Back in the day

Born in October 1964 in the community of St Paul’s, Bristol, England. My parents came from Jamaica during the 1950s and it was a hard time for them at first. My dad arrived in Southampton on the SS Irpinia and went to work as a carpenter in Bristol. He saved enough money to send for my mum one year later.

The story starts when I was five years old …. I received a small toy metal drum for Christmas. Later I remember my mum washing clothes and hanging them on the line, she would put the big wash pan out in the back yard to dry out in the sun. I would break off some branches from the tree which hung over our garden, pull off the leaves, then break them into two drumsticks and beat the back of the wash pan as if I was in a band.

My brother joined the scouts in the 70s. He brought home a marching drum to practice on and when he went out to school I would go into his bedroom to have a play on the drum – I would make so much noise my mum would shout up to me to stop and say I should be getting ready for school.

In 1976 I started at Lockleaze school, this was a whole new experience for me, I did not know any of the kids as I was separated from my friends when I left St Barnabus infant school in St Paul’s. I remember attending a music class for the first time, the teacher asked each child what instruments they would like to play. When he got to me, I said I would like to play the drums, he then pointed at me to follow him, led me to a door, opened it and I looked inside …. I was so happy to see a royal blue drum set.

I went on to play the drums in school assemblies, the Christmas pantomime, and with brass bands and wind instruments.

During the fourth year of school, I received a grant of £150 pounds from the Prince’s Trust. I went out and bought my first Hayman gold drum set.

I auditioned for Black Roots but they said I was too young. In 1981 I left school to join the Arts Opportunity Theatre Company managed by Reynold Duncan and Yvonne Deutschman. It was based at the Dockland Settlement in St Paul’s, Bristol. This is where Mark Spence and myself joined forces, with Mark on bass.

The production was successful and travelled through England and toured Germany. I played on the drums, and also played one of the characters called ‘Bongo’ in the Zion Band – which you can listen to on Bristol Reggae Explosion 2.

This is where the Restriction reggae band was born in 1982; we were successful and travelled all over the country and into France, with John Hollis as manager. The band would practice three days a week, everyone had good qualities, we supported bands like Eek-A-Mouse on two occasions when he came to Bristol, Sugar Minott in Paris, Misty and Roots in Leeds, and also went on stage after Aswad at Notting Hill Carnival, and Pig Bag at Romeo and Juliets in Bristol. During this time Restriction was on an even par with the likes of Black Roots and Talisman.

Restriction produced a 12” single called  ‘Action – Four Point Plan’ with the Mad Professor, which did not sell too well in the 80s, maybe we were ahead of our time. Four Point Plan was re-released on the Bristol Reggae Explosion.

Back in the day

I grew up in the small market town of Sudbury in Suffolk and had the good fortune to live in a Georgian Rectory with lots of space. As the town was close to the countryside, both gave me plenty of room to breathe. Music and sport were important to me from an early age. I found music of all genres in local shops, library, the wireless, my transistor radio and my siblings’ record collections – rock, pop, classical, blues, soul, jazz and folk, it all went in and I began playing guitar. On frequent trips to France in the 70s I came across French chanson through Maxime le Forestier and saw my first latin show, from the Chilean group Quilapayun. In 1977 I stumbled on Bob Marley performing Exodus on Top of the Pops and reggae entered my consciousness.  I promoted my first show at school whilst in the 6^th Form, a benefit for Amnesty International, with local rock band Trespass.

After leaving school I spent a year working on farms in the UK and France and then went to University in Bristol. In that year Aswad’s album Showcase gave me further inspiration. On arriving in Bristol in 1980 my experience and understanding of reggae widened rapidly – Dennis Brown, Jah Shaka, Sugar Minott, Skatalites, Misty In Roots, Gregory Isaacs, Studio 1 and loads more, it just went on and on and felt very natural. The Beat, The Specials, The Undertones, Durutti Column, The Jam, Echo and the Bunnymen amongst others were all on my radar alongside Neil Young, Van Morrison, Gill Scott Heron, James Brown and many others.

In Bristol I continued to organize benefits for Amnesty and also a show to raise money for Helen Bamber’s Medical Foundation Against Torture. These were first at the University and then venues such as Trinity Hall – promotions happened frequently with the likes of Black Roots, Pig Bag, Shriek Back and a young reggae band called Restriction. During my first winter in Bristol the Willgress family introduced me to Basil Anderson who played keyboards with the band, they had just started out and we struck up a friendship. In the months that followed I began finding shows elsewhere and in time we were gigging frequently up and down the UK and finally in France. Operating out of a small rehearsal room (a friend’s spare bedroom) in Gwyn Street, St Pauls, Restriction was a unique blend of talented individuals and the band grew into a formidable musical force.

