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Rico Rodriguez: Biography | Bibliography | Discography
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DK: What did you do in Jamaica after you left the UK in 1983?
RR: I would say I was just doing research in music. I wasn't really performing on stage shows, or anything like that. Only one show I have done in the eight years since I am not in England was Sunsplash, Reggae Sunsplash '89.
DK: What that a Skatalites reunion, or on your own?
RR: On my own, with a different band from Negril. Synergy got this band to back me, we did about four songs. It went very well. A lot of people was glad to hear me playing again. A lot of people thought that I stopped.
DK: Are you going to be playing out regularly now?
RR: Well, for the time being, I've been doing a little work with Bad Manners. They have been doing a little work in Stoke. I have been touring with them. I think they are going to Bristol, and also I will go. They are going to Japan, and I will be going with them. And there is also a band in France, in Bordeaux. They want me to come and do twelve dates with them in July. They have a band by the name of Raggamuffin. They want to back me, they will be the backing band in Bordeaux, and they will play my music.
DK: Have you been to Japan before?
RR: Yes, with the Specials, in 1980, from May to June.
DK: I'd like to know about the band that backed you the other night at Gaz's Rock 'n' Blues club in London, particularly the percussionist.
RR: The percussionist is my loyal friend from Jamaica, Tony Utah, one of the best percussionists in the world. It was an honour for me to have him to play with the other night. The saxophone player, there is a lot of interest about him. When I came to England, he came from Jamaica to study, and he go back to Jamaica. Fortunately, he met us, through friends of myself, and other friends, and he decided to take up music. He has been playing, ever since I know him back home, about 31 years ago. He has really developed on the saxophone. I would like to have him to play with me whenever I perform, Michael Rose. He used to play with Aswad. The drummer is the drummer of Gaz's band, and the keyboard player is the bass player of Gaz's band, and the guitar player is the guitar player of Gaz's band (the Trojans). The other guitar player is Mick Jiggs, he is my regular guitar player. It was happy for him as well to see me come back to England and play again.
DK: How do find working with people like Bad Manners?
RR: A long time ago, when The Specials used to be very popular, when they were making a lot of hit songs, I met him (Buster Bloodvessel) at BBC television station. He was a very nice person, full of fun, a happy person. Coming here and hearing him on the phone, it was very good for me too, to hear people who are happy like myself, who love music. We is into music to give to music, not to take anything out of music. I get on with musicians more who want to put something into the music, not for those who want to take something out of music. I think Buster (Bloodvessel) is the kind of person like I am, he loves music. We get on very well. I was happy to be playing with him, and still is.
DK: About your style, there is something I feel that separates you from the other trombonists, like even...
RR: Like even who? (Laughs)
DK: Well, certainly Don Drummond, but even Vin Gordon, or some of the later trombonists who might have been emulating your style. It was also clear when you were playing the other night: On the majority of the songs, it seemed to me that you leave a lot of space, but later, you fill the song with mad flourishes of notes. It's amazing to watch you do it, it's amazing that in 1991 you still have the lung power. Can you point to some kind of inspiration for this style? Does it come from inside, or from observing others?
