Clive Chin

Jeff Mao

We are very glad to have him here, so please welcome Mr. Clive Chin. [Applause]

Clive Chin

Thank you.

Jeff Mao

I guess, first things first, if you could explain a little bit about the Chin family and the Chin family’s role in Jamaican music over the last several years.

Clive Chin

35 years.

Jeff Mao

Over 35 years, to be specific.

Clive Chin

My grandfather came to the Caribbean as a carpentry labourer by trade. That was what he knew, not music. He had no clue that his son would have got involved in music, and his grandchildren. My father, Vincent Gauntlet Chin, adopted this name, Randy’s, through a radio program that was frequently broadcast in Kingston back in the early ‘50s. The sponsor of the show was called Randy’s Record Shop, in Nashville, Tennessee. It used to broadcast over a shortwave system in Kingston. All this beautiful blues and doo-wop, and I guess jazz as well, because my father was very influenced by jazz musicians like Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and all of the top names.

But I think his main interest in the music came about when he got this job from a prominent business owner by the name of Joe Hisa, who brought jukeboxes down to the island and distributed them all through the 14 parishes of Jamaica. And my father’s job was to operate these jukeboxes by servicing them with fresh music and also seeing that they were operative, whether they were in bars or clubs throughout the island. So in doing this job, he came across all these used 45s, these inoperable 45s that were pretty much deleted. They didn’t have any great use staying in the jukeboxes because they had to keep fresh music in. So, rather than throwing them away or disposing of them, he kept them in his garage in the back of our home in Kingston. And he became so overwhelmed by all these 45s that one of his friends might have said to him, I guess, “But Vincent, what are you going to do with all these records? I mean, sooner or later you can’t open your garage door because there are just tons of records.” He said, “You’re right, probably I should do something with these records.”

And that is how the birth of the record store started for my father. He decided to sell these records at a cut price. Not at what we call current full price of records today. But they were good records. So that is how we actually got involved in selling records and establishing the name Randy’s, ‘cause we took it from the radio program.

Jeff Mao

That radio program was a US radio program?

Clive Chin

That’s correct.

Jeff Mao

But you were able to receive the signal in Jamaica through shortwave radio?

Clive Chin

Yes, yes, you could receive it. I guess at certain times, like at night mostly, ‘cause the signals were quieter then so you could pick it up. That is how we obtained the name and we fell in love with the name. He was dubbed not only Vincent or Vinnie, but “Mr. Randy.” Wherever he would go, people would say, "Brother Randy’s passing through with his music.” But also, upon doing that, he was pretty much involved in the Rastafari movement in Jamaica as well. He used to frequent up by Warwicker Hill out in Eastern Kingston, where we pretty much grew up. And he was frequently by the Rasta camps with Count Ossie and big musician guys like Tommy McCook, Dizzy Reece, Johnny Moore. He was dubbed “Dizzy Johnny” for his style of playing like Dizzy Gillespie.

Jeff Mao

He was a trumpet player?

Clive Chin

Yes, he was a trumpet player for the Skatalites. By just moving along with those musicians he got the idea, you know, these guys have so much talent, why not just take them into the studio and cut a record? This is where it all started from in the late ‘50s. I guess his first recording goes back as far as 1959, when he did quite a few blues and shuffle [records] with guys like Bunny & Skitter, who are no longer around, but their music still lives because they are timeless music, extremely timeless.

I’m gonna give you a little bit of a touch of his early stuff, which started out for him by a person – not a Jamaican, but he was born in Trinidad, a place called San Fernando, Trinidad – by the name of Lord Creator. And he came to the island with a touring group in the early ‘60s. I believe the group was from Guyana and he came along in the entourage, as one of the vocalists in the group. Just about that time Jamaica was gaining their independence from Britain. We were once ruled by the British, back in the 17th, 18th century. When we gained independence my father wanted music, a song to collaborate and celebrate that independence, for the people to enjoy and for the people to remember that this is the start of the Jamaican music business. So, here we go. This song is “Independent Jamaica.”

