GROUNDINGS: February 2006

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Charles Campbell
Sunday, February 19, 2006

Recently, I encountered a practice amongst artistes' managers that I find offensive. Reggae artistes should question if this practice of their managers marrying lesser lights - artistes with less talent, experience and exposure - to their own burgeoning careers, accrue to their benefit, or if in fact it injures their potential for increased performance bookings.

For argument's sake, let's say I'm an event producer and I have conceptualised an event programme and line-up in keeping with my objectives. I am interested in booking Fantan Mojah, but when his booking agent is contacted by my staff, they are informed that if we want Fantan, a Reggae/Dancehall artiste with a formidable track record and at least four solid hits to his credit, we will also have to book his stablemate, Nanko, who can only be classified as a one-hit wonder.

Technically, this is a form of extortion; that is forcing me to pay for goods or services that I do not want because you have the power or monopoly over other goods or services that I do want. Furthermore, Jamaican law explicitly forbids cartelisation.
We declined the suggestion, and so the manager increases Fantan's fee by $200,000.

This could imply one of two things - either that the agent was originally under-pricing Fantan Mojah in order to obtain bookings for Nanko, or we were expected to capitulate and hire both acts, thereby subverting our principles and hurting our programme. If we do not cave in, the result is that Fantan Mojah is no longer on the line-up of an event that could theoretically be the pivot his career needs to catapult him to international stardom.

What amazes me, however, is how widespread this practice has become in Jamaica in a short span. Yet no one seems prepared to come forward and speak out against this abhorrent business practice, for fear that their future productions will be boycotted by other agents and managers. "The [player] who plays by the rules is the one who gets shafted."

Instead, stage show audiences are often subjected to, and have to suffer through a slew of "yute a try a ting", while waiting for the headliners to take the stage.

These occurrences provoke comment on another practice, essentially borrowed from the Dancehall and out of its appropriate cultural space, that has become a feature of many stage shows - artistes bringing on numerous unscheduled acts (almost infinitum) during their stint on stage, many times to the utter boredom of most members of the audience.

All the same, I must admit that every now and again, during these charades, I have witnessed artistes bring on a stage guest during their performances, only to be upstaged and outclassed by that unknown act. In these circumstances, it becomes quite hilarious to watch the scheduled act try to recover the microphone, composure and audience attention.

These are some issues, urgent of debate within the music fraternity, since we are at variance from the international norms on these matters and it does irk international promoters and audiences and veer them away from booking our acts. In these cases, Reggae acts from other islands and countries are given preference where our talent and authenticity should naturally give us the edge.

The Jamaican people who pay to attend these shows must begin to let their voices be heard on these matters, while demanding that promoters use more objective criteria in developing their line-up and running order. For far too long, we have allowed our standards to be subverted and whittled away because we are unprepared to "get up, stand up for our rights", as Reggae icon Peter Tosh consistently encouraged us to do. No struggle is painless and victory comes at a price.

Over the last few days, I discussed this issue with a number of music industry personages. I was consistently cautioned, even by close associates, not to introduce the subject publicly, because I might prejudice my own short-term self-interest. If however, we want to improve the planning and organisation of live shows in this country on the eve of a renaissance, we must again go back to respecting some basic principles and ethics.

This, to a great extent, is what is holding back the potential of Reggae/Dancehall music and its practitioners. It is not that we do not have the talent in abundance, creativity or determination to succeed, instead we are hampered by poor business standards and strategies, as well as disregard for morality, ethics and codes of conduct.

I make no claim to be any paragon of virtue, but I do believe that it is incumbent on all of us to seek to protect the integrity of the Reggae music industry. In this regard, its main players and supporters have a special responsibility to take the lead in rebalancing and restructuring the scheme of things, including how we conduct our business affairs.

On a much more pleasant issue, I boldly predicted that Damian 'Junior Gong' Marley would win the Reggae Grammy for the album Welcome To Jamrock. In fact, he bettered this by also winning the Grammy for Best Alternative/Urban Performance.

