent attitude to threats from the Marley family and Island Records boss Chris Blackwell that they would sue. Their solicitor's letter is printed on the back cover. "Everything I write in the book is the truth," he says over and over again, relishing the controversy. "Even Rita doesn't say it's a lie, she just says, `Cho', me nah brother with Don Taylor." That Rita Marley hasn't taken him to court over the book is, for Taylor, tantamount to a seal of approval. On a closer reading, however, even A-Level law students would quickly realise that the reggae king's widow would have a hard time in front of "your honour" trying to prove that her husband never suspected her of having anything to do with witchcraft. More interesting to Taylor, who styles himself a "man of the people" , is the backing of those on the ground level in Jamaica. "Everywhere I go in Jamaica people come up to me and shake my hand and say, `Nice Don Taylor, you tell the truth in your book.' Bunny Wailer says I didn't say enough! You know what Jamaica's like. Do you think I could live there if that book didn't tell the truth? I name names, I don't just say `some guy said', I actually name the individuals." And as if to stress the point, he adds that the book is nothing to do with making money on the Marley name. "I'm a wealthy man. The Metropolitan Pensions Fund pay me a lot of money every month, I've already got more than I need. And I still have my various music publishing interests such as the Jimmy Cliff catalogue bringing in more money. I don't have to work." The money Taylor has earned from the book is indeed pocket money to a man of his bankability who lives in the exclusive "Golden Triangle" in Kingston where he counts the prime minister as a neighbor. Unless the book becomes a run-away success, which seems unlikely, he won' t earn a great deal more from it either. So why write it? What's in it for Mr Twenty Per cent? "Since Marley died I've not tried to make any money out of him like so many other people. But what I'm saying in the book needs to be told, because when Bob died his assets were left to me and I turned them over to Rita. Then word got to me that she was claiming I hadn't handed over all the money...Bob trusted me completely with his money. He wouldn't sign nothing without asking me first. In fact, on the Island contracts, Marley's name was signed by me... That was one of the skanks we pulled on Blackwell. If you don't believe me I'll give you the name of our bank and you can ask them. "Rita's got nothing to complain about my book. I was kind to her. I left out a lot of things I could have put in." Taylor is less charitable to Island Records' white Jamaican founder Chris Blackwell who signed The Wailers in the early seventies. In So Much Things To Say, dark clouds go everywhere Blackwell goes. Taylor shrugs and insists that many artists' careers have nose-dived after signing with Island. With his arms flailing he decides to pull out a good story from the past to prove his point on how "dark" Blackwell was and threatens to tell an even "darker" story one day. "I remember one time when Bob wanted to build a studio in Kingston, you know-to attract a lot of international artists to come down and record there. It would be the most hi-tech studio in the Caribbean, he had real big plans for it. "But after Blackwell heard about it he went quickly and opened his studio in Nassau to do exactly the same thing. Bob was vexed and said, `Don, yuh waan see how the bwoy disrespect me.' That's why he didn' t go to the opening of Blackwell's studio. He was invited, but sent Lee Perry instead, who went and cut a chicken's head off there." Even though you've been warned to take everything he says with a pinch of salt, it's hard not to fall for the Taylor charm. After an hour of interview, you are under his spell - in his clutch. Taylor will tease you and please you and gently cajole you until you come around to his way of thinking. Maybe it's the cheeky smile and the mischievous glint in his eye. Yah just know he must have been an unruly pickney! Now in his fifties, he is a "rascal" rather than a villain. At the end of the day So Much Things To Say, is an autobiography of Don Taylor rather than a biography of the reggae superstar, so why should we believe Don Taylor's account of Marley? "Because it's the truth," he says with that cheeky grin. Ethnic NewsWatch c SoftLine Information, Inc., Stamford, CT