![]() The first time I met Rastafarians in any significant numbers and felt the full impact of the wild, freaking frightwigs they call dreadlocks up close was over at Tommy Cowan’s rehearsal studios, in a small stucco building surrounded by several dilapidated shacks on a back lot in North Kingston. “I’m afraid, Michael, that the only live music you’re going to hear in Kingston is the kind of terrible tourist crap we’re listening to right now,” he concludes, as the house band climaxes, loud and corn-ball, its raucous calypso rendition of “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” The only place it really exists is on record.”īutler is crushed, but Blackwell isn’t quite finished. “You see, reggae isn’t really what you would call a live music per se. “I’m afraid, Michael, that one doesn’t,” he answers. Then Butler asks, “By the way, Chris, where does one go to hear some good live reggae music here in Kingston?”Ī sly Cheshire cat smile spreads across Blackwell’s face. Thus, when it is suggested that it would be ironic if Michael Butler rather than Bob Marley finally breaks reggae in a big way in the States, Blackwell says, “Yes, that would be most ironic indeed.” But when the righteous brethren extended hospitality as though he were one of their own, he dedicated himself to making the indigenous roots music of these good and much maligned people a household word on both continents. Being white and growing up in Jamaica, Blackwell was understandably wary of the Rastas. It, seems that some years ago, Blackwell’s car broke down in the Blue Mountains – Rasta country – and he was forced to seek shelter in one of their primitive encampments. There is this story they tell, possibly even true, about the incident that made Black-well devote his life to spreading the fever. He did it by literally busting his hump – pedaling around London on a bicycle in the mid-Sixties with stacks of singles under his arm, personally delivering product to record stores and hustling disc jockeys to at least give a listen to this contagious roots music of the Jamaican Rude Boys. He is also most responsible for spreading the gospel of roots beyond the Trench Town ghetto and the Third World. Black-well is credited with almost singlehandedly changing all that he at least pays his artists advances and gives them a fair share of the royalties, and the precedent he set forced other labels to follow suit. Until a few years ago the rip-off on the grand scale was standard practice in Kingston, with greedy shyster producers paying musicians $10 or $15 for a session and pocketing the royalties themselves. But it becomes obvious that Blackwell is not all that thrilled about Butler’s intention to translate his beloved roots music into a slick Broadway musical. ![]() The two young millionaires look like two peas in a pod.
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