Q: (Chuckles) A: (Chuckles) It's poppin' up - it's just like 'Gone Gone', I didn't even know the name of the song to be 'Gone Gone'. When I recorded that song, I never heard it again until this guy from Makasound played it for me on the phone. You walk in the studio and somebody say, "I have a riddim here, Leroy, why don't you sing something on it?" So you sing the song but you never hear it again, and it's thirty years after it come back to haunt you. Q: (Chuckles) Right. A: (Laughs) I don't know, man. Q: 'Steppin' Out of Babylon'? A: 'Babylon', that's me! Oh, yeah. Seventies. It was on the other side of 'Time of Decision'. Q: There's a duet between you and Leroy Sibbles of the Heptones, 'Money Barrier' on the Rhythm Gits imprint. A: On the Rhythm Gits label, 'Money Barrier'? Q: Yes. A: Rhythm Gits is my label, yunno. And it's 'Money Barrier', yes.

Q: And of course there's the 45 of 'Time of Decision' as you mentioned, credited to 'Leroy Brown & The Turbans' (laughs)! A: Yes, I used to have a group here named The Turbans. Q: (Still laughing) So who played in that band? A: It was all different mixed musicians that, some of them Jamaicans, some of them (from) all over the world (chuckles). A real mixed band I put together for that. Q: Sounds like a bunch of Arabs... A: (Laughter) 'Turbans'!! Some dreads all right (chuckles). Q: OK (laughs)! A: Everybody was wearing a turban, so it was so easy to just name the group 'Turbans' (chuckles).

Q: I see. And there's 'Remember What the Old Man Say' on the Kismet label, not as Leroy Brown, but credited to 'Flesh, Food & Fun' (laughs)! A: Right, 'Flesh, Food & Fun'. We were playing around with the name for a band and, yeah, young boys, man, drinkin' and chattin', someone said: "Maybe that's a good name, man, you guys are always into that, that, that, that! Why not?!" (laughs). Q: (Laughter) You should revive that name! A: That name (laughs)? That was all we used to play for, 'flesh, food and...'! Everybody had a job and you're singin' and whatever pay you get is just fun, girls and food and, y'know, but after that then we move on to some more constructive names (laughs)! Q: (Laughs) Absolutely brilliant name! It worked for one tune though, and that's all. A: (Laughs) For one tune! Q: (Chuckles) A: Like in those days, the seventies, I lived basically in the studio. Most evenings we just go to the studio, y'know, the same Jamaican thing. Q: Right. What do you miss the most about those days? The whole attitude, the approach to making music? A: Oh, yes. It was so different, the closeness that we enjoyed as musicians and singers, we had that real net going that was so strong. Young people, we were all young guys then, and we used to work together more than now. People now workin' as individuals, 'cause they have their little private thing at home, so you don't have to go and meet the other person and share ideas anymore. I really miss that. You have a lot of people that come in the business that should know me and I should know them, but we don't know one another. We just know their name but we don't know them.

Leroy Brown (Photo: Sven Reliszko).

Leroy Brown (Photo: Sven Reliszko).