RR: First of all, we listen to a lot of great, great trombone players like, for instance, Don Drummond, JJ Johnson, Curtis Fuller, and lots of others. That is the outer side of listening. But then, maybe the life that I live, after, I would say living a quite comfortable life in England for 23 years...not for 23 years, but, meeting The Specials, and they were so successful...It was very good to be with a band that was so successful. I enjoyed a lot of goodness. Giving up all that after they broke up, I went to Jamaica. I did a lot of research into music, I studied more. I would say I practiced more than before, because I know what I want to practice now. Before it was just feeling and sound. Now it's knowledge of music, the feeling, the sound. To have lived in Jamaica for the past eight years, and to feel what the Jamaican people really go through in life, that is the inspiration I have got for the past eight years. That's why my playing is a bit different than before, a more advanced style, more developed, I would say. I was not working for eight years, just practicing. I could see the way of life of the Jamaican people more. Maybe the feeling I got from seeing so much suffering has inspired me. It's a lot of inner, more than outer, you know? If you live in England for such a long time, you really don't know how life is like in Jamaica. Because I have been there for the last eight years, I haven't worked, I haven't performed, musically I was just practicing. Maybe I have a lot inside that I haven't brought out even yet. Maybe that other first night was just an opening for me. I appreciate very much Gaz for giving me that break to perform. I think, going on, I will be able to perform songs that the crowd have not even heard yet. I think it will be better, it will get better every time. Some of the songs I really wanted to perform, it would have been too short of a time, I only get two practices with the musicians. Only twice did we rehearse.
DK: But you played for over two and a half hours! And you're trying to tell me it was too short?
RR: I would have liked to have gone on to other things, like playing a few perspirados, mambos, you know? I know one or two perspirados that are very interesting, and people haven't heard them for 35 years. Those musics are still in me, it's just to get the chance to perform them.
DK: Tell me about your work with Prince Buster in the days of the "Judge Dread" trilogy.
RR: Buster came to England in the '60s, and I used to be around Blue Beat records. Because I was in contact with Mr. (Emile) Shallet, he told me that Buster was coming. One day when I was around, Buster came up to me and said he had a rhythm, 'Judge Dread,' and he wants me to play the trombone, as I was a man who was into the music from a very long time. So that's the way it was fashioned. He took me to the studio, it was Vic (Kearey)'s studio in Elephant and Castle, Old Kent Road. We did that solo in the night, and he was very pleased, so we went on that we did a few shows at the radio, and a few more stage shows. I did a live radio broadcast with Buster, and a television appearance as well. As I did know him from a long time ago in Jamaica, he was really happy to see me, as a friend.
DK: Can you remember any tunes you did for Buster before you came to Britain?
RR: Well, I would say I did about a hundred records for Buster before I come to England. He was a mentor for Duke Reid, so he used to come to us and say he wanted us to do some recording for himself. Maybe he was doing it for Duke Reid, but it didn't matter to us. We were young musicians, and we wanted to go on the records. We did a lot of recording for himself before I came to England, too much to mention. I don't even know the names of them. Plus, with Georgie Fame, we did a lot of recording with Georgie Fame over here as well. 'Must I Forever Be a Begger,' 'The Lion Speaks,' 'Wash Wash.' It's Georgie Fame playing that keyboards on 'Wash Wash.' I can say for Prince Buster, I do nearly two hundred records, just for Prince Buster alone.
DK: In Jamaica, who else did you work for?
RR: I was working for Coxsone, Duke Reid, the Kong brothers as well, numerous people. I used to play for every sound system. They have sound system contests, so they get you to make one instrumental for them, so we used to make a lot of different instrumentals for sound systems, too numerous to mention. There are so many sound systems.
DK: About Don Drummond, would you say you had more of a friendship than a rivalry or competition?
RR: Yes, because people always compete us. But he was my friend, and I was his friend. Even when he got sick, for instance, I wasn't feeling good about it. For when I lost him as a friend, I want to leave Jamaica. Especially when he went into the mental home, I wasn't around to even visit him, for I was trying to catch a ship to go to England. The most that I know on trombone is what he taught me. He was the only musician that I could sit and practice with every day. More than any other musician from Jamaica, he was my friend. If anyone was telling me about a closer friend to Drummond, I was one of the closest musician friends he had. I got a lot from Don Drummond.
DK: I want to ask about your connection with Count Ossie.
