On August 27, Minister of Culture John King, as he addressed the unveiling of a monument at the gravesite of late Barbadian musical pioneer Jackie Opel at the Westbury Cemetery, announced that that date, the anniversary of the singer’s birth, will be officially recognised as Jackie Opel Day.
While we welcome the news that Opel, who is credited with creating spouge – considered Barbados’ national genre in our post-Independence euphoria but which has since been confined to the archives until November each year – will finally be honoured, now would be a great time to educate Barbadians more about his accomplishments.
According to those who knew him and worked closely with him, Opel, real name Dalton Bishop, produced well over 100 45-rpm singles while he lived in Jamaica in the 1960s, and he was a founding member of one of that island’s more prominent groups, the Skatellites. He became a highly respected performer in Jamaica, to the extent Jamaicans claim him as one of their own, and was said to have influenced Bob Marley when the latter was starting out in the music industry.
He had a repertoire of music covering a wide range of themes, for example, Don’t Let Me Die and Valley of the Green which dealt with the topic of death, and the self-explanatory Turn to the Almighty. Now would be the ideal time to get some of that music digitally remastered and released to the local radio stations, rather than playing the same songs from his catalogue repeatedly, such as You’re No Good and Cry Me a River – there was much more to him than that.
In terms of written information on Opel, UWI researcher Dr Elizabeth Watson was working on a book on his life, but she passed away before she completed it. Former Barbadian radio announcer Mike Alleyne, who is now a Professor in the Department of Recording Industry at the University of Middle Tennessee in the United States, has a comprehensive chapter highlighting Opel’s work in his Encyclopaedia of Reggae Music published in 2012. Some of the promoters and entertainers who would have worked with Opel – who lost his life in a car accident in March 1970 – are still alive and it would be good to document their insights into his life and times before they themselves shuffle off this mortal coil.
After many years of neglect, Opel’s gravesite was finally given a proper headstone in 2018, thanks to the efforts of the Copyright Society of Composers, Artists and Publishers (COSCAP) and the Clyde B. Jones Funeral Home, one of whose directors, Ken Jones, was a member of his local backing band, the Troubadours.
As he announced the day in honour of Opel, Minister King stated that the Westbury area of Bridgetown had produced a number of cultural icons, including Rihanna, who had Westbury New Road where she resided as a child renamed in her honour in 2017; and the Mighty Grynner, whose seven Road March victories during the Crop Over festival were recognised when the Spring Garden Highway was named after him.
In King’s words: “This is becoming an area that celebrates the musical greatness of this country and I am hoping that as time goes on, we can fill these spaces with other iconic figures like Tony Grazette and Richard Stoute and other songwriters and producers to make people understand the important contributions these people have made and continue to make to the musical landscape, not only of Barbados, but the entire world.”
Other than monuments, however, could we not make a more tangible contribution to the entertainment industry in Opel’s name? Barbadians who were alive in his heyday often talk about the many occasions he “brought the house down” with his performances at the Globe Cinema on Roebuck Street. That building has been closed for the last ten years and all attempts to put it on the market have seemingly fallen through. It might be advisable for COSCAP, or even the National Cultural Foundation, to purchase that building and recommission it for the hosting of concerts, pageants and other shows and put a statue or bust of Opel in a prominent place on or near the property. That way, we will honour Jackie as well as provide a forum for future generations of entertainers to hone their craft, something of which we are sure he would be proud.
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As a young Bajan growing up in Barbados, I truly believe Jackie’s time has come to be properly honored. “Spouge all the way.”
A Bajan in New York.
’20.
Ette bon Baje