Q: That kind of spirit from those days seems to be lacking by all accounts, it was a common spirit there somewhat. A: Well, I would agree with you on that, too. That's gone. Q: Seems like it. A: That's gone now, it's gone, gone, gone. People them don't get the chance to talk anymore, we don't see one another anymore. Everybody keep driftin' and driftin' and that's where it is. You have an idea of something and you just hold onto your stuff to do it your way, what the other guy is doing is secondary. It's not a common ground anymore to discuss things. That's the big world, y'know. It's gettin' bigger. Q: For some reason, it would be nice to have a small edition of the 'Color Barrier' LP out in its original cover, with the original sequence of tracks, if that could be done, as a collectors complement to the 'official' reissue? A: But Makasound put it on vinyl also, not with the original cover though. There was one track that was taken away from the original 'Color Barrier' album that did not appear on this one, there was one song if my memory serves me correct - you write a lot of songs and sometime you don't even remember them, just like your grandchildren, or your children. (Laughs) It's hard sometimes to remember! It's called... 'Free For All' is the song. It's not on this album, because there's an album that will be coming out also, The Emotions. And that song will be on the Emotions' album. Q: What are the tracks selected for that album? A: The Emotions? Q: Yeah. A: I'm not sure if you're familiar with all the tracks, but what we're doing, we are takin' tracks from Sonia Pottinger, Lloydie Matador, JJ, Patrick Harty, and other songs that we did for ourselves. We put them together for a big album for the Emotions. Q: Great! A: Yes, and that is something that will hopefully happen this year. All the tracks are ready, we're just doing the final mixes now. Q: You have like a working title for the album? A: For that album? No, we're puttin' all the pieces together, we get all the old photos from the Gleaner company in Jamaica, with Audley Rollens, Milton Henry and myself, with Lloyd Shakespeare also. We put everything together independently. The title, no, we don't know what title, what name we're gonna give it yet, but we wanna work on it as fast as we can now. Because there's so many questions been asked about the Emotions since the release of this Makasound here, lot's of questions been asked. We did start on it eight years ago, start doing it together, and we just know that now is the time to get it released. All the stories is not completed without the Emotions' story, so this will show you what we looked like and how we sounded.

Leroy Brown.

Q: Shouldn't be a problem to take it over from where the production originated, the rights reverts back after a certain period of time as far as I know. A: Those already gone over twice. So they're right back in my hands again. We will be dealin' with it the right way. And I'm so happy and proud of this project, because we listened to all the songs and what we sounded like in the sixties. And the nice thing about it is that Milton is still active and sounds good and Audley Rollens also, we're pleased to know that we as individual artists can go out and we can also go together as a group. We're still talkin', still on speaking terms and so on, and so on. So I'm excited about that album, to be honest. Q: Definitely. A: You may even see the Hippy Boys revised too (chuckles). Q: Without Carlton though. A: (Chuckles) Without Carlton, all things are possible. Q: There was some talk years ago about an Upsetters reunion, but I doubt that ever came off the ground, with Family Man, Reggie, Glen Adams, etc. A: Never happened. But it's easier now to put a Hippy Boys reunion together than ever. So it's very, very easy, very, very easy. Like you can almost touch where everybody is, and the same Glen Adams again, he is part of the Hippy Boys too. And Reggie (Lewis), that's where they came from. Q: As far as I understand, Reggie is not that well though. A: Not well, he's not been well for the past fifteen-twenty years now. (Sighs) But I shouldn't say he still can play it, I haven't heard anything from him, but people tell me that he still can play. I saw him recently , we joke about the Hippy Boys t'ing again. Q: Is he still workin' at Tuff Gong? A: Oh, yeah. (Chuckles) He's one of the cornerstones there. I dunno if the name is 'work', but he's still there. Q: (Chuckles) I see. A: (Laughs) Reggie! When I think of Reggie I have to laugh, man. I remember in the early days with Reggie, with Family Man, and lookin' back on those days now, how the whole t'ing started and what it turned out to be today. I can tell you the beginning of our career, it was all people who wanted to do something that bad to the extent that we could borrow any equipment from the church just to start a band. I don't see those guys writin' about it, man, it was really somethin' else (chuckles). Borrow the instruments, then we had to take it back as soon as we finish playin' 'cause the guys needed it tomorrow for the morning's church march. The drum, didn't have a drum. Bass, the greatest bass player in the world today didn't have a bass! He make his own out of curtain rods and wood. You know, those t'ings, and we're playin' out and the amplifier, one amplifier have to accomodate the bass player, the singer, the guitarist, y'know, just one piece of amplifier we have runnin' a whole band. It wasn't even ours, we borrowed it! But the nice thing about it, all of these guys turned out to be the biggest names in the music industry today. But this real story hasn't been told! Nobody know that sufferation that... we never have to, because we're all from stable homes, most of us I would say was from stable homes. We had this musical urge about us that our parents wasn't really a part of it, so all we had to do was whatever we had to do to make it happen. It had to be inventive, had to be like that. So out of nutten came somet'ing, and it end up with a bunch of hitmakers from all over the place. I'm proud of the whole thing.