(music: Lord Creator – “Independent Jamaica”)

Jeff Mao

So this example that you just played, how did this differ from the sort of music that was being played in Jamaica previous to this? This is a more celebratory thing that you have just explained.

Clive Chin

Well, that tends to be more calypso or mento orientated. One should understand that when one speaks about Jamaican music the first thing they come up with is Bob Marley and reggae – “Yeah, we know Jamaican music.” Yes, Bob made it internationally, but the foundation of the music business actually started with a combination of instruments [brought by] the first set of people who came on the island other than the Arawak Indians – the Africans, the Europeans, the East Indians, the Haitians. Because one should understand also that the motto of Jamaica is “out of many, one.” And it’s not just primarily black Jamaicans. We have my complexion Jamaicans [laughs], we have white Jamaicans. We have all different nationality of Jamaicans. We are blessed just to have a mixture. It’s beautiful. I have never had problems with anyone I grew up with, whether my friends or siblings were to say, “Chiny-man, go back to your country, man.” No, no. Everybody just love everybody, because we all just one.

So, we gonna drift in now to a little bit of another segment of the music, which is the early part of it, where I said my father got a bit involved in the production, and with the blues and the shuffle. This is what actually propelled the music business to get more involved, rather than just listening to it on the radio. The birth of the soundsystem came around with big soundsystems like Veejay Rocket or [Tom] the Great Sebastian or even as far back as Lord Koos. And these guys would entertain the Jamaican public with their music, whether they might be playing it from a mobile car or they might be playing out of a dancehall, what was then known as a dancehall back in Jamaica. I should go to track two and it’s right here.

(music: Rico Rodriguez – “Rico’s Special”)

Jeff Mao

Like you said, very bluesy influenced, almost like a roadhouse sort of blues, American R&B style. You said this had an impact on the Jamaican record industry? People were starting to make more records in this style?

Clive Chin

Yes, you know, there were competitors. Not that many. Probably a handful that I can recall that would be in competition with each other. Like Studio One [and] Coxsone Dodd, he started out in the late ‘50s as well and he had a huge soundsystem, which was known as Sir Coxsone. And then you had Duke Reid, that was dubbed the Trojan back in those days as well. And they used to compete with each other whenever they played out. Just like from here to, say, a few hundred meters – they had another soundsystem playing across [from them], and they would have their own crowd. But they were very decent crowds, they weren’t hostile crowds that would throw bottles or hand grenades or anything like that. They would just be very jubilant, they’d have their own followers.

Jeff Mao

But it was still some sort of a competition, like in a battle?

Clive Chin

Yeah, it’s the battle, in terms of musical leadership, to say, “I’m the king of the soundsystem. I rule.” And then you have guys like Prince Buster or Derrick Morgan that would sing songs like [singing] "I am the king, I come to rule the dancehall…" They all had their little competition, one artist would sing a song turning the other man down, and to say, “I’m in charge here, so back out.”

Jeff Mao

So there was a DJ that was affiliated with this particular soundsystem and they would do their little toast together?

Clive Chin

That’s correct. But not a hostile situation, not like you get now. Anyway, I’ll go into a very well-known ska track that I’m about to put on. Those of you who are into jazz and instrumentals will probably recognise this track. It’s a cover of a very well-known song.

(music: The Skatalites – “Malcolm X”)

Jeff Mao

Had the record store been pretty much established as far as a retail outlet in the city? Were there other places that were as big and where people would go to get their music?

Clive Chin

There were only two distributors at that time. It was Randy’s and another store uptown called K.G. That was run by another prominent Chinese Jamaican. [Chuckles] Alright. I noticed you kind of laughed as I said prominent Chinese Jamaican, but one does not understand that the Chinese played a pretty major role in the music industry from Jamaica. You just don’t have the Coxsone Dodds or the Duke Reids or the Pottingers or the Lee Perrys or the Marleys. When you look back on the history party of it, you looking back on the Lees, the Chins, the Wongs, the Yaps, it’s amazing.

