TheOrator.Press Business Page: Taking Care of Business. The Business of ‘Show’! It’s A Case of ‘Better Late Than Never’ As A New Film Documentary Featuring ‘The Cimarons’ One of Britain’s Most Successful Reggae Session Bands Finally Affords Them Respectful Recognition. October 2024

A Black History Month Special

There’s ‘The Show’ And Then There’s ‘The Business’ of ‘Showbusiness’.

There’s The ‘Music’ And There’s The ‘Business’ of ‘The Music Business’.

The Modelling Industry, Is The Same InPrinciple.

The Movie Industry Too.

Record Companies Have Lawyers! Representatives, Managers. Creatives, Peformers And Musical Talent Need To Engage Protective Professional Personnel Too. It’s So Important To Professional Protect Against Exploitation And Abuse.. Times Were Possibly More Niave In The Whirlwind Days of The Original Cimorons And Lawyers Can Still Be Rather Expensive Today. But A Band Manager Or Talent Manager As An Organiser And Protector Is An Absolute Minimum Requirement. This Is Because, There’s The ‘Show’. And There’s The ‘Know’! The Talent Needs To ‘Show’ And The ‘Protectors Need To ‘Know’. And The Story of Cimarons Is A Cautionary Tale.

The Original Cimarons Were A Bunch of Five Guys From Jamaica Who Loved Making Music With The Reggae Vibe of Their Roots. Locksley Gichie (Lead Guitarist). Franklyn Dunn (Bassist). Maurice Ellis (Drummer). Carl Levy (Keys) And Carl Lewis (Lead Singer). Winston Ready Took Over The Lead Singer Role In 1974. The Band Had Formed Seven Years Earlier In 1967 After Gichie And Dunn Started To Build A Band Having Meet A Church Youth Club In Harlesdon, Brent.

They Had Both Arrived From Jamaica As Teenagers And Wanted To Build Up A Reggae Scene. They Did. To The Point That They Worked With Bob Marley As ‘The Wailers’ For A Hot Minute And Even Had A Number One Record In Jamaica After Making A Bob Marley Cover. ‘Talking Blues’ After A Radio Play By The Late Legendary Alternative Music DJ John Peel.

Sir Paul McCartney Even Commissioned A Whole Album of Reggae Covers Later On Too.

They Played All Over The World And Pioneered The International Reggae Scence Playing In West Africa, Japan, Thailand, Spain, Holland, Ireland And The Edinburgh Reggae Festival In 1973 (Who Knew?).

So Where Did It All Array? Directed By Photographer Now Movie Maker Marc Warmington This Film Follows The Band To Break It Down And See If They Might Rise Up Again. It’s A Moving, Important And Powerful Film. Respectful. Inspirational. And Routing For Them All The Way! Inspired By The Name of One of Their Tracks, You’d Have To Have A Heart of Stone Not To Be Rooting For Them Too.

Photo Very End of Page, Bottom Lefthand Column: Don Letts Hosts The Q & A Session After The Film Premiere Hosted By The Sheffield Crucible Theatre. Part of Sheffield Doc Fest. Gichie, Warmington, Arkk, Winston Reedy (Former Lead Singer) And Dunn Are Seated On Stage.

The Cimarons Story: Harder Than The Rock: Sky Friday October 18 2024 (Sky’s Catch Up On Demand Service Is ‘Now TV’).

Film Also At: https://www.harderthantherock.com

Terry

The Late Terry Hall (Centre) Lead Singer of The Specials

The Windrush Generation And Their Children (Who Would Be Second Generation Windrush) Were Subjected To Chronic, Terrifying And Sometimes Fatal Racism Which Manifested In Employment And Business As Well As Hooliganism On The Streets And Mistreatment By The Police. Such Business Included The Music Business, Showbusiness, Job Centres, Employers, Colleagues And Customers. Yets These Victims of Racism Were Asked By The British To Come To Britain From The Colonies To Help Rebuild The Country After The Second World War.

That really shook me…when I discovered that working men’s clubs had a colour bar on their doors.

When you see injustice, all you can do is think: what can I do to help, what can I say about this, how can I make people aware of this?

