the info provider for the soul survivor ISSUE 35 Dec/Jan 2011
Interviews with
Greg Edwards Mark de Clive-Lowe Colin Curtis pt2 and regular features
Fitzroy talks to
One of the most integral pioneering and ground breaking radio DJ presenters, Greg Edwards, entertained and educated many of you reading this magazine at a time when soul music had very little spectrum. His trials, triumphs and tribulations reveal that Greg’s journey to his iconic status was a bumpy one. Here is part one, part two will be in the next Member’s issue…. and the rest was off the record!! 04 www.thesoulsurvivors.co.uk
You came to England via New York and Grenada, how were your musical ears via those three culturally different countries? What I heard on the radio as a child was a lot of calypso and Spanish music. In the Caribbean we heard music from America amongst the pop and there weren’t many black stations. When I went to America I heard a lot of Hispanics music and latin in New York, plenty of soul and believe it or not country and western. I’m well aware of the Caribbean & country and western connection as my parents come from Jamaica..unusual but a common fact! What age were you when you went to America? I was 7 at a time when America was looking for professional people like doctors and engineers so when my aunts and uncles came out of Grenadian university they came over as you could not get into the country without some kind of qualification.
ing with them. I said yes and they asked when can I start and can they have my passport to book a flight to England. They said based on the fact Motown had a good UK foundation and Tony Wilcott from CBS UK had put a word in for me and it was an opportunity. What year was this and were you djing in the UK or America? It was 1971 and I was Djing in the USA with a friend at a club called the Blue Lantern in an old building and to keep the cost of the electricity down we stole road lamps from the road works on the street and the whole place was furnished with them. It didn’t last, and thinking about it, I should have been in prison for doing that LOL. I did the Time & Place in Manchester and the Explosion in the UK, probably the venues that gave my parents the wrong impression and I was 21 years old.
What did you achieve in your time at CBS?
What was your inroad to the music industry and how did you manage to work at CBS during the prolific TSOP era working with The OJay’s Billy Paul, The Three Degree’s and Harold Melvin And The Bluenotes? I’ve always liked music and listened avidly to the radio since I was 3 years old and something happened to me listening to one particular artist, Johnny Mathis, singing things like Chances are and the ubiquitous Misty. I liked classical music like Tchaikovsky and as a teenager I’d go through the record stores and listen to the Temptations “It Would Rain” from beginning to end. I had come to the UK with the intentions of studying economics and business management and as a relief from that I ended up going to clubs and not particularly enjoying them, but remember people from the record companies bringing artists to clubs to promote them as there were no local radio stations. I went back to the States to be reprimanded as my parents had the perception that I spent too much time around clubs as I’d mentioned it on occasions in letters, and with black parents at that time if you do it once you’re doing it all the time. Whilst getting my act together I used to frequent the CBS records building on West 52nd as I knew some of the A&R people. I’d always asked about the latest Johnny Mathis material and they all got to know me there. On one visit I was told that the management wanted to see me upstairs and they said they had a new label they were unsure how to run and because I loved music and DJ’d, would I be interested in work-
When I got here they had just released Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes “I Miss You” which was dealt with by CBS promoter Lewis Rogers. I had to deal with not just Philadelphia Records but all CBS’s custom labels, Epic, Monument and predominantly all their black artists. I worked with Charlie Rich and also white soul artists like Sonny who did Doctors Orders, Johnny Nash with his style of reggae and Steve Ellis and The Foundation. Steve was considered the white soul guy in this country and I turned them all into hits. I told them I would make PIR records as well known and successful as Motown and was laughed at in the way of being this little black boy who was one of only two that worked in the whole CBS organisation throughout the world, who’s never worked in the business before. I was left to get on with it with very little budget but it was good that I didn’t know the business as I approached it with common sense and in a way it hadn’t been done before. I’ve never been and never will be star-struck as I understood what my job was, to believe in the music they made and I liked to get it to the people who liked it. If the BBC wouldn’t play it I’d find a way to get it played and I created what was then and now regional promotion. I went out chasing around the country and got into clubs to create competitions for dj’s to compete against each other for my records. When colour TV’s had just come in I ran a comp for them to win the largest colour TV available and that was a big prize back then. I’m sorry if it seems odd but I never cared about the artists as they often got on my nerves as they gambled too much or fell out with each other, especially if they were on tour. www.thesoulsurvivors.co.uk