But we were one of the largest record distributors at that time in Jamaica. People from all parishes would come to Kingston and purchase their supply of records and take them back, whether they came from as far as Negril Point, or Port Antonio, or Montego Bay, or Spanish Town, or wherever from the island. They came straight into Kingston and we were very central. That is probably one of the pluses that Randy’s had, we weren’t in any back streets or any alleys that you had to get a map to find us. We were just central as you came off the country bus, Randy’s was right there. And you could hear the music. It’s not like you couldn’t hear the music, it was just pounding, especially on a Thursday or Friday afternoon. It was amazing.

Jeff Mao

[Looking at photograph] That is a image of your father in the store, correct?

Clive Chin

Yes, that is correct. That is June on the left – no, actually June is on the right looking on the screen and Millie Small is on the left holding her big hit “My Boy Lollipop,” which was a huge hit for her in [...] was released from prison. While he was away he wrote a song and he said to my dad when he was released that this song should be recorded. It’s about his life and is called “Such Is Life.”

(music: Lord Creator – “Such Is Life”)

Jeff Mao

What sort of American records were making an influence on people in Jamaica? His style was very smooth in this song. Would you say that there was an obvious influence of any particular artist or style from American R&B of this time?

Clive Chin

Yeah, there were a lot of R&B songs and a lot of good instrument songs. I grew up listening to bands from the ‘60s. The Beatles were one of my top-of-the-line groups, but there were other groups, like The Doors – I go crazy when I hear those guys. But then there are other guys that came towards the late ‘60s, like The Meters, Booker T. and The M.G.’s, The Crusaders and The Who. We listened to a lot of foreign records. I would fall in love with certain songs that to me were pretty much down my alley. I covered The Young-Holt Unlimited, “Please, Sunrise, Please” on my debut album, This Is Augustus Pablo. That song was just awesome. The piano played a melody and then I had a melodica do the harmony, the backup harmony. It’s very tickling. It’s not a dance music, but it is a very relaxing music.

Jeff Mao

We’re getting to the point now where Randy’s is established as not only a record store, but also a label, and very soon after as a studio, which is where you became directly even more involved.

Clive Chin

Yeah, I became involved in the late ‘60s. I can remember back when the studio was being built in ‘68, I was still attending school at that time, I was 14. By the time the studio was operative in the spring of ‘69, I was fully in gear. I mean, I lost a chunk of my youthful childhood days not playing cricket or football, or even hanging out with my friends and checking a girlfriend or something like that – I spent a good number of hours down at the studio, just looking curiously, getting involved, mingling with the musicians and asking curious questions like, “How do you do this? How do you do that?” I started back in ‘69 at the age of 15.

[Describing a photo taken in the studio] That picture was taken just after finishing a recording that we normally had on the weekends. During the week the studios were so heavily booked that Saturdays and Sundays, particularly Sundays, were my day in the studio. So I would bring in a group of young musicians that would be sitting from, let’s say, nine, ten in the morning to six, seven in the afternoon, and this [photo] was [taken during] a break. That’s my aunt holding the rhythm guitar there, that is my younger brother that is stooping down right below the piano, that is Errol Thompson in the background and that is me to the left.

Jeff Mao

And around what year is this?

Clive Chin

That’s early ‘70s. I’m pretty sure it’s ‘70.

Jeff Mao

So, really, the studio just began as a place to cut records for your label originally?

Clive Chin

Yes, that is correct. Because we needed to have our own product. We couldn’t just be distributing other labels, like the Upsetter labels or the Jackpots or the Dynamics or the Federals, Jamaican record labels. We wanted to establish our own label. So after my father had the Randy’s label, from the early ‘60s pretty much up to the end of the ‘60s, my uncle, who is deceased now, had brought a recording job sheet back from New York that had the name Impact!, and I fell in love with that name instantly. I said, “Uncle, can I just use this beautiful name?” And he says, “Yes, sure, go for it.” The Impact! label was the flagship for all of my early recordings that took me through ‘70 to ’79, when the studio was closed.

Jeff Mao

OK, what are you going to play for us right now?