RR: My bosom brother that. He is my brother. He is the only person I really talked to in this society that really loved me. Ossie really loved me. If he got ten pounds, he would give me five out of it. It's a lot of us, maybe fourteen playing in the band, and he got ten pounds, he want to give me five out of it! I tell him, no, you share the ten with the band! When I was coming to England, he didn't feel too good. You could see the sadness. When I told him I was coming in '61, December, Mystic Revelation was very sad. When they looked around amongst the musicians after me, they didn't find no dedicated ones, as myself and Drummond. I mean dedicated. We weren't playing for tourists in Montego Bay, or Port Antonio, or Negril. We were just in Kingston, playing among the community. That is why we are so popular, because we have never worked for no big bands in Jamaica. Drummond maybe played with big bands, but I am one of the few musicians who have never played one iota with a band. We are just popular musicians in Kingston. That's how I got my popularity. I am always where the sufferers are, and where the dangers are, I am always there. I don't live out of it, I live into it. Maybe that's where I get my good musical buzz from, to see people suffering, and living it myself. Sometimes they used to say to me, 'Rico, why do you stay in Jamaica? You are international, why don't you go away?' I used to tell them 'No, it's okay, I want to feel the suffering with you. I want to live it.' I lived in Wareika Hills for the last eight years, from '83. I wasn't really into the musical things that they were doing. When I went on Sunsplash, maybe they come to see me. They come to see me in the hills, that's the way I came to play on Sunsplash. I wasn't performing for no shows. You would never look in a Jamaican paper and see my name going on a show. I weren't into that, I was into my own community. That's where I originally came from. I used to go there from '76 until '82, and then I went in '83. I was always in touch with that people, and they love me a lot. They don't like to see me stay in the area, in so much suffering, and troubles. They want me to leave, but I stay it out for eight years. I couldn't believe that I could take so much suffering! (Laughs) I am happy that I have passed the test.
DK: Your album "Man From Warieka" was a very different album. How did you feel about it at the time (1976), and in retrospect?
RR: I would say that was the first album I was able to perform to the best of my ability. To have a good producer like...what's his name? If you look at the album, you will see the producer's name. I forget his name, but he is a very good producer. He's a musician. When I was in Jamaica, we had Robbie and Sly, and Ansel Collins. The producer got the best musicians to do this album. The first things that came up to me were the things that I family used to play in Wareika Hills, with Count Ossie and Don Drummond and the other musicians. I'd say that was my first album, with a lot of jazz in it, and creative element. If you notice, I don't solo a lot. I put more melodies into the thing than solos. In the future albums that I am going to do, I am going to put a lot more solos. I have developed since that time.
DH: You talk a lot about suffering. Is the suffering around you inspiring?
RR: To be honest, the people who promote shows, for instance, in Jamaica are not from Wareika Hills. The people who work on the radio are not from Wareika Hills. The politicans don't live in Wareika Hills. The development comes from people to people. There are no promoters in Wareika Hills. Everything that we do is from a natural point of view. We have no support from no quarters. The music we play, it's pleasant, because we are not into money. We are not into business. The music that we play is a cultural music, it's a thing that we feel. Most of the music in Jamaica is business music, or one particular (political) party may have deejays who they support. This particular party is in power, so the show that they put on, it's pure deejays on it. From our quarters, in our community, we respect the musician more than the deejay. In their quarters, the people who deal with money and big business, they put the deejay first, and the musicians second. What I say, if they want to promote deejays from the point of view, musically, they should have instrumental musicians as well like us, who performs along with the deejay. They don't do it that way, they cut the musicians out completely. They put the deejay first, because the deejay can speak, can utter phrases to suit a political party that an instrumentalist cannot perform with words to the crowd. You have the title of the instrumental, but a man with a voice, a deejay can say things to promote his or her party. So the deejay thing has become a political element in the scene in Jamaica. Musicians are treated like shoeshine boys. For me, I am a Rastaman who give out against society utterly. We is Rastaman, we don't defend PNP or JLP or whatever P, we defend people. No one owns music. People with money will speculate about music, but the musicians have the final argument. When I say I wasn't one of the musicians who was on the stage show in Jamaica, whatever shows, I abstained from it. By abstaining from these businesses, I was able to feel what hunger was like, and suffering was like, not earning money for years and years. I feel, when you go through a phase like that, you see life on a different plane than for one who is working all the time, getting money, and filling up his belly with food. I look to Jamaica as my homeland, only that we are not accepted in Jamaica. We are very intelligent people. No one can read for us, or write for us. We speak for ourselves. Sometimes we don't have to speak, we make the instruments speak for us.
