Open Letter to RKR contributors and subscribers

[Lion]

Originally posted at BAF by Mike Turner:

As most of you know my co-author Bob Schoenfeld passed away unexpectedly a few days ago.

I'm still shocked by this, and disorganized, but I want to get some thoughts out to everyone who has so kindly supported our project. Unfortunately he alone had the list of RKR subscribers so I hope the forum organizers here won't mind if I use this space to communicate.

My initial thought is that Bob died with big plans for RKR that have yet to be realized and it is my intention to keep the project going, and create a living document that will be of enduring value. But man, I'm gonna need some help.

I guess I should step back and tell you something about how we put RKR together, and our respective roles. Somewhere around 1994 Bob heard that I had compiled a database containing the pertinent details of my record collection. Bob had recently sold off his much larger collection, but before doing so he had recorded its details in similar fashion. We both saw that together we had made a big start in detailing the real story of Jamaican music. Since then I estimate that I've put in at least 8,000 hours working on RKR and I'm sure Bob put in at least twice that amount. Over time our roles have differentiated. I continued to buy lots of Jamaican records and have concentrated mostly on our original intention, to document Jamaican music circa 1954-1985. I've also spent a lot of time fact-checking and verifying the material already in RKR. Finally, I've spent a lot of time on material that could not be included in book form. We called these the "far right columns", which did not fit into a book format but which we hoped would eventually be published in digital form. There are five far right columns: Riddims, Original Source (if a song is a cover version or adaptation), Studio and Musician notes, B side, and finally a column to indicate that all the song information has been confirmed by direct inspection of the record.

You could say that I expanded RKR horizontally and that Bob expanded it vertically. Early on, he decided that RKR should be inclusive of all reggae singles, so he spent thousands of hours tracking releases in the U.K. and the U.S. Personally I had no interest in tracking UB 40 records, but Bob has done an amazing job with this stuff. Then, a few years ago, Bob began compiling a dancehall database. Thus it was largely through his efforts that RKR has grown from 30,000 to 90,000 entries In addition to data acquisition, we both spent a lot of time editing each other. He sent me every new entry for review, and I did the same to him, and no item was included in RKR without our mutual approval. Bob was a wonderful collaborator, unfailingly courteous, respectful, and thorough. I hope he thought of me in the same way.

Bob also did many things that I didn't. He designed the book, and wrote all but one of the introductory pieces. He was the one who first conceived of a digital RKR and brought it into fruition. He was the one who invested most of the money to self-publish the work. He was the one who dealt with the vendors, subscribers, and the majority of the contributors. I can't possibly do that work now that he has gone, for the simple reason that RKR was a small part of my working life, whereas Bob committed himself fully to the project. By that I mean that Bob always hoped that he could support himself through this work, but sadly, this turned out to be far from true, and in the last year Bob was doing temp work to support himself.

There were three main points of difference between us:

1) I couldn't conceive of RKR as a money maker, and I wanted to turn it into an open document with many authors. (Bob was hesitant, but not just for financial reasons. He was worried about control of content and maintaining accuracy.)
2) I wanted to make RKR a web-based document, and abandon the book and cd-rom formats. Eventually he agreed and we've been working towards that. However the cost estimates for such a project have been far more than our means.
3) Finally there was a small but crucial difference. He created RKR as an Excel spreadsheet format, whereas I always pushed for a database format which would allow the user to make interesting 'basket' searches (e.g. find all records produced by Coxsone Dodd, or with Dreadlocks in the title etc. etc.) As a result, in my opinion, the RKR cd-rom is not as useful as it could be.

If RKR is to go forward, it will have to be as a group effort. I know there are a lot of people who would like to contribute information. But what I'm really hoping for is a group of collectors and music lovers with the money and know-how to build a new, better, web-based RKR.

What would this look like? I see it as open document, with world-wide contributions vetted by a committee of knowledgable editors and fact-checkers. I see it a non-profit venture; with user fees sufficient to pay back investors and cover costs. And I see it as greatly expanded, with lots more information. It may not be practical but I envision sound samples accompanying listings, with label scans, with pop up biographical and explanatory information.

Or not.

RKR is pretty good as is, and even if people don't step up to move it along, Bob's memory is well-served by the work he's already done.

If people do want to help take it further, please feel free to contact me: oldbroom@sbcglobal.net and I'll assemble a group address book for further discussion. Please note though, that I'll be out of the country from November 7 - 24th)

Thanks

Mike Turner

I & I support RKR
Is a tribute to Bob and all singers/players/producers ina Jamaica

Lion

[Litelet]

Booom... an open source... that'll be a forward step for reggae, for sure...

Thanks for the post