Clive Chin

I will play something for you from the Impact! compilation that’s been released this year on Soul Jazz. This is a British-based label, the label is called Soul Jazz. So I’ll hit you off with an instrumental called “KT 88.”

(music: Tommy McCook - “KT88”)

Jeff Mao

[After audience member identifies the cover version] I’m sorry, that is wrong. [Laughter] No, it’s right.

Clive Chin

“Memphis Underground,” that is correct. That is what he said. Herbie Mann.

Jeff Mao

Herbie Mann, “Memphis Underground.” That is another version of an American hit. That is one of your productions?

Clive Chin

Yeah, it is.

Jeff Mao

If you could talk a little bit about the environment around the studio, how you corralled which musicians to play in which sessions? Just take us through a regular day.

Clive Chin

Well, it all depended on who was available, ’cause down by North Parade, where all of this is taking place, there is a side street to the building called Chancery Lane. But over the years it was dubbed Idler’s Rest. For whatever reason they decided to give it the name Idler’s Rest. To me it’s sort of embarrassing, ’cause idler means you got to move, you can’t stay there. But there were all these musicians from all over the island who would come in the morning and they would leave at night when the studio closed. And the reason for that is that they were all looking for an opportunity to go into the recording studio and be heard – whether they were going to be hired to play on a track, or they wanted to be brought in to express their musical talent.

So we would find whoever is available. Put it that way. I mean, if a bass player is available around there, we hire him, whether a drummer, keyboard player, guitarist, percussionist, a horn player, whoever is available. And if nobody is available, trust me, you make one phone call, within 10 or 15 minutes somebody arrives. So, it’s never a day that is dull at Studio 17.

Jeff Mao

And you also said that you’d pack a number of different sessions in per day because of how the musicians would actually be paid per song, per track.

Clive Chin

Yeah, well, the musicians at that time they got paid per track, per tune. And if a musician can stay for the whole day and play as many songs, it’s more power to him, because he is going home happy. He is going home with at least $100 or $200 in his pocket. During my time in the recording industry, I can recall as far back as ‘70, ‘71, they were getting a flat fee of $30 per tune. That is good money then, but who would play for $30 now? You wouldn’t even find someone to lift up your instruments for $30 now. But the more music they played, the more tunes the played, the more money [they made]. So they would be happy to stay the whole day.

Jeff Mao

And at this point you guys also started pushing the evolution of this music as well. Maybe you can talk a little bit about that, how it went through the next transformation?

Clive Chin

Well, for us it was very easy because we had the tools. We had all the tools that were necessary to sell a record. Put it that way. The other promoters that would do their recordings, they would be inclined to go to a distributor with their song and say, “Ms. Chin or Mr. Chin, me have one tune, so just take it, see if you can sell it for me.” And then they disappear. You won’t see them again for probably another month, and then they show up with a little crumpled bill in their pocket and say, “Can you pay me for this now?” Those music didn’t go anywhere. To put the whole thing in its right respective place, I say, a good music is a music that sells. It’s a selling music, money music. In order to get a good music or a good song, you have to feel the people, and by doing so we had the opportunity not only to record the song, but also put it on a disc.

We had a Scully mono lathe that my father bought on a display back in, I guess, late ‘69. We used to only use that for dubplates, to cut sample tracks, and it so happens that we decided not only to use it just to cut dubplates, but use it to make masters, make stampers from it. So, when we cut these acetates, we would take them downstairs to the ground floor of Randy’s, which if you have a picture you probably can get an idea of how the store interior was like, then we’d play this disc for a couple of seconds when the store interior had crowded with customers. Ms. Chin, my stepmother, would say, “Listen to this, this one!” And people would say, “Put it on!” And if the people moved to it, you know, like really moved and swung to it, right away she would call back upstairs and say, “Yes, Clive, cut that one. That one has to go out tomorrow.” And when she says tomorrow, it’s tomorrow, not next week. So that is how we would get our records out.