DH: That's part of the point I wanted to make. To me, the "Man From Wareika" album has a sense of joy in it.
RR: That's right. When I say suffering, one has to suffer to feel what suffering is like, so as to enjoy happiness. If you enjoy happiness, when sadness comes along, one will be very insane. But when one knows suffering, one can accept happiness. If you are a regular worker in music in Jamaica, you have no suffering. You work very regular, you have money. For our community, we don't have no support in our community. I don't even think the guy on the radio would come up there and try to speak with us. Maybe he is afraid, thinking that we are all savages in Wareika Hills. They would be afraid to come into Wareika Hills to have an interview with us. That's what I'm trying to show you. We have to build ourselves from that angle, for us to get recognition outside from there. I think the first time we ever get recognition - that's why the government of Jamaica respected us - was when the University College of the West Indies came to Wareika Hills and did research among us. They found out that we are one of the most intelligent people in the stratosphere of Jamaica. Because we disagree with a lot of the politicians' way of life, we have a community for ourselves. We don't mix up with the other people.
DH: Was it musical research?
RR: Musical research, and developmental aspects of the youths in the area, educationally. We have a school in Wareika Hills as well, you know. So we have recognition through our good works, musically and educationally, and social development. We get recognition from the University College of the West Indies, the Professor recommended us to the government that we are people helping our community. So don't think that all of us are savages, and come out with the guns and bayonets and try to smash us. We have acquired a little property in Wareika Hills that we call Mystic Revelation of Rastafari Headquarters. We are respected now.
DK: Do you still have Grounation ceremonies up there?
RR: Yeah, we still have Grounation up there, each and every Sunday. They play drums, and sing songs of praise. I would say I am one of the most regular musicians, I am always there.
DK: Do you play on Count Ossie's "Grounation" record - that triple album?
RR: No, not on that. We were on the ones before. We were on the ones for Blue Beat. These ones are a new era of musicians, with Cedric Brooks.
DK: Is it still the case in Jamaica that Jamaican music doesn't get much radio airplay?
RR: I wouldn't say that a lot of Jamaican music isn't played in Jamaica. A lot of Jamaican music is played on the radio, but it's the pick, it's what they pick to play. Maybe the deejay wants to play this particular record, but management tells him what to play. He has to play whatever he is told to play. Maybe if he tried to play anything else, he would lose his job.
DK: What about the cut to the Ijahman Levi song on "Man from Wareika"?
RR: No, I introduced Ijahman to Island records. When he heard this song, he wanted to sing something into it, so he sang something into it. People told me that he made it for himself! (Laughs) Everyone loves it. The producer was such a good musician, he played guitar, drums, piano, bass, one of the best producers. Maybe he got a lot out of recording my album.
DK: What about the dub version of this LP which was issued on Ghetto Rockers?
RR: They released five hundred copies of it. I personally had a copy of it, and someone from Helsinki came to interview me once. He was telling me how he would like to have one, so I gave him the one that I have. He was very happy to have it. He said to me, why don't I come to Helsinki and play? A lot of people like the music in Helsinki. I tell him I have never traveled in Finland. I forget him name, but when I used to live in Hammersmith, he came to interview me, and he wanted me to come to Finland to perform. Now that I'm getting together with a band, it's possible that someday I might go to Finland. All I need maybe now is a manager, a manager who loves what I'm doing, that has interest into my music. But I haven't found him yet, or her.