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How long were you there at CBS? Till 1974 when I joined Capitol and I left for a ridiculous and simple reason when I had the group Labelle. At the time I had the most female artists, like Sonny, Dr’s Orders, The Three Degree’s and Labelle. The Labelle buzz in the States was big with Patti Labelle and their space age type concerts and music direction. I got a company here to get them over to perform and we lined up five concerts around the country but then slowly but surely they were all cancelled but for one at the Drury Lane Theatre. I remember Paul McCartney was promoting and on tour with his solo Band On The Run concept in the USA. He sent a letter to say he wanted to see Labelle and cancelled one of his dates in Texas so he could be here to see them. I thought hmmm interesting, then the next thing you know all these different artists like Barbara Streisand were coming and even a request from Princess Margaret! Something was going on and yet CBS were not backing me up in seeing the concert as important and it ended up that the Drury Lane was packed out with hardly any of the public present, as the industry and important people bought all the tickets. The concert was a sell out and wowed everyone and we had an after party at a club called Wednesdays or Thursdays (the name of the week was the name of the club) in Kensington and I introduced all the celebrities to Labelle. I decided that If I had to do all of that again it wasn’t worth my while so I left and never went back. You’d have thought that things would be acrimonious between me and CBS but actually not as they all understood and I’ve remained very good friends, from the chief executive to everyone, and I was always welcomed back. At the time I was fighting with the BBC at the lack of black music being played and complained regularly and often. In 1973 Emperor Rosko was going away as his father was ill and I was approached to fill in for him on a Saturday afternoon on Radio 1. As I had complained so much here was my chance to do something about it. I managed to get the producer, Dave Price, to go with me on certain things I wanted to do and introduce artists like Hall & Oates’s first album, Manu Dibango, The Pointer Sisters and a few Philly stuff as I didn’t want to be accused of promoting my record label through the radio. They thought my ethos was too complex but I knew I could introduce new things and make it cohesive. I played unmanageable things like Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters and they allowed me to get away with it for months then I was told Rosko was not coming back but they liked what I did and to carry on. Derek Tillery who was the very first head of Radio One didn't like some of the things I was playing and called me into his office. I remember it very well as it was Princess Anne’s wedding day and he had the TV on and he didn't look up at me once. He advised he’d listened to the show and didn’t like certain things and they were not for Radio One, like Hall and Oates, and instructed me not to play them. He also said it’s rude to laugh on radio as people invited me into their homes as a guest so I should just introduce the record and no laughing. I was totally astounded!! I didn’t say anything and they 06 www.thesoulsurvivors.co.uk
asked me to take over Mike Ravens Saturday show in the evening around 5pm. I felt that this was just to side line me as they didn’t like what I was playing during the day. My contract was up for renewal in the April and Capitol had just launched in September and asked me to join them but I declined for now and said I’d think about it. So I did the two shows for Radio One and felt, after listening to Capitol, that the DJ’s had more control over what they did, so I joined Capitol. Everyone thought I was mad as I was doing Top Of The Pops also but I was happier doing what I was doing other than being like the other Radio One jocks like Tony Blackburn. They seemed to appear jealous of what I could say, play and get away with on radio ....and they had more glory than me. The Soul Spectrum show, was it the 6-9 slot then? No it started at 5pm-9 then because I came on after the football results, then it changed. Dez Parkes in our interview 4 years back said he listened to you intently on a Saturday afternoon as your music was so upfront and remembers hearing you play Roy Ayers Mystic Voyage and by the end of your show he was at Paul’s for Music in Cambridge Heath Road Mile End with the album in his hand. He said your music was so cutting edge, and I heard that back then there was a period where people complained that they couldn’t buy what you were playing it was so advanced and ahead of a release, is this true? I’ve asked people certain things over the years re the spectrum of the show and people took different things from the different music on the show. Robbie played a lot of Jazz funk music, he didn’t hear the more dance orientated stuff at first and those who called themselves a connoisseur of jazz funk would listen to Robbie who read the notes off the back of a record sleeve. Now I’m not a record executive or understand the philosophy and psychology of music but you have to make people feel good about the music you’re playing and can get people to listen to music more if you entertain them rather than trying to educate them. I’d find different ways to get the music in, like to talk over an instrumental or read a letter or a request. Radio One came up with Your Song with Simon Bates and copied the idea, I had a the bathroom call where I angled it at the younger audience who would have 15 minutes in the bathroom to get ready to go out. This opened up the doors for me to play Mystic Voyage or Women Of Ireland by Bob James and used them for my monologues and didn’t crash the song as I faded songs in and out. People realised I’d timed myself to finish before the melody kicks in. That’s what radio is, it’s painting pictures, modern day radio doesn’t do that anymore. On my show you’d hear fun records, ballads and bits like Disco Tex and Sexolets, Herbie Hancock, Roy Ayers and Rapper’s Delight, it’s the whole spectrum of soul!