We were trying to find different sounds. Both myself and Errol Thompson. He is a very close friend of mine, I mean, I met him while going to school and I had the opportunity to collaborate with him on a numerous amount of productions back in the early ‘70s until he left in 1974. We worked as a unit. We were very creative, we were very innovative and we wouldn’t stop for nothing. Because you must also remember that we didn’t have to book the studio to get our production done. We had unlimited studio time.

We spent hours trying to find different sounds. We were trying to find sounds that weren’t available to us on disc or on sound recordings. So, if we needed, for argument’s sake, something like a flush, [the sound of a] river, we would take the boom mic into the toilet and give it one flush of the chain: “Shhoooo.” We said, “Yeah, OK, we keep that on tape.” We moved in all the different areas in the business and probably even went out into the streets to [record] the traffic. You know, a guy honking his horn because the person at the red light doesn’t move. Or people selling their fruits and produce on the sidewalk. We would take all of these things and – I cannot use the word sample, because we didn’t even have an idea what sampling was back then, but we would keep them on tapes and mark them and say, this is what we want to use in this, this is what we want to use in that.

Also some different international artists passed through. Even going back as far as ‘69, when we had the opportunity to host Johnny Nash and his entourage of foreign musicians. It was the first time I came in contact with guys like Quincy Jones, Hugh Masekela.

Jeff Mao

Here is a picture of you at the studio.

Clive Chin

Yes, that is Hugh Masekela there, in the leather jacket and scarf around his neck. Folding his arms in a dashiki is Arthur Jenkins. Standing right beside him is Danny Sims, the person that is in charge of the JAD Records label. He is the actual “D” in JAD, because JAD stands for Johnny, Arthur, Danny. So that is how the JAD label was born. That pretty much was the crew there, except for the absence of Johnny Nash himself. So they spent about a month and a half in the studio. Pretty much day and night. The guys worked right through the night. But then they are accustomed to it because that is what they do for a living. They are really talented people. Huge.

Jeff Mao

I don’t know if people are aware that one of your projects also was one of the first, if not the first dub album, and that is off of a rhythm that you cut for Augustus Pablo. Is that correct?

Clive Chin

Yes, that is correct. We are talking “Java”?

Jeff Mao

That is correct.

Clive Chin

Well, obviously I don’t have Pablo’s cut of it, but I will play the version of it.

(music: Augustus Pablo – “Java Dub”)

Jeff Mao

A lot of us, when we hear dub music, we think that this style is associated with a lot of effects and a lot of severe jumps from one sort of thing to another, [in terms of] the use of sound and space and echoes and reverb and things like that. Yet the stuff that you have done in a dub style has been rather restrained, or rather subtle. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that, as far as differentiating between what you’ve done and someone like King Tubby?

Clive Chin

Well, starting with the music itself, with the dub. How we would modify the dub is that the core of the rhythm, to me and to Errol, is drums. That is the heartbeat of the music. Then the bass. When you perfect those two instruments, put them to their right and respective place, then you can play with anything else. You can work with your riddim. Most of the time when we recorded, when we had like four tracks to play with on the Scully 4-track, we would put the drums on one track, the bass on one track, tie in all the rhythms – which is the keyboard, the organ, the rhythm guitar, the percussion – on one track. And then leave the fourth track open, whether for voicing or for overdubs of a horn instrument or a melodica, or whatever the instrumentation would be. We would work with it that way.

But the core of the riddim would be the drum and the bass. We had to get that tight. And it had to be not too loud and brassy, or not too overloaded that it become distorted. You have to have it at a moderation that is listenable to the ears and danceable. You know, not too crazy.

Jeff Mao

Do you want to talk at all about how things ended toward the end of the ‘70s as far as what became of the studio and the family business?

Clive Chin

For me, the late ‘70s was a period that I try not to remember too much about. But then, when I think about it, at least I can look back and say I contributed a great deal of my personal talent and my personal input in the music industry.

Jeff Mao

Can you explain what happened as far as the Chin family leaving Kingston?