DK: Did you find your arrangement with Island to be satisfactory at that time?
RR: No. Right now, I have misgivings about it. I would like to re-check my contract with them. Now that I have grown up, and now that I have realized the business side of music - for we are musicians from the heart more than from the business - because we are musicians from the heart, I was short-changed by Island records. They didn't pay me properly. In other words, they robbed me. I cannot tell you what I have ever gotten out of them. Maybe I get $1,000 cash from them for the album, and that's all. I am thinking now of re-checking, I want to re-check that deal with Island records. I got no royalties out of Island.
DK: Do you know who mixed the "Warieka Dub" LP?
RR: It may be Dick Cottel, or maybe the producer.
DK: What did you think of the way it sounded?
RR: It was a bit different to me, it sounded different. They are always trying new tactics. Maybe I found it very interesting, hearing it not full, like the first one. Maybe a set of people love the dub version too, for some people love to hear the old. Previously, what you said about what my trombone playing is like, maybe the way that I think, and the way that I practice, I am not really...you cannot be certain that I am going to play now. (Laughs) Jerry Dammers said he loves my style, because I am always ready, you don't know when I am going to play. He likes when I ease a bit, you know? (Laughs) He said I have a delayed action, he likes my delayed action on trombone. I tell him I don't play trombone like a trombonist, I play trombone like saxophone. I love Charlie Parker too much, and John Coltrane. I really never studied the trombone technique. Maybe if I studied the trombone technique, I wouldn't be so popular. I would have been sounding like one of the other technicians. Because I don't play with that amount of technique, it's more soul, feeling.
DK: You went to Alpha School as well, didn't you?
RR: Yes, I was in Alpha School.
DK: What can you say about anything you learned in those days? What was that experience like for you?
RR: First of all, as a junior, I listened to Drummond, and all these great musicians like Vernon Muller, Ossie Hall, Tony Brown. They were the advanced musicians. Because they were so advanced, at night, they were playing at clubs and all that. We always want to be as good as they are. But the hardest part was in the days, when they were taking us up for lessons. The bandmaster, he had to write a lot of scores, and arrangements. Our friends used to teach us. It's like a competition, a contest. All the juniors want to be as good as the seniors. We didn't have much joy, 'cause we didn't have an instrument. To get an instrument, you got to be very excellent. Those who cannot play so good don't have no instrument. The instruments are only for those who can play very well. Only when they are not playing, you get to play. When they are playing it, there is no instrument for you, so the competition was so high. A lot of development come through that. You have to grasp to be able to practice the instrument. If you have ten trombone players, maybe you have four trombones. To get a trombone, you have to be better than two or three people. The upbringing was very hard. Not really happy, but very hard. Listening to people like Clifford Brown, for instance, and the Modern Jazz Quartet at that time, and Charlie Parker, those were our chief musicians. Listening to those musicians at that early stage was like magic. So we learned from that age that what these people was playing was magic. To achieve this magic, one of the world's very hard (things). We could only get a half-day practice, for in school, we couldn't get a whole day's practice. We don't go to school all day, like the average person. We go to school half day, music half day. The chance that you get to be good, you have to be very good. You didn't have a whole day to play music. The little chance you get, you did as much as you could. That have a lot to do with our style. We listen to a lot of Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton. When we were coming up, it was Swing Era. The (senior) musicians were better than us, they were playing clubs outside. We used to listen to the rehearsals, the jazz rehearsals. We said to ourselves, 'Boy, I wonder if I'll ever get good like that man there!' (Laughs) Our upbringing was very enlightening.
DK: You play on the Specials' version of "A Message to You Rudy." Do you also play on Dandy's original?
RR: Yes.
DK: Dandy actually cut two versions, are you playing on both?