I wish to wholeheartedly congratulate Damian on these accomplishments. While all the other nominees were also deserving of their nominations, it was always obvious that Welcome To Jamrock was way out front in terms of worldwide appeal and impact.

This time, locally, there has been no controversy about the selected winner, or the anticipated cynicism implying that his Marley genealogy added weight to his chances. The title song is a song of its time.

Big Up Junior! If I might give you some advice, too often our acts win one award and suddenly take off into the stratosphere, do silly things, change their address, their lifestyle, their producers, their managers, their friends- remember, "the higher monkey climb, the more him expose". Stay grounded; remember where you are coming from and what brought you here.

Please see this as a milestone on your career path and use it as a stepping stone to further successes. One Love, Uncle Charles.

PS Welcome back, Tim and Zola. Joining the team gets us to comfort zone and completes the karmic circle.

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Charles H.E. Campbell
Sunday, February 05, 2006

Do you know what I love about Jamaicans? They refuse to be left behind in any way, shape or form. On Thursday, January 26, opening night of the Air Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival, a lady sitting to my left commented, "Look at all these 'wannabes', dem not the usual jazz and blues crowd at all. This whole affair has been spoilt!" I estimate that this was the largest opening night to date for the nine-year-old festival.

There were lots of first-time black, working class patrons mingling freely with the aristocrats, captains of industry, senior politicians and sundry others. By the way, the commentator above was also black, but she was being squired by a red skin, 'soft haired' (Lebanese-type) Jamaican Don Quixote. Her girlfriend, who sported braided natural hair, did not speak one single sentence of proper English, but.

The point is, the flood gates opened on that Thursday night for Air Jamaica Jazz and Blues Fest and I bet the organisers ain't feelin' no pain. The winning formula that began two years ago with country music star Kenny Rogers and Alicia Keys and continued last year with Dionne Warwick, Roberta Flack, Norah Jones and Toots and the Maytals, has this year paid off handsomely for Walter Elmore and his team.

Even while provoking the ire of jazz purists, without the infusion of the pop genre, this festival would not today be the tremendous success that it has become since Walter took control of the project. This is a commercial reality that the minority in the audience who do not welcome the broader class mix and the participation of these and others like Bounty Killer's cameo, will simply have to live with.

For instance, on Thursday night, with about 7,000 patrons present, Morgan Heritage proved their 'meckle' that they are right up there in terms of showmanship, stage craft and musical genius with people like Puerto Rican jazz flautist, Nestor Torres and R&B sensation John Legend. These three shared the limelight on this the opening night of the three day long festival, and the audience showed equal appreciation. Another great performance, Morgan Heritage! Your act gets better every time.

Many Montegonians who had stayed away in previous years were out in their numbers, lapping up the sophisticated atmosphere which before had only attracted an almost 'purely' exclusive middle-class audience. In my estimation, that is one thing about good music and a good blend of all classes, united in love and appreciation of excellent performances, spanning multiple genres, the vibe was exhilarating and left us all on a high.

As my classmate and lifelong friend C P Henriques commented, "When Marguerittaville close down, den yuh know su'mn a draw de crowd." The organisers deserve high praise for delivering a first class international production.

On Friday night, R&B crooner turned reverend, Al Green who closed the evening's offerings, was great, but maybe should have performed before Air Supply. An artiste of his experience should not have started his set with two largely unknown songs.

Air Supply, however, did not waste time in rocking the estimated 12,000 persons present. From their first song, they served up hit after hit non-stop. The ladies were rushing to the front of the stage, some in joyous tears - when lead singer Graham Russell came into the audience, the place literally erupted.

Bo Diddley was very much in the vein of Monty Alexander and taught the youth present the history of world music. Did you know that this is what inspired Elvis Presley's Rock and Roll phenomenon? However, at the time, only White artistes could sell its records so Elvis' success also spelt the eventual success of people like Bo Diddley.

