Re: WHERE´S THE CHRIS BLACKWELL THREAD ? ?
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 9:45 pm
Desmond Dekker, Millie Small etc all thought they were going to get rich as well as famous. They soon learned the reality. And Blackwell had nothing to do with their particular exploitation.
Blackwell did work for his money. Easy work maybe, but work just the same. So he made loads of money, so that's business. Lots of people make money for doing worse things than he did, like they make weapons, or slaughter animals and stuff. But at least in this case Marley made plenty of money also, rather than the dollar a song business that went before. So in that narrow respect Blackwell is actually better than Dodd who is constantly accused of ruthlessly exploiting his artists! I assume Dodd died very comfortably off, if not actually very rich. Did he deserve that when so many of the records he sold were the work of artists who subsequently lived, and died, in poverty and obscurity?
I don't agree that Blackwell ruined reggae music. There's just a huge amount of stunningly brilliant reggae produced after Marley's death, and loads made during his big times.
Sure, he indirectly influenced a portion of the musical genre that went mad for cash once they saw Marley's ever growing wedge. But reggae itself survived in very good shape.
For me, what killed reggae music is the digital age. Sure, post 85 reggae is littered with brilliant stuff (like 'Caress me Down' by Clement Irie - a real digi stonker). But I feel that in reggae, as in many other genres of music, the computer was a bad thing.
It took away that great ingredient of reggae music, the session musician, the highly skilled and brilliant men who blew on the horns, banged on the drums and picked at the guitars. They all became pretty much redundant overnight and as a result they never passed the skills on to up coming players - because the kids were all punching the keys of their latest digital gadget.
Blackwell was just doing his job, which was making money. He was born into it, and he was shrewd and clever. He never held a gun to Marley's head to force him to do it, and he didn't hold one to ours to force us to buy the records. But Marley went along with his plan, and we bought the records. Or at least, one or two of them before we dug a little deeper and discovered the real wealth of reggae - Marley and Blackwell were merely the shiny skin on the surface of the great reggae beast.
So to sum up:
Yes, Blackwell played with the genre and not everything he produced is as good as the best reggae has to offer.
Yes, Blackwell made loads of cash doing this, but so did Marley.
No, Blackwell didn't set the form for exploiting reggae musicians, that was already well established when he was still a boy.
No, reggae wasn't ruined by Blackwell. If others went on to make pop reggae or even total garbage in an effort to emulate Marley then that was their choice, they obviously cared more about money than artistic integrity and who can really blame them?
Yes, many, many people who love 'proper' reggae music first heard the fabulous reggae beat on a Marley record. So yes, Blackwell and Marley turned a lot of western people onto reggae music.
Yes, if Blackwell hadn't commercialised reggae, someone else would have done - the opportunity was obviously there, the world was politically well ready for the reggae vibe. Someone else would have done just the same as Blackwell, just in the same way as it was done to Blues, Rock and Roll, Soul and even the anti-establishment icon that was Punk music succumbed rather too quickly to commercialism.
Blackwell did work for his money. Easy work maybe, but work just the same. So he made loads of money, so that's business. Lots of people make money for doing worse things than he did, like they make weapons, or slaughter animals and stuff. But at least in this case Marley made plenty of money also, rather than the dollar a song business that went before. So in that narrow respect Blackwell is actually better than Dodd who is constantly accused of ruthlessly exploiting his artists! I assume Dodd died very comfortably off, if not actually very rich. Did he deserve that when so many of the records he sold were the work of artists who subsequently lived, and died, in poverty and obscurity?
I don't agree that Blackwell ruined reggae music. There's just a huge amount of stunningly brilliant reggae produced after Marley's death, and loads made during his big times.
Sure, he indirectly influenced a portion of the musical genre that went mad for cash once they saw Marley's ever growing wedge. But reggae itself survived in very good shape.
For me, what killed reggae music is the digital age. Sure, post 85 reggae is littered with brilliant stuff (like 'Caress me Down' by Clement Irie - a real digi stonker). But I feel that in reggae, as in many other genres of music, the computer was a bad thing.
It took away that great ingredient of reggae music, the session musician, the highly skilled and brilliant men who blew on the horns, banged on the drums and picked at the guitars. They all became pretty much redundant overnight and as a result they never passed the skills on to up coming players - because the kids were all punching the keys of their latest digital gadget.
Blackwell was just doing his job, which was making money. He was born into it, and he was shrewd and clever. He never held a gun to Marley's head to force him to do it, and he didn't hold one to ours to force us to buy the records. But Marley went along with his plan, and we bought the records. Or at least, one or two of them before we dug a little deeper and discovered the real wealth of reggae - Marley and Blackwell were merely the shiny skin on the surface of the great reggae beast.
So to sum up:
Yes, Blackwell played with the genre and not everything he produced is as good as the best reggae has to offer.
Yes, Blackwell made loads of cash doing this, but so did Marley.
No, Blackwell didn't set the form for exploiting reggae musicians, that was already well established when he was still a boy.
No, reggae wasn't ruined by Blackwell. If others went on to make pop reggae or even total garbage in an effort to emulate Marley then that was their choice, they obviously cared more about money than artistic integrity and who can really blame them?
Yes, many, many people who love 'proper' reggae music first heard the fabulous reggae beat on a Marley record. So yes, Blackwell and Marley turned a lot of western people onto reggae music.
Yes, if Blackwell hadn't commercialised reggae, someone else would have done - the opportunity was obviously there, the world was politically well ready for the reggae vibe. Someone else would have done just the same as Blackwell, just in the same way as it was done to Blues, Rock and Roll, Soul and even the anti-establishment icon that was Punk music succumbed rather too quickly to commercialism.
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