Whilst recording at the Mad Professor’s Ariwa Studios in London I was blown away with Vin Gordon’s trombone playing and decided to give the instrument a go myself. Vin gave me some lessons to start me off and a few months later I joined Charlie on stage in the horn section.

Restriction began to play in Paris 1985-86 and it was at the Philone club that I came across Senegalese and other West African music. Restriction ceased to be after our last show there and so I spent more time in France, doing research for the Channel 4 Programme Ebony on African and Caribbean black experience in Paris which opened interesting doors for me. Through this work I discovered Salif Keita, Ismael Lo and Super Diamono de Dakar. I went on to tour manage Super Diamono in Europe (mightily inspired by the likes of Moussa Ngom, Abou Mbake and Lamine Faye) and this in turn brought me into contact anew with the WOMAD Festival who were keen on booking them. The delivery of Super Diamano was my first task and on the completion of that mission Thomas Brooman asked me to join the WOMAD team with a specific aim of dovetailing with Paris and Francophone Africa, so I entered a cramped office in the attic room above a clothes shop on Park Street, Bristol, with a trailblazing work force pioneering the global music festival and worked on some truly exiting projects. One of the first tours we arranged was for Remmy Ongala and Super Matimila from Tanzania and from then on there was a constant flow of ideas and creativity leading to debut UK shows. Farafina from Burkina Faso, Salif Keita from Mali, Martin St Pierre, Argentina, The Cambodian National Dance Company etc.

In 1986 WOMAD sent me to represent the company at a party in London and it was here I met a young Toumani Diabate (who had been performing with a traditional troupe). We immediately hit it off and the next day we were on a train to Bristol. That night he gave his first solo performance at an impromptu show. I agreed to set up a tour for the following year and thus the first chapter was created for Toumani as an individual kora artist. We worked on several collaborative projects during that time and I also had the privilege to meet and go on to work with his great uncle Amadou Bansang Jobarteh, we toured across the world together.

One night chatting in Thomas’s kitchen we came up with the idea of recording WOMAD artists in the newly completed Real World Studios, this initiative finally became Real World Records and Womad Records; a flurry of recording activity followed. The first session featured the Drummers of Burundi and I will never forget engineer Dave Bottrill jumping with delight as he punched in the tracks on the desk one by way, thus steadily unleashing the thunderous sound of the Drummers pounding away downstairs.

I left WOMAD in 1990, though continued to work for them as a freelance tour manager. I spent a time living in Dakar, Senegal, which was a wonderful experience, returning to Europe for tours. Whilst in Dakar, I received a call in June 1991 from Thomas Brooman as he needed a tour manager the following week for Colombian singer Totó la Momposina, who was about to embark on a 3 month world tour. He couldn’t find a Spanish speaker but had just discovered she spoke French. A week later I met in a group of Colombians at Heathrow and off we went. Following the tour I was persuaded to visit them in Colombia and in early 1992 landed in Cartagena de Indias on the Caribbean Coast for a one month stay …. which lasted a rather longer two years. Cartagena felt very similar to the Africa I had just left and it struck me deeply to see a port the slaves arrived at, having recently been close to Goree, from where slaves embarked and, in between those places, I had passed through Bristol touching three points of the slave trade. To this day I continue to follow the musical links between these three continents and that triangle, constantly inspired by the connections.

From Colombia I began managing Totó’s career, surprised to discover that such a talent had never released an album in her own country, and that there was little demand for her work. We set out to develop the music and build her profile, producing four albums over the next 17 years. She became an established name reaching legendary status and finally receiving recognition in Colombia.

Returning to the UK in 1994 I also continued to freelance a bit in tour management working with Ruben Gonzalez, La Familia Valera Miranda, La Vieja Trova Santiaguerra and Eliades Ochoa. In 1995 I met up in Paris with Congolese guitarist Papa Noel and we began working on a series of sessions together exploring an Afro-Latin panorama, with Colombians and Cubans, and finally we created a duo between Papa Noel and the singer-songwriter Adan Pedroso which became the Mosala Makasi album in 1999.

Totó and I were on a trip to Cuba in 1997 to meet with Celina Gonzalez to prepare a show we were to do later that year in London at a Colombian festival we were organizing with the Barbican when we came across a young son band called Asere. Delighted by their fresh songwriting and soulful groove we took them under our wing immediately, five albums and many tours followed including a collaborative project with Billy Cobham.

Two nice WOMEX moments followed – in 2006 with Totó winning the Lifetime Achievement Award and Colombian band Cimarron performing a showcase in 2008, which blew the roof off and introduced this dynamite act from Los Llanos to international touring.