RR: Yes. I was speaking to Laurel Aitken the other day. When I first came to England, Laurel Aitken used to give me sessions, for Blue Beat. The only other person who used to give me sessions away from him was Dandy. Dandy would come regularly at my door and knock me, and give me a lot of sessions. When I was thinking that there wasn't going to be any work, Dandy would always come. I didn't really know how big Dandy was at that time. He was doing 'Suzanne, Beware of the Devil,' I was playing on those songs. After a while, Dandy was becoming very popular. As far as I can tell, I was recording for Dandy for a longer time.
DK: Had you been working on an assembly line in the UK?
RR: Since me came in England, me deal with a woman, you know? She produce some children from me, and music sometimes, the kind of musician that I am...I am not one to go and tell people I am this, and I am that, and I'm begging some work. I prefer just to practice. Maybe because I was having financial problems, I had to go to work, to suffice the family. I went to Ford's motor company, but I discovered that it was too strenuous. That used to be two weeks day, and two weeks night. When I try to work at night, it's very difficult for me. Music is a pleasure, but to work, I couldn't cope with it. After two months, I packed it in.
DK: I heard you played in a band called The Undivided in the '70s, backing Gene Rondo.
RR: Yes, it was a group of Jamaican musicians, in North London. They got a deal with EMI to do an album. I used to really play with that band, and sometimes when the Wailers were in town, in the '70s, we used to play at Carnival. I remember one particular incident. We were playing at the corner of Lancaster Road and All Saints Road, and we were playing some Don Drummond music. We looked across the road...I had just finished my solo, and the rhythm was still bubbling, the saxophone player was playing. The Wailers were standing up across there. I touch my friend and I say, 'Boy, the man them like the music across there,' because everyone was looking at us intently. Bob Marley and Carlton Barrett and Family Man and everyone was really there with us, they didn't leave until we take a break. But I used to play with them, and we used to back Roy Shirley too. We used to do quite a few shows, but I wouldn't say I was a member of the band. I can never remember that I was ever a member of a band.
DK: Not even The Skatalites?
RR: No. I play with a band, but I have never been a member of a band. (Laughs) I am free, freelance.
DK: How about your last solo LP, "That Man is Forward"?
RR: Doing that LP, it was after Island. I say my dealings with Island came to disaster, for there wasn't any good feeling with me and Island. Maybe because I wasn't a singer, I wasn't driving flash cars, and I didn't get plenty money, they didn't look at me with no great heights. Face it man, if you don't have money, people no really into you. You have to have money. The interest also goes with the artist with the record company. So I didn't really get a good interest from the record company. Being with The Specials, playing with The Specials was a good atmosphere. I got a lot of fans by playing with The Specials. They were the ones who made it possible for me to do this album. Jerry Dammers, he was the one who sorted this deal with Chrysalis for me, along with the third one, still we're trying to get a deal with Chrysalis. Meeting Island for the first time, I thought they were real nice, the people treat me very nice within the organisation. But I think that they take my album out of the catalogue as well. I don't think they like me so much personally, as a person. At the same time, they are releasing a CD of 'Man From Warieka.' I would like to re-check my whole business deals, and if it's not good, we're going to have to go to a whole different phase. The deal wasn't proper all the fine prints. Now that I've joined the Musicians' Union, they are entitled to show me the right things. They will show you if the contract is good or not. Before, because we are of the heart more than of the head, the people more of the head into music, they are the ones taking the things out of music. It's like us who have the heart, we are the artists in the music. Because I never get a good deal with Island, and now I get a deal with Chrysalis, I feel a lot better with Chrysalis, for Chrysalis even let me get publishing. Island don't give me no publishing. They just take away everything for themselves. I've really felt good across with Chrysalis. I'd really like to do a next album with Chrysalis. They are good-hearted people. They publish my music even in films, like 'Bar Fly.' Island, they put one of my tracks in a film, 'Ramble.' It's not even people from Island who did that, it's the man who produced the film, Dickie Jobson. He was a friend of mine, and he wanted to do it, to get some money. Even that, they don't give me no money off of it. So Island, when I came back to England, they just told me to go to the studio, and just do a few recordings for them. I was just barely putting down the tracks. That's the tape (indicates new master tapes). They gave it back to me, and told me I must try somebody else.