The Late Terry Hall, Lead Singer of The Specials

The Anti-Racism Music Movement 1976-82

The Anti-Racism Music Movement Rock Against Racism (RAR) 1976-82 Saw Punk And Reggae Artists Unite As They Railled Against The System And Establishment That They Believed Were Against Them.

Sadly Terry Hall, Died 18 December 2022 Following A Diagnosis of Pancreatic Cancer. He Was Born 19th March 1959.

He And Music Video Director Don Letts Were Friends And Collaborated Together On Letts’ First Solo Album Released LastSeptember (Aged 67).

Hence He Can Very Much Relate To The Now Senior, Cimarons.

Leadership, Twinkle & Charisma Make This Cautionary Tale A Moving Journey Down The Rock & Reggae Superhigh Way, With Surprising And Sudden Unexpected Teardrops Along The Way…As We Hold Out For Better Days

On One Hand The Cimarons Documentary Film Reports That The Cimarons Were Poorly Treated When It Came To Receiving Due Royalties And Payment For Use of Music To Which They Had Professionally Contributed And Work They’d Undertaken As Musicians, And Performances Given. Yet On The Other Hand They Admit That They Never Had A Band Manager To Look After Them Whilst They Focused On Making Music And Helping Others Do The Same, In Their Capacity As Session Musicians As Well As Music Makers In Their Own Right.

It’s A Crying Shame. But It Has Happened Before. And Sadly May Well Happen Again (To Other Musicians) If Warnings By This Generation of Reggae Rockers Are Not Heeded By The Next.

Former Brent Based Cameraman Turned Documentary Maker Mark Warmington After Hearing of Their Story From Brent Council (Who Afforded Them A Blue Plaque) Has Done A Great Job of Securing Funding To Make The Documentary, Engaging Big Names From The Music Business To Get Behind It, And Making Sure That The Cimarons Story Was Told Respectfully. It’s A Great Watch, Very Moving, And Seriously Important British/Jamaican History.

@metwarmington Is A Star Himself Too!

It Is Especially Heartwarming Seeing And Feeling How Sincere, In-Sync And Likeable These Guys Are And How Their Perserverance, Passion, And Pleasure In Doing What They Do Gives Them Resilience. It’s A Lesson For Us All.

This Film May Well Lead To A Revival of Reggae Session Work, Singles, Albums And Festivals For These Musicians When Hopefully This Time Around They Will All Be Protected By Legal Representation Securing Contracts Taking Care of Their Needs, Best Interests And Legacies, Including Carefully Crafted Contracts, Writing Credits, Ownership, Royalties, Image Rights, Copyright, Performance Rights And Any Promotional or Business Venture Protections.

There Are Now Just Two Original Core Members of The Cimarons Left. It’s The Two Members Who Started The Group In The First Place In 1967 After Meeting At A Church Youth Centre In Harlesdon When One of Them Happened To Be Strolling Around With A Guitar.

That Was Locksley Gichie (Lead Guitarist) And Franklyn Dunn (Bassist). The Former Is A Natural Born Leader With A Cool Disposition And ‘An Air of Being Aware’ And In Control. Yet Friendly And Chilled Out. The Latter Is His Long Term Friend Franklyn Dunn Who Still Has A Cheeky Twinkle In His Eye And A Cheeky Smile.

There Is Also A New Third Member Who Become Lead Singer In 2019. He’s Confident, Charismatic And Has A 365 Days A Year Santa Clause Beard. He’s Previously Released A Number of Albums Under His Stage Name Michael Arkk. @michaelarkk @locksleygichie TheCimaronsBand.Com

To Fully Appreciate This Musical Cautionary Tale of The Importance of Management And Representation It Seems Important To Put It Into Some Historical Context And Also Consider At Least A Couple of Other Comparable Cases. One Thing Lacking In This Film Is A Comparison With Other Session Bands And Their Expectations And Experiences.

The Late Millie Small’s British & Jamaican SKA Hit ‘My Boy Lollipop’ (1964) Become An Anthem For The Windrush Generation And Still Remains Popular Today, Sixty Years Later. It’s Now A Cultural Classic. But Questions Have Been Raised About How She Was Treated By The Music Business.

Hall Fronted Three Bands During His Musical