Clive Chin

Well, it all started towards the end of the ‘70s. I will probably honestly say that it started around the summer of ‘77. It’s not that business was not going good, business was ripe. But then the country wasn’t right, the government wasn’t right. The whole atmosphere of the society started to sway a bit. And because I wasn’t involved in politics – I’m still not involved in politics, although I do follow it from time to time because it’s a part of our lives – but things weren’t looking good. Put it that way, you know?

It was a time when the socialist government in Jamaica was in its second term, and it was pretty much told [to] the working class people, the merchants, the industrialist people that were all involved in our everyday life, that there had to be shake up. They had to be put on an alert where, you know, the shop owners didn’t feel comfortable about that. The owners of manufacturers didn’t feel good about that. They all were looking for a way of packing up and finding somewhere else to go with their families and with their business. So that pretty much wrapped up my side of it with the family. They had their plans of moving to New York to set up a distribution [company], which was taking place over there, because my father’s brother, my uncle, had pretty much established a Chin Randy’s legacy in New York, in Brooklyn.

Jeff Mao

That is the store in Brooklyn that your uncle began?

Clive Chin

Yeah, right in Brooklyn. It’s connected in Saint John’s [Place]. So it wasn’t like we didn’t know what we were gonna do, but it was a new venture for us. For me particularly it was a new venture, because at that time, as I said, I was in my early twenties, was pretty much in the swing of everything and I had just started my family. It was heartbreaking to just pull up everything and move to New York. So I had to do it gradually. I came back in ‘78 and spent a little bit of time with my first son and by ‘78, ‘79 I was back in the States. So that’s pretty much that exodus for us back then.

Jeff Mao

As far as your involvement in the music business, for everyone that is not aware, the family business went on to become VP Records and Distribution, which is more or less the largest distribution company of Jamaican music in the world, right?

Clive Chin

Yeah, that is correct.

Jeff Mao

Yet you chose to stay out of that for a number of years.

Clive Chin

Just as everything else, it was heartbreaking for me, number one, to leave Jamaica. And number two, it was a new place, a whole new system. It was very hard for me to adjust, the few months that I came there, ‘cause number one, not having the family intact. And number two, not living with your windows open so that the sun can shine in on you in the morning, and not hearing the cock crow or the chicken, the goats or whatever that I was so used to. Or even going outside and picking fresh fruit off the trees. Everything was different, you know?

It took me a while to get adjusted to the American system. Then, come the winter, oh gosh, seeing that I had to wear longjohns and thick socks and heavy coats. Well, I was used to my sandals and my short pants and my T-shirt. So it was a big change for me. But look, how much years now? We’re talking 25 years now or more. Every time I go back to Jamaica I not only feel disappointed but I feel like in my own Jamaica they take me for a tourist. “Here comes a tourist,” you know? I’m like, “No, man. I’m Jamaican.” “Nah man, you live in foreign too long, you lose your status.” Or your nationality. [Laughs]

Jeff Mao

You actually began working with music again in the last few years, which I think is great. After a number of years working in the restaurant business in New York, in Queens too.

Clive Chin

Oh yeah, sorry, I left that out. The restaurant business came about in the early ‘80s, I believe it was ‘81. And why the restaurant? Well, my wife then, she was a woman that believed in homecooked food. And I didn’t blame her because I told her when I first came to New York we didn’t have homecooked food, we had this thing called TV dinners that we had to put in this – it wasn’t even a microwave back then, it was like these warmers, these ovens. And you’ll make cold mashed potatoes become soft mashed potatoes, and frozen meat become soft meat, and frozen peas become peas. And we couldn’t deal with that. After a while I just got fed up with them. I said, “Let’s just cook.”

There was a need for a Caribbean restaurant in the village that we lived in, and the opportunity came around when my father decided to buy a building that is now the prominent building at Jamaica Avenue. He gave up the small store that he had rented, which was a eight-by-16 [feet] and took that spot over, which was about $350 a month. You can’t even get a shoebox with $350 in New York [now], the way space is so expensive. But the restaurant stayed in existence for about eight years. We supplied all day the great dishes of curry goat, oxtail and stew peas, green banana, ackee and salt fish, the great mannish water soups. The soups were the favorite for me, you know, and the fried fish, some fried fish and bammy. Bammy is really cassava. It’s fried and very crispy and you eat it how you eat a piece of pita bread, you dip it in the sauce and just eat it. It’s wicked. Trust me, very tasty [applause]. Cooking food was very similar to making music.