It’s interesting you use that phrase, painting pictures, as my next question points that out. Your Soul Spectrum show on Capitol was where I heard you Saturdays 6-9pm. I so remember dancing and practicing my dance moves in front of the mirror like Saturday Night Fever’s Tony Minerio. You had the lingo and street patter that flowed like water from a tap, it was that smooth like we’d hear in blaxplotation films, but now you helped paint those visually in our imaginations. What you said earlier about the BBC exec who pulled you into the office about your music choice begs me to ask you about working in a white corporate environment, and what was your personal black experience like in witnessing what it took to make the music more accessible, as you clearly came across quite a few restrictions? There were restrictions and prejudices and I had to put up with, a lot of people making phone calls and writing letters...some of which they wouldn’t allow me to see after a while. I’m talking things like take all that jungle music off and put on proper white music etc. I also had the inverse prejudice in terms of presentation. It’s alright if Robbie Vincent took a high moral ground and played a black record speaking very heavily and politically on black politics but if I played it I’d be accused for using the radio for black propaganda. I had to find different ways of doing things and refused to do clubs that wouldn’t let black people in as I did black clubs that refused white people. I had to take my own moral stand and not use the radio for preaching that sort of thing as I’d be taken off radio. I remember hearing tunes on your show like Daybreak Get Off, Hooked On Young Stuff Nino Tempo, California Strut
Walter Murphy, Stone City Band Strut Your Stuff, Pete’s Crusade Light Of The World,The Blackbyrds Don’t Know What To Say and Cosmic Lust Mass Production. In fact when I first heard you DJ around 5 years ago at Jazz Funk Soul you played Cosmic Lust and I shared that with you. I also remember that you’d play illusive live studio versions of Brit Funks Cuts by Light Of The World and Incognito like Shine On and Visualize Yourself that I searched for and eventually found. Were these performed live, as I’m guessing Capitol, as the Shine On 12 says, recorded live at Capitol Radio? We did have a studio that artists used to record in. What people don’t realise was I only had an hour’s needle time for major labels to do a three hour programme. A lot of the music I played was from small labels from here and the States that I purchased, so those two hours were dedicated to that. What artists used to do was come in and record special promotional versions for me and the radio station that originated from major labels and that would not count as needle time. Therefore, if I played from the original album it cut down my needle time. Artists used to send me lots of tracks especially for me and then I’d make them a feature and I’m very proud to have promoted groups like Ritz, Light Of The World, Hi Tension and Central Line. I got Capitol to run a competition like an opportunity knocks to get young hopefuls to win a recording contract with RCA and it was Eruption who won and went on to record Ann Peebles I Can’t Stand The Rain.
See the Soul Survivors Member’s Issue No. 37 for part 2 www.thesoulsurvivors.co.uk Full indepth interviews with all the answers!! Become a member to get your copy today. :0) www.thesoulsurvivors.co.uk