The latest project is a harp-kora collaboration with Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita. I began working with Seckou in 2011 and it has been a pleasure working with Manding and Wolof traditions again. It has been so refreshing returning to musical styles I started out with in the 80s, which brings me to AMJ…

In 2009 I felt the need to re-connect with reggae so I hooked up with Mark Spence and Andy Clarke to propose a new project. We have been recording ever since. Reggae is the cradle, dub is the medium and we are free to explore. It has been a fascinating journey so far and we’re only just warming up.

Back in the day

I was born in Bristol and grew up in St Paul’s. As a teenager living there in the late 70’s early 80’s I was submerged in a West Indian Community, rich in culture, vibrant in music, and of course good Jamaican food.  Jamaica, the birthplace of my parents who came to the UK in the late 1950’s. I grew up listening to family stories about Jamaica based around my heritage and at the same time listening to the sounds on the streets which, for me at that time, was a mixture of soul, funk and reggae music.

At that time Dockland Settlement in St Paul’s was the local Youth Centre, a place for young people to get together listen to music, play table tennis, five a side football down stairs on the court or just hang out with friends eating two pence Jammy Dodgers and drinking orange squash from the Tuck Shop.

I would go out with my friends on the weekend to listen to local Sound Systems in the area. I even had a Sound System called Sir High Tone, with Mike, Edley and Lenard we had some great times playing house parties in the local area and Sound clash sessions …. really great memories.

Throughout my School years, I attended Bishopston Secondary School on Bishop Road and I can remember waiting for the bell to sound for home time. I would run out the school gates down the Gloucester Road to Mickleburgh’s, the local music shop on Stokes Croft in Bristol, they had all sorts of instruments in the shop window, bass guitars, acoustic guitars, pianos and percussion instruments, you name it they had. I would stand at the shop window staring at the bass guitars hoping I would be able to get one for myself someday.

Finally with the money I had saved up from my first part time job, including some money from my parents, I went out and bought my very first bass guitar it was a Cimar Precision Fender Copy made by Ibanez, I’ve toured up and down the country and abroad with it over the past years and I still use it to day.

I grew up in the Church surrounded by Gospel music and that’s where I first experienced playing live music.

Some of my favourite artists were people like Sly and Robbie, Aswad, Denis Brown, Bob Marley, Black Uhuru, Al Campbell, Steel Pulse and many more. These artists were an inspiration to me. I would spend hours just listening to these musicians trying to copy their style and technique of playing.

At the age of 19, I Came straight out of College after studying a motor vehicle course and decided I didn’t want to be a Mechanic, my passion was always about the music so I went for an audition to join the Arts Opportunity Theatre Company based in Bristol, Dockland Settlement. At that time they were looking for a bass player to join the Zion Band for a new Musical Production called Freedom City Directed by Reynold Duncan and Yvonne Doucheman. That’s when I first started working with Andrew Clarke the drummer in the Zion Band, although I had known Andrew from when we were kids through the local church our Parents attended.

I Joined Freedom City in 1982 with a cast of 60 young people made up of singers, dancers, actors, musicians and sound engineers, my first live performance was at the Colston Hall in Bristol – an experience I will always remember, nervous tension coupled with excitement. That was my first experience of the thing they call stage fright and since that day I’ve never looked back.

I remained with the production for two years touring the length and breadth of the UK including various tours abroad and at the end of that period I, and musicians I had worked with, had to leave the Company to make way for a new production called Black And White in Colour.

The band decided to continue on our own taking a new name RESTRICTION. That’s when I first met John Hollis, after we had been going for a year or so, John joined the band arranging gigs and managing the day to day running of the group. We became a very tight Reggae band performing all over the UK and abroad. For me personally the people in that group become like a second family. We had been travelling and touring together for so many years from the Theatre Company all the way through to Restriction.

Restriction came to an end in 1986 after our final shows in Paris. I continued to play music on the local music scene in Bristol, always meeting new people and making new friends in the musical world, something I value highly. I kept in touch with various members of Restriction from time to time until in 2009 Andrew Clarke, John Hollis and myself decided to get together to create a new operation called the AMJ Collective. Taking the best of our own individual talents and abilities to form a new group dedicated to working with musicians and vocal artists from all backgrounds who share a common purpose, our passion for music.

For me personally this is a unique opportunity to collaborate with artists from the UK and abroad covering various styles of music and I have been very fortunate to meet some wonderful people on this journey.

At this moment in time I feel blessed having shared this experience, long may it continue.

Wishing you Peace

Mark