Icon remembered as copyright changes mooted

by David Hinkson

Barbadian artistes have been reassured that their relatives will continue to benefit from royalties associated with their work for a longer period after their demise. This assurance came from Special Advisor on Culture and Cultural Heritage in the Prime Minister’s Office, Senator John King, during a panel discussion on the life and work of Barbadian musical icon, Jackie Opel, at the Courtney Blackman Grande Salle on Saturday in honour of Jackie Opel Day.

He was at the time responding to a question from entertainer, Leroy Straker, who pointed out that, “Our current copyright laws only allow relatives to obtain royalties for up to fifty years after the artiste dies. So given that Jackie Opel died in 1970, it means that his family will no longer benefit from those payments.

“In Jamaica the law goes up to 95 years and in most of the world it is 70 years.”

Senator King said, “In 2020 the Government looked at this and agreed that we should carry it up to 70 years, and we are hoping to bring the relevant legislation to Parliament soon.”

Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Creative Arts, Culture and Performing Arts at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Dr. Marcia Burrowes, moderated the discussion, which featured Dr. Stefan Walcott, Adjunct Lecturer in Music at The UWI, Cave Hill Campus; Desmond Weekes of the Draytons Two; prominent singer Richard Stoute and prolific songwriter Sach Moore.

Stoute, a founder member of one of Barbados’ leading vocal groups, The Opels, noted that it was Jackie Opel who gave that group its name.

“One day we were practising at the public baths in Chapman Lane and Jackie heard us singing and invited us to perform at a show he was having at the Barbarees Plaza. We didn’t have a name for the group yet, so he said, ‘Man, I’m going to name you all after me; from now on, you all are
The Opels!’”

Stoute said he believed spouge, the musical genre Opel created, did not go as far as it could have based on Opel’s low-income background, a sentiment echoed by Sach Moore.

“To me Jackie came on the scene at the wrong time because we were still searching for a cultural identity. Jackie was a poor black boy like myself and the others who were coming up at that time, and our parents looked down on entertainment as a career choice, particularly calypso which was seen as taboo. It was only when The Merrymen came along that calypso became more accepted locally.”

Desmond Weekes also spoke on the image some Barbadians had of Jackie, stating that, “Nothing was wrong with Jackie; everything was wrong with the people! Jackie was a man ahead of his time, a real visionary, and people don’t always understand creatives because they see the world differently.”

Both bass guitarist Ricky Aimey and sound engineer and member of The Sandpebbles band, Norman Barrow, shared their thoughts on why spouge fell out of favour during the mid to late 1970s after being extremely popular for most of the decade.

Aimey said, “Spouge didn’t fail; we failed spouge. When we stopped playing spouge other people in the Caribbean wondered whether we were crazy, but I believe certain elements of society did not want to see it prosper because of where it originated.”

In Barrow’s view, “In those days we had West Indies Records Limited, more commonly known as WIRL, and they recorded and pressed records here in Barbados, but they were controlled by one of the island’s bigger conglomerates and they kept carrying up their prices.

In fact, after a while it became cheaper to get our music recorded, records pressed and shipped back here from Jamaica than to have the process done here. I also recall that (Jamaican entertainer) the late Byron Lee wanted to set up a studio and pressing plant here but that idea was squashed.”

In terms of the way forward for the genre, Dr. Walcott noted that “If you analyse the music that came out during the spouge era, you will realise that all the different groups had their own spin on it based on their influences, for example with some there was a hint of funk, ska and country and western in their work. To me, if we are talking about getting young people into spouge, we have to understand they will also bring their influences to the table.”

Other suggestions included establishing a four-year Jackie Opel Memorial Music Scholarship for music students at UWI Cave Hill, a spouge festival as part of the
Crop Over Festival, and the creation of a dance to go along with the genre.