Leroy Brown.

Leroy Brown & Leroy Jr.

Q: By the way, speaking about the foundational years, what became of Web Stewart? A: Webbie? What Robbie told me, that he went on the radio one night in Jamaica for hours tryin' to get in touch with Webbie. I heard he's in one part of Westmoreland, and maybe just chose to alienate from the whole thing. And I'm gonna make another effort in finding him again, 'cause most of the success came from Webbie, he was the one who held it all together. Q: So he's in his sixties now? A: I'm guessin' Webbie - if he's in his sixties I would guess him to be about seventy years old now. He was that ahead of us. If he's not seventy it's late sixties. 'Cause when we were young, everybody who is a few years older than us, we think they would be very old. Q: (Chuckles) A: It still happen today (laughs)! Q: I see. A: (Laughs) Yeah, really, it still happen until today. But he could've been about ten years older than us, maybe that would be landing about sixty-five, most of us are in that age-group now, between the sixty-five to the sixty-nine. I would say that age-group. One day there's a Hippy Boys reunion, I'm pretty sure. Q: I hope so. A: Yeah, but for this to be possible I'm the one who have to get up and do it now. We have a bunch of musicians but we are spread out all over the place. Even for me now, I have an idea where everybody would be. If I had the address, maybe I could get in touch with Roy. 'Cause he's another guy, Roy. Roy Grant, a lot of people don't talk about him as a member of the Hippy Boys, but he went into the Soul Syndicate, the horn player? Q: Roy Grant? A: Yeah, he's another story by himself. Roy, we called him 'Royo', what happened - he went to farm work, he was playin'... what they call it...? The mouth organ! That's what he used to play in the band. We could not afford an organ. (Sighs) He was the mouth-organ player, harmonica as you would say. And he went to farm work, and I must let you know this too. The song 'Watch This Sound', you remember that song? Q: The Uniques. A: With Slim Smith from the Techniques... The Uniques! That was one of Family Man's first hit songs, that one. And Roy Grant blew the (mouth-) organ in it just like you would be listenin' to it as a real organ. And the other side of the song was called 'Out of Love', he blew on that song also. Same thing again. Then when he went back to his farm work we bought a real horn, and he came back and practiced the horn, ca' he learned to play it properly. That's how he come into the Soul Syndicate, with Earl 'Chinna' Smith and those guys. That's another part of the story. Q: Never heard that. A: Yes. He's an original member of the Hippy Boys. Q: Are you still in touch? A: No, but I know where to find him, he's in California. That's what I say, if we need to find someone we can find them. Minus Carly Barrett we can't, since he passed.

It was heaven-sent to, finally, get the 'Color Barrier' album out there again. Maybe it was just a question of time before someone - in this case the Paris-based Makasound imprint - would lay their hands on it and give it a proper job and promotion it so rightly deserved. And they did. 'Color Barrier' became a critical success as well as a success among the public. There is little, if anything, to complain about in the presentation of this classic work. It is an album you just got to hear, not for me or anyone to keep ranting about. Get it. What remains is to collect more of Leroy's past work into some sort of anthology, along with the best of the unreleased tracks from the sessions which made up the 'Prayer of Peace' and 'Color Barrier' albums. The 'Face To Face' LP is long overdue in getting a second printing as well. And certainly, with anticipation, we have the Emotions project to look forward to. It can't be long before that album will see the light of day. It would be even greater to have Leroy, Audley Rollen and Milton Henry on tour to push for it. Will it ever happen? Will we see the remaining Hippy Boys together again, showing us that unmistakable Jamaican rock steady beat? One can only hope. Keep your eyes open, that's all I can say. 7" single information courtesy Roots Knotty Roots. Visit Leroy Brown's myspace.com page : www.myspace.com/leroyartistbrown

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Article: Peter I (Please do not reproduce without permission)