A visit to Supertone Records in Brixton offers much more than just the opportunity to buy records. Like all good Reggae shops it's also a meeting place, a community centre and a remedy to the isolation of buying on-line. When Gussie P walked through the shop he worked the Tuesday afternoon crowd. Hailing everyone he met with a joke or some friendly teasing. When he nipped outside for a smoke it seemed like every passing car, van and bin lorry was driven by someone who wanted to shout a greeting. He's a popular man in these parts.

The interview took place in the upstairs office, which was a practical place to talk. Gussie is a good organiser. Fixing impromptu meetings in the midst of London's Reggae geography is an effortless procedure for him. However, despite many years in the business, self promotion isn't an endeavour he's practiced. He would have preferred to bring one of the artists that record for his Sip A Cup label along and let them do the interview.

"I don't really look on myself, I just try to be a do-er. Try not to even chat. Most people kind of boost up what they're doing, so I try not to even say I'm going to do anything. Just do it. I kinda learnt that from Fashion."

Fashion Records, or more accurately A-Class Studio is where Gussie Prento made his name. Starting out as an assistant engineer and going on to play a crucial role for the legendary British Reggae label. I asked him what he was doing before he joined up with Chris Lane at A-Class.

"I worked in factories. Then I studied City & Guilds Radio and TV Servicing and I worked for British Relay fixing tellies. So I was into electronics and all that before. I'm from Lewisham, South East London. I grew up with Matic Horns, even from school days I was recording them. Me and my friend Mark from across the road used to have a little studio; a two track reel to reel that went straight to a cassette. We'd make our own dubplates. Matic Horns used to come and blow on the tracks. You'd have a dub that someone had released, but if you could blow a trombone over it or play a little melodica you'd have another cut. We used to do all them things there."

It was through cutting dubplates that Gussie bumped into Chris Lane and asked him for a job when he was nineteen or twenty. He must have been irresistibly cheeky at that age because he's still a mischievous character, his accent veers violently between raw South London and the Caribbean. He might not relish the prospect of an interview but he's something of a Reggae raconteur, totally at ease talking about his passion for the business that he's in.

"I've always been around soundsystem and all my friends them, but I loved the studio aspect more. Being the man at the controls has always been fascinating. The opportunity to work with the kind of people recording at A-Class makes you buck up your ideas. When you're recording somebody who might be 'special' in your eyes, the pressure's on. You might have Junior Delgado or Al Campbell or somebody, you can't afford to make a mistake. At the time it was good as well because the UK stuff was very prevalent. You had the Saxon lot, Maxi Priest and Nereus Joseph. There was many people coming through them times there. Black Echoes was out weekly and it used to have a chart. There would always be a good amount of UK tunes, whether they were UK producers or artists. Even though it would be dominated by Jamaican tunes, the UK would have a good shout. We had Jetstar and there were more shops. It was a different era."

 

It was while he was still working at Fashion that Gussie branched out and started his own Sip A Cup and Gussie P labels.

"Sometimes you just wanna do something that's a bit more directly you. From beginning to end without any other influence. Fashion were still the boss, you know what I'm saying. I would have the outside time. I'd have the studio on Saturdays or Sundays, their work would be the main focus".

It may be surprising to some people, who only know Sip A Cup for it's solid Roots productions, that Gussie was releasing Lovers Rock and Dancehall at that time.

"The labels and producers that I love, aside from Yabby and Pablo who is Rootsmen, did all kinds of tunes. You have to love Bunny Lee, Duke Reid and Coxsonne. That's what it was like in my original days growing up. It wasn't all so pigeonholed as it is now with Revival dance, Bashment dance, Roots dance, UK Dub and all that. In those days it was all kind of one. You were either a Soul-head or a Rebels. A Reggae sound would have to be a bit versatile to play some things to keep the women them involved. Even when I left Fashion I was teaming up with Top Cat, Tenor Fly and all a the UK deejay them, as well as Mike Anthony and Tad Hunter. So it would be Lovers and Dancehall as well as Roots.

The scene in England began to transform towards the end of the eighties. Reggae's core audience began to be captured by new types of music. Most of it was sample based and, as it is with some of the Dubstep producers of today, credit wasn't always given where it was due.

"We used to put accapellas on records so that people could take it and put it on a different beat. It was a blessing in some ways. 'Push Up Yu Lighter' was one of the biggest Jungle tunes, so it keeps Top Cat alive and I still get some money off it sometimes. But in other ways it was a nightmare because people took it and changed the name. People who should have been representing us weren't. You end up going in someone's office, who had nothing to do with the tune, and they've got a gold record for it on the wall!"

It's a situation that he can look back on with some humour now and it's absorbing to hear someone talk so frankly about a business they are clearly devoted to; despite it's highs and lows. He's quite an enigmatic figure on the Reggae scene and it was great to finally be able to ask the man who produced Cutty Ranks 'The Stopper' if he'll ever make another Dancehall record.

"I can't say anything, I've learnt never to say never. But the whole structure of Reggae kind of changed. The prices that some of the artists were charging! They were approachable and you could voice them up until the early nineties. After that it got ridiculous if you wanted to voice somebody current, a namebrand, popular right now. You couldn't make no money."

I asked him how Sip A Cup became a label that was synonymous with a classic Roots sound.

"I remember the exact year, it was 1998. I pressed up some Roots, Lovers and Dancehall. The Roots totally outsold the others. You go with what's going; but I've been a Rootsman from early childhood because that was my era, when the Rasta ting kinda come to the forefront. Augustus Pablo has always been my favourite, anybody who knows me will tell you that."