UB40 has done a very similar thing for Reggae music, using their international visibility and success to gain a wider audience for Reggae with their hit covers of Jamaican classics like Wear You To The Ball, Many Rivers To Cross and Eric Donaldson's Cherry Oh Baby. Lord Creator, who penned and was the original performer of Kingston Town, possibly UB40's most popular cover to date, has always maintained that he has been living from the royalties that UB40 has generated. All the same, it's now safe to say that we have come along a far way in terms of racial acceptance and tolerance.

Saturday, which featured a mass audience of approximately 15,000 people and the closing night of the festival, belonged to Patti LaBelle. Her precursors Maxi Priest and James Ingram did themselves well, but the obvious taker was Ms LaBelle whose commanding stage presence, rich sonorous voice, drama and string of hits had every member of the audience standing and singing along. It was a tremendous feeling to be in the audience sharing that sea of human emotions and harmony. kinda like Reggae Sunsplash, huh?

By far, the most interesting feature of the festival this year was the impressive stage, with new intelligent lights and state-of-the art Meyer front-of-house system. The personnel enhanced this with their relatively speedy set changes.

I was particularly impressed with the electronic backdrop which continually projected images of the performances as well as still images such as Al Green's infamous shirtless album cover for his Greatest Hits Volume One. This has certainly lifted the level of technical production locally.

With the recent mass introduction of personal folding chairs, promoters will have to find a solution to maintaining pathways for crowd flow. The tussle to move around at the festival was unbearable.

In fact, during their performance on Friday night it was obvious that Russell of Air Supply, feeding off the audience wanted to penetrate deeper, however, because there was no unimpeded pathway, he did not come.

Thank God we did not have a medical emergency or an occurrence like last year when the public address stack began to come down. This could have created a serious crisis. The narrow pathway leading from the gate to the amphitheatre was a bottleneck of bodies and proved a recurring nightmare throughout the event.

One of the spin-offs of being a public figure is that you suddenly get voluntary spokespersons telling people your views of them, or on issues discussed privately. They of course, are free to quote you completely out of context. On the upside, it certainly gets the word out of FOC and sometimes saves a lot of unproductive time.

They say that in show business "any publicity is good publicity". For those people who really want to know my views about the social responsibility of the artiste fraternity, please read my published articles, Self-Regulate or Perish (The Sunday Observer, June 12, 2005) and TOK TKO'd (The Sunday Observer, January 8, 2006). The owners of the past plantation system continue to delude themselves and have not yet realised that the 'animals' have taken over.

Ronnie. I shall always respect and honour your contribution. Furthermore, you remain my older brother and mentor and deserve the highest praise and an appropriate tribute, never mind your reticence.

Wayne Murray, owner/operator of True Tone, tells me that nothing was wrong with the public address system at Third World's 'Committed', held at King's House on December 27 and Smirnoff Experience, headlined by Sean Paul, held on December 23 - it was the engineers provided by the artistes to mix the house system that produced the poor sound. John gives me the same reason for the sound at Air Jamaica Jazz and Blues on Friday night.

Meanwhile, the personnel responsible for refuelling the generator at Rebel Salute fell asleep during Burning Spear's performance, causing the stage lights to go out on him before he finished his set.

Aaah. the vagaries of this business. Come on guys, sound engineers employed to international artistes must keep up with the new technical advances in public address systems, especially the features of mixing boards which you may be required to use at first class events.

While you may know the various songs and intonations of them and therefore hold exclusive authority when your artiste is on stage, you have to polish up your act and not make your audiences continue to suffer. As is now the case and in most instances, the providers of the systems take the flak for your inefficiencies,

In my view, there has to be a re-balancing of the ownership of this area of production on these large events. The promoter's/supplier's engineers must have at least equal authority in such a scenario because ultimately, they are responsible for all aspects of the production. In the end, it is really all about what you hear.

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GROUNDINGS

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Sunday, 19 February 2006

Unwanted Marriages

Sunday, 5 February 2006

Wannabes