Is it because I’m (not) Blacker Dread? : 2006 : Rockers International Record Shop
“It’s for you,” shouted the man behind the counter, holding the telephone handset at arm’s length toward me after having answered the call.
“For me?” I echoed incredulously. “But nobody even knows I’m here!”
I was standing in a shop, but not just any shop. This was a record shop. I dread to calculate how many thousand hours I must have spent in record shops over the last half-century, thumbing through vinyl. It started with my first record purchase in 1968, from Dykes Records in Camberley, of the novelty single ‘Cinderella Rockefella’, after it was performed on The Eammon Andrews Show. In the early 1970’s, my first ‘job’ was helping during lunch breaks in the Recordwise shop opposite my school in Egham where owner Adam Gibbs paid me in vinyl rather than cash. He taught me so much about the retail end of the music industry inside his huge, well stocked record shop, while my classmates were otherwise occupied feeding their pocket money into a nearby café’s pinball machines.
I was standing in a record shop, but not just any record shop. This was a reggae music record shop. From 1972, I would spend many weekends standing at reggae stalls and shops listening to new releases, initially around Brixton’s Granville Arcade, having travelled to London by flashing my green cardboard British Rail school season ticket paid for by Surrey County Council. Soon my trips extended to Harlesden, Finsbury Park and occasionally the East End to find the latest imported ‘pre’ singles. A common response to my multiple requests to buy certain new ‘tunes’ was “It finish, man”, an indication that the limited quantities had already sold out. I still have a wants list of unfound records from that time, probably never to be fulfilled.
I was standing in a reggae record shop, but not just any reggae record shop. This was Rockers International Record Shop, established by musician and producer Augustus Pablo. I had followed his output passionately since hearing his melodica versions on single B-sides and was hooked by the time his ground-breaking debut album was released in 1974, the first reggae LP I had heard mixed in stereo. Although Pablo had succumbed to long-term illness in 1999, his shop remained and my visit that day was to try and fill a few gaps in my collection of the man’s works.
The shop was on a street, but not just any street. This was Orange Street in downtown Kingston, Jamaica where the island’s music industry had been centred for decades. Across the street was the long-closed shopfront of Prince Buster’s Record Shack, after this artist and producer’s prolific and internationally successful career had fizzled out thirty years earlier. No single street in the world has been responsible for as great a volume of music as Orange Street. After Savoy Record Shop opened at number 118 in the mid-1950’s, the entire long street was soon heaving with noisy music, musicians, producers, record shops and studios. In its heyday, hundreds of new reggae singles were released right here every week. Small island, big sounds.
The man behind the counter was still offering me the phone receiver on its coiled cable. I approached the counter and took it from him, despite complete bafflement as to how a call could possibly be for me. Jamaica often proved as confusing as this.
“Hello,” I said with great trepidation.
“How was your flight? I hope you had a safe journey,” said an unrecognisable man with a Jamaican accent on the other end.
“I did, thank you for asking, but I ….”
“And the place you are staying is working out well for you?” he interrupted. I had absolutely no idea who I was talking to, but he was so quick to interject before I could explain.
“Yes, thank you,” I replied, not wanting to offend this stranger. “Where I am staying is fine but I think you should …”
“And have you found some music you wanted in the record shop?” he interrupted again.
“Yes, I have,” I answered, but this time I continued with more haste to try and avoid him interrupting me yet again. “But who do you think you are talking with?”
“Look,” he replied. “I’m sorry I haven’t yet arrived at the shop and I know I had promised I would meet you there.” It was evident that this man had misunderstood or simply ignored my seemingly straightforward question. How can communication sometimes prove so difficult?
“Don’t worry yourself,” I spluttered, as if it really was me that he had arranged to meet. “But I think there must be some confusion because I had not agreed to meet anyone here.”
“So my man is not with you yet?” he asked. “But will he arrive there later? Do you know what time he will arrive? Shall I call again later?”
It felt as if I was rapidly descending into a Kafka-like world of intrigue and ’39 Steps’ hazard, all because I had been mistaken for someone who I definitely was not. It was time to draw a halt to this madness.
“Please, please tell me exactly who it is you had arranged to meet here?” I pleaded with him.
“Blacker Dread, man, of course,” he finally blurted out. “Is he travelling with you?”
“No, he is not with me, but I know of him,” I explained. Finally, a little light had started to shine at the end of this conversational tunnel. But it soon became apparent that I had failed to choose my wording precisely enough and was misunderstood yet again.
“So you know Blacker and you know we are going to meet up when he has some time, so we can catch up together,” the man continued. “And you will be accompanying him too?”
Just when I thought we had made progress, that glimmer of light began to fade away again. It was imperative to put a stop to this right now. I needed to break out of my timid English-ness to fix this nonsense. I needed to be firm and I needed to explain my mistaken identity in the bluntest language I could muster.
“No, you have misunderstood, I’m afraid,” I started. “I don’t KNOW Blacker Dread personally. I know OF him. I know WHO he is. But I haven’t met him. He is not with me. I just happened to be in this record shop when your call came in. But Blacker Dread is not here. I’m sorry but I have no idea if, or when, he will be in this shop or even in Jamaica. It is just a coincidence that I am here and the man in the shop insisted that I take your call.”
“Oh, oh, okay, okay” said the man, as if I had been telling him off. In a way, maybe I was. Why cannot people simply identify themselves when they call someone? Why can they not ask for the person they wish to speak with? Why do they launch straight into conversations without first establishing that they are connected to the person they want? Anyway, it had taken some time but now the misunderstanding had finally been sorted out.
But who is Blacker Dread? Born in Jamaica (coincidentally the same year as me), his family had emigrated to South London when he was nine and he attended Penge Grammar School after having passed the 11+ exam (twice!). In the 1980’s he was selector for Lloyd Coxsone’s legendary London sound system. In 1993, he opened the Muzik Store record shop in Brixton and made huge contributions to the local community through his voluntary work. A remarkable and moving feature-length documentary, ‘Being Blacker’ by Molly Dineen, was broadcast in 2018 on BBC2 that followed three years in his life, including a tragic prison sentence in 2014 that forced closure of his shop and curtailment of his community work and reggae productions. I could never hope to achieve Blacker Dread’s stature.
Before ringing off the phone call, I asked the unknown man who he was. He said he was Jimmy Radway. I knew the name instantly as a respected 1970’s roots reggae producer whose releases had included ‘Warning’, ‘Black Cinderella’ and ‘Mother Liza’ on his record label Fe Me Time. (For me, Big Youth’s doom-laden prophetic 1975 DJ version of ‘Warning’ about Haile Selassie’s assassination, titled ‘Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing’, has always remained an absolute favourite.) I thanked Radway for his patience with me and bided him goodbye.
I handed the phone back to the man behind the counter and asked him exactly what the caller had said after he had answered the phone.
“He said he wanted to talk to the Englishman in the shop,” the man replied, “so I knew that must be you.”
I looked around the tiny record shop. I certainly had been the only Englishman in the shop. In fact, I had been the only person in the shop for the last hour while I flicked through vinyl records … except for my brother-in-law who had been waiting patiently nearby for me to finish.
“Who were you talking with?” he asked me.
“It was Jimmy Radway and he thought he was talking to Blacker Dread,” I explained. Having himself worked in the reggae music industry, my brother-in-law laughed heartily. We both realised that there could never have been a more unlikely case of mistaken identity in a reggae record shop on Orange Street, Kingston, Jamaica.
[Respect to DJ Conscious for jogging my memory. My curated discography of 700+ Augustus Pablo tunes is a Spotify playlist.]