 

People appreciate Gussie's music because it doesn't sound like a lot of the stuff that passes for Roots and Dub these days.

"I don't like putting labels on music, I leave that to other people, because everything's down to perception. But a lot of it is just some bedroom ting. Not to say it can't work; like "the stone that the builder refuse". But I myself deal with musical justice. I have to deal with the best production I can do within my realms. When you're a youth you do things as a youth. When you're a big man, you do it as a big man. So even though I do love the raw ting, with just drums, bass, voice and piano; I also love a full 'Abyssinians' production. Horns, two guitars, organ, rhythm section, percussion, congos, full drum kit and full harmonies. Not with everything playing at once, because that's where arrangement comes into it. People might say that I only put a lone trombone or tenor sax on a tune. I might not have the full three part section of trumpet, sax and trombone. Still I might want harmonies within that range. So everybody's kind of got their own ideas, I deal with musical justice - take the music as far as it can go."

Gussie can get a wistful, far away look when he's talking about the creative side, but making Roots music is a serious thing.

"Sometimes in the dancehall people got in earplugs. So you know the message is not really there, it's just about a beat. Really a beat is just a vehicle for the message. We can all get hypnotised by beats, we all love certain beats or the colour within them, but it's the message that makes your hair stand up. I can't say it's wrong if you're blocking that out because those same people embrace what I'm doing."

 

Gussie P has spent most of his adult life constructing those beats and assembling vehicles that carry the message so carefully. I wanted to know how a Sip A Cup production comes about.

"I might start off with an idea for a bass line and hum it into a dictaphone. Then I'll do a session where we lay rhythms, just using drum, bass and piano. Mafia & Fluxy to start with. They'll lay the foundations at Mafia's studio, my studio, Paul Chue's studio, anywhere that you can set up. In the A-Class days it would have been there. I'm still using the same team because Mafia & Fluxy are from a longer time. That's how Reggae is, you have sessions where you do certain things. Sometimes you might do a horns session where you do loads of horns. Nowadays, because we're in Pro-Tools you can just chop things up and move them around. Now you can just do one part on half or a third of the record and just copy and paste the rest. Once you've put a vocal onto the basic rhythm, that's when you do your overdubs. Horns, guitars; some arrangement around the song. Do it justice. I'll also add some harmonies. Earl Sixteen, Robbie Valentine and Leroy Mafia are all champion at harmonies. They can sound like anybody. Earl's voice blends brilliantly with anybody's. Beautiful harmonies. On most of my LPs, Earl sings harmony on some tracks. I used to be fussy about the mixing but I'll do it anywhere now. I've got a little set up. I've been mixing up at Paul Chue's, Mafia's and with Darren at Jamtone in New Cross. I know people in my circles who've got set ups, so I can go anywhere, anywhere. I don't decide, it just happens. It's the end product that counts. Beg, steal or borrow to get studio time. Being an engineer, I don't like to pay for it."

For years he's been producing music on an industrial scale, both for himself and as an engineer for hire. Things are changing however.

"I've spent the majority of my career working on other people's music and when I'm not working on my stuff, nobody is. If I'm working for you it means my thing is taking a back seat. So for the last three or four years I've done less and less for other people and concentrated on my self.

It's what he calls the "business of music" that he's been concentrating on.

"You have to run it as a cottage industry now. You can't have loads of overheads because the business isn't there. So I've got to think about, have I got the labels? What's at the print? What sleeves am I gonna need next? Have I got all the information to give to the man who's going to do the artwork? To be ahead of yourself all the time is very difficult".

Gussie's focus has moved away from the studio and the mixing desk. The UK's most prolific producer is now taking a long hard look at all his unreleased tracks as well as the back catalogue. He might be talking about not getting trapped in the studio and cutting back on recording, but record collectors shouldn't worry, because Gussie P intends to keep them very busy.

"The Recession Beaters are coming back. The credit crunch has forced my hand! I'm going to re-press those because I'm always getting people wanting to order them. I just released another two Showcases in the series. Junior Delgado and Michael Prophet. I've enough for another thirty to forty Showcases without having to record anybody new. I'll probably go up to twenty before Twinkle Brothers or Johnny Clarke has a second one. The amount of tracks I've got, with 10"s you can't put out enough tunes. I want music to be released to the people. Junior has past and left us in April 2005. Four years we're missing Jux already, so just release. I've gone down the Showcase route to get more tracks to the people and give them a better bargain as well. Trying to make it a bit more economical for the public, you know. If you hit them with enough, you make it a collectors series. It started off with Twinkle because I had a great tune that was popular on dubplate, called 'Repent'. I used that to launch the series. I'm working on a Sandeeno, Rick Wayne, a sax one with Winston Sax and a Rod Taylor. I'm mixing those and I'm sort of half way. I've also got R Zee Jackson, Winston McAnuff and Tena Stelin. I don't know if I'll be able to release all of them this year."

The Showcases offer four vocals and four dubs. The series has sold well so far and it's typical Gussie P to be going in the opposite direction to everybody else. Not only does he release more, but he's giving better value for money when there's a trend to try to raise prices.

 

There can't be many people who know more about the Reggae music business in England. It's been Gussie P's life and it's been an eventful journey. Reggae music has taken him to many places and allowed him to work with most of it's legendary artists. I asked him if he had any ambitions left in Reggae. It was the one question that really made him pause and take stock.

"I don't know ... You voice man like Dirtsman and they shot him. Jux dropped. So even me, not to say that I'm some big old vet in dis ting ... But I'd like to live to release all the stuff I've got ... That would be something."

 

April 2009

 

Gussie P website : www.gussie-p.com