DK: Are you still in contact with most of The Skatalites?
RR: No, I don't keep in touch with them, because when they formed that band, they didn't want me. It was a professional jealousy, we have professional jealousy amongst each other for it. Maybe because I have been all over the world, and is more popular, maybe they are afraid I would come into the band and become very powerful into it. So they get a younger trombone player in to do the work. When I go to New York, they put my name in the thing to say I was going to perform with them. I said, 'Don't use my name into your things, because I have my own things doing. I am an individual, you are The Skatalites.' What I previously said, too, I would like them, The Skatalites, to hear what I am doing with my own performance. If possible, we would have a contest. We contest it live, I'd like to have a showdown with Skatalites, right? (Laughs) They are telling everyone that they are the ones who started this music. No. Skatalites was formed in '65. Myself and Lester Sterling was making a lot of records before The Skatalites was formed, so get the record straight. We are the first, we are the legendary ones of the music, not The Skatalites. They came after us, and how long did they last? They didn't last long. Professional jealousy broke the band up again. They have no co-ordination. If they had co-ordination, they would still be playing together. They still keep the name Skatalites, but they have different people into it. Like I said to you previously, people who don't suffer like us can't perform that sound. It's a sufferer's sound, man. No middle class Jamaicans can play the music we play. It's a ghetto sound that we play out of instruments. Real suffering ghetto sound. It sound happy, yes, for it's relief! (Laughs) So I don't care what they do. They may end up in a band, they may just have rhythm section, they don't have no brass. Or they may end up with machines trying to play trombones and trumpets and saxophones. That's the stage that I see they're going into now. Especially Island Records, they're just machines. When I come to England, I see a lot of musicians around Island, like George Lee, and a lot of good African musicians. But over the period, coming back and seeing it's just machines take over, business music. But when they hear us play, they cannot buy us, yes? We are not for the asking, we are not for the taking. We are there to preserve this good sound of music. We've been listening to Chet Baker, Jerry Mulligan, Freddy Hubbard, all the great musicians, Art Blakey, Max Roach. We've been admiring all of these people from when we were children. Now that we are grown ups, we're going to exploit it, for we have the sound, and these business people have to go away. They have to go away out of it, and let us control this! We are not a package. I guarantee the crowd, every night they hear us play, they will hear different music. That was phase one, this is phase ten. All the time we play different music.
DH: There seemed to be a kind of co-incidence in this country between some of the early ska records that had a skinhead following, and with bands like Bad Manners later. In a certain section of the audience, the followers might be the violent, racist portion of English youth.
RR: Somewhere in the country, I went with The Specials one night. Some National Front people maybe were there, amongst the crowd. They were saying to me, why did I come to England, of all places? I said, well, oppression that I feel into my country, Jamaica, is so vicious that, though we are musicians, and whatever, we would take up arms to fight against the system that we have in Jamaica. When we get a chance to come out of Jamaica, we weren't Americanized, mentally, like a lot of Jamaicans are. They are Americanized by this lifestyle. But because we seek intelligence, and culture more, we preferred England. Me just tell them, we go anywhere in the world we want to go. There is no place that is different to us. We have to give what we have to give. For you, who is a Nationalist, they have nationalists everywhere in the world. We have nationalism in Jamaica, in England, all over the world. We cannot stop this thing. He spoke to me very well, he accepted what I said. He didn't feel any way. But that is my personal view of a National Front supporter of the music. He asked me why I come to England. So I tell him the man free to go anywhere. You have nationalism all over the world, not only England. As long as you don't bother me, you're alright, man.
DK: Did you encounter racism working for Ford in England?