Jeff Mao

I don’t know if we mentioned this before, but one of your techniques on one of your biggest hits was not actually a rhythm guitar doing the rhythm, but a cheese grater. Correct?

Clive Chin

Oh yeah, you remember that one? Oh gosh. If that’s the case, I’ll just ease out what I have for a second. Here we go.

(music: Alton Ellis – “It’s Too Late”)

Yeah, that was a cheese grater taking the place of a rhythm guitar. It’s not that we couldn’t find a rhythm guitarist, but this tune meant so much to me, because when I got the track to record... this is actually a cover song of Cornelius Brothers, “Too Late to Turn Back.”

Jeff Mao

It was an American hit?

Clive Chin

Yeah. I wanted to create a different rhythm entirely from the original, because when you copy a cover song, you are actually not doing any justice to it, you might as well take the original record and put it out. What’s the sense of doing something over the same way? Do it something different. So what I did was that I had someone who wrote the lyrics out for Alton Ellis. So he didn’t have no clue what the rhythm track sounded like, the soul cut. I had him come into the studio to just sing the song and build a fresh riddim over the song. This is what came out of it, with the organ and the keyboards, and also the cheese grater that is popping up very strongly in the rhythm track. It was a plus for us.

Jeff Mao

One thing that you had said that I was really surprised by is that oftentimes when you covered these American hits, you did not tell anybody what the actual song was like. Or you did not play the original version for anybody who was in the studio. You just had them directed as to how to perform the song.

Clive Chin

Well, in some cases you have to let them listen to the song to get a feel. But in my case, when I cover songs, I don’t cover them to make them sound daintier or anything like that, I make them sound rich. They sound at times even better than the original. [In Patois] Me come not only fi create a new song, but fi kill the old song, you know? As if to put the old song to rest and come with a fresh one.

Audience Member

It is obvious that you’ve been involved in many studio sessions. Is there one that stands out in your mind or that you remember very clearly, when that sort of magic happened?

Clive Chin

Ah, several. If what you are asking me is what am I thinking of in my mind, then what I feel I should answer your question with is that yes, there have been moments during my period in the recording stage that I can recall as being momentous. As a fact, I have seen one of my idols in the music business, a man called Lee “Scratch” Perry, would come in to do a recording. First when he comes in, he comes in with his entourage of guys carrying tapes, and then musicians will come in. But then he will bless the studio, the four corners of the studio, with a flask of white rum. And it would go “pft, pft, pft, pft,” and four corners of the studio would take a little drink, a little splash. Then he will light a big giant spliff and burn, and that will get the studio foggy, like cloudy. Then he starts doing rituals and movements, getting him into a physical, spiritual feeling.

Then when everything is about to start, he gives his demonstration of how he wants the recording done. Like, he would come up to the musicians, not with a music score sheet, and say, “This is what I want you to play,” or, “This is what I want you to play, Mr. Piano Man,” or, “This is what I want you to play, Mr. Guitarist.” He will come up to the guitarist and say, bringing his right knee up to his chin: “This is number one rhythm guitar, play ‘shaka!’” Then he will go over to the bass player and say: “Me want bass so: ‘Boom-boom, boom-boom, boom-boom…” Just by telling them the sound and giving them the motion of how he wants the music. That is his direction. And if he doesn’t get it, he doesn’t leave the studio until it’s done.

So that is what I call creativity within itself. And that is what actually motivated me as a young producer to say, “Well, if you can’t get what you want, then why bother?” You are going there with qualified and equipped musicians. Even if they didn’t carry them own instruments, there would be instruments there for them to use because we would lend them the in-house equipment. Whether they wanted a percussion, a shaker or a cheese grater.