You got homesick from early on?
No, I wasn’t homesick, yunno. Because, you see, if I was coming here, haven’t got anyone here or from my family, probably I would get a little bit homesick. But because my brother was here, and my brother is still here… well, at the moment now he’s in Jamaica, right, but he’s coming very soon. So, I never got homesick, because all I wanted was to get away and try and build on something. Build on something, build on my talent. Build up more, get more education, y’know, learning to speak properly conversationalwise and also my words, so when I sing people can hear what I’m singin’. It’s not like some singers, they’re singin’ and you cannot understand, you can’t hear them coming up with the words, you don’t hear, they just ‘cut’ the words and sing like that, what you’d call ‘pronounciation’. That’s what it’s all about.
Right, the phrasing and all that.
You see, pronounciation. And it gives me great, great, great pleasure to come, that I could get those little bit of tips, y’know, get those little bit of tips from here, there and wherever.
What was some of the first recordings you worked on after arriving there? You did more stuff with Blackwell, or was it Shallit you hooked up with?
Yeah, well, before I did… Shallit.
All right, Shallit at Blue Beat Records, Melodisc.
With Shallit because… ah (chuckles). I met up with Laurel Aitken, and we did a couple of songs together, one called ‘Stockwell To Waterloo’.
(Chuckles)
Yes (laughs)! And ‘Have Mercy Mr Percy (Mr Percy Have Mercy On Me)’, that was me and Laurel Aitken. Those two songs that we did for Shallit, it was great, y’know, it was great.
We’re talking R&B now, not ska?
Ah! Yeah, all R&B, Rhythm & Blues, man. (Sings) ‘Have mercy Mr Percy, Mr Percy have mercy on me…’.
What was the scene like for Jamaican music at this point in London? You had the Flamingo club, Marquee?
Yeah, you had the Flamingo.
The Four Aces, or was that later?
No, Four Aces was later on. Because, funny enough, my first stage show I did in England was at the Stratford Town Hall, East London.
I know you did some work with a band called The Big Four, was this later on?
That’s later on, yes. That’s later on, that is around like ’65 when I went to Paris.
The Big Four was primarily a white outfit who played pop, R&B, a variety, I think.
Yes. I went to Paris in 1965, and how I get to Paris; I went to the Roaring Twenties one night, and this guy said someone was looking for me, so when I got round to it and this man just comes to me, and says… this guy introduce me and say, well, this is ‘Mr So and So’ and blah blah blah, etcetera, they are lookin’ for a singer with a band, to sing blues and whatever, t’ing like that, right. If I would like the job? So I said yes, just like that! Just like that, just like that. And I used to have books, I used to travel with books with songs of American artists and my own things, you understan’ what I mean. So he says: “When can you go to Paris?” I said: “When would you like me to go to Paris?” He said next week.
(Chuckles)
And there I go (laughs)! Because something came up, something came up so it gives me an opportunity to… was to leave, you understan’ what I mean. I can’t go into those details anymore, you understand, but it give me an opportunity for me to leave. So I went, I went. I was working in a club called the Curosamba. It used to be on Rue de Rennes off the Franglais de Parade. And then when I finished with the club, I start work in a next one called the Billbucky. And then I worked in the Blue Note, and then come back to Curosamba. Because, it was owned by an African man, from Nigeria, a very nice guy, veeery nice… oh, “‘Samba, ‘Samba, ‘Samba”. That man, yeah. Oohhh boy! The treatment you get, good treatment from certain people when you do ‘Samba, y’know. Curosamba is no longer – the club is, but it’s a different name now. He sold it out, he sold it now. So I used to work with The Big Four, and all the guys are English. One of the guys’ name is Howard Casey, and Dave, Dave Sparrow him used to play… no, Carl! Carl was the drummer, very good drummer that boy. “Chow, doo, doo!” But it was a good band, it was a very good band.
What sort of material was on your repertoire? Ballads, pop, all that stuff?
We played blues, ballads, R&B, classics, y’know. All – you name it! Because I do those things really, because I do those things down there already. Because now people hear you singin’ and hear you go on a lovers rock show and you go up there, y’know, and you have some people to go ‘oohhh’, they don’t want to hear them artist there, you see. But that it doesn’t matter. When I go to classic place to work, I work. I go to classic place, I will work. Because I can sing almost any song, the only thing I can’t sing is opera.
Mmm, that would be a bit too hard, eh?
(Chuckles) It would be a bit too hard, y’know, because one of these days I said to myself ‘Before I go I must sing a reggae in opera’.
(Laughs) Good luck!
I’m tellin’ you, I’m tellin’ you! I said before I go I have to sing a regular (rigoletto?) in opera, because everything I do from Jamaica is the first, the first, the first, first, first, first. But unrecognised (pauses)… by the government. I’ve seen artists that comes after me, looooong long after me, they can’t even hold a range of a chord today, and they’re giving them big awards and all them things! And neither myself nor Bunny Lee get nothing!