RR: I feel racism from when I was a boy. In Jamaica, a black man look 'pon me and say 'Go away, you red blood claat, you red raas claat you.' I feel racism from when I was a boy. I feel it at home. It's no surprise to me anywhere, I start feeling it from Jamaica. When you're red-skinned in Jamaica, the black man, him hate you. It's a thing that I've known from when I was a child that I wasn't as black as another Jamaican, or I wasn't as Indian as a next Indian, or Chinese. I was spoken of as 'red boy'! I grew up with that reality ever since I was a kid. If an Englishman say racist remarks to me, it don't bother me. It's nothing new. Maybe if I was black, I wouldn't be having that experience in Jamaica, for instance. But because I was a red-skinned man in Jamaica, that experience was come to me as a younger man. So that don't worry me in the least, as long as a man don't touch me. I felt it as a child in Jamaica, and that is the truth! The truth is the strongest element that guides you. Sometimes, in Jamaica, someone would say, 'But Rico nah red man. Boy, he's a different kind of red man. It's like he's a black red man!' (Laughs) So that's the reality with me in Jamaica. You live with it, so you don't make it bother you. The world is full of prejudice, and you learn it at home first. You don't go out a street to learn it, you learn it inside of your house first. For instance, if some of the family is darker than some of the family, you have prejudice same way. Prejudice is worldwide. Is not just England, or South Africa, or Jamaica, it's world wide, class distinction. Maybe because I am one of the red-skinned man who didn't have a rich family, they don't look at me oppressive towards them, only from a vexation point of view they will say 'Go away, you red boy!' They don't have no hatred against me, because I'm not a landed gent, that they can have a hatred against me to say, 'Let's kill him, because he's rich, and rob him.' I don't have nothing, I just natural. (Laughs) Natural Rastaman, so nobody can envy me what I have - I don't have nothing to give bad eye! (Laughs) Racism is a thing you feel from Jamaica, you don't have to come to England to have that. Sometimes I'm there, and they say, 'You're going on like it's Jamaica you come from.' So me say 'Where me come from, then?' They believe all Jamaican people are black people, you don't have brown skinned people. (Laughs) My mother is a domestic servant in the society. She didn't come from a rich family, so she bring me up under hard conditions. She was like a servant for a family, and she used to try to bring me up on that money. My mother couldn't send me to good schools, couldn't buy me the things that would make me happy. I grow up to know my mother as a very poor woman, hard working. How the black people used to treat her as well, call her the same red-skinned like me. Whenever a black-skinned person and a white-skinned person have an argument, the black skin person looks to tell the brown one, 'Go away you red raas claat!' That's the term in Jamaica. So the first place you learn it is in your own home. Being a musician, and trying to be as good as I can with it, I have undermined all these problems. Today I'll be down, but because I develop my art, I will meet people. The places that I would go, even the people who is prejudiced against me will maybe never go there. Music is truth. You cannot go to the shop and buy a trombone or a saxophone and come home to your friend and say 'Listen to this, man. I just buy it last night.' (Laughs) It's the truth! People can't hate you for that, for you dedicate your life to that. Some people want to be rich. Well, let them have a go at being rich, that's okay. People who try to boast on me how much money they achieved in life, I just say, 'Go on man, have some more!' (Laughs) They don't have to do what I do. I would like to put more notes into my solos. Maybe if I play 3,000 notes in the last solo, maybe I would like to get 6,000 in, so I have a lot of problems to do this. That's my chief problem, my happiness, my horn, I must develop. I have acquired some very good books: Charlie Parker, and the real book, all the top jazz music is in this. I didn't even get to play one Parker for you the other night. One night when I play, I must just do pure Charlie Parker. That is when the band really develops. I think it is one of the best bands I have ever had, because one of the chief elements about this band is that they are all young musicians, away from Tony Utah. They are eager to play...And I tell all my fans love, One Love, One Heart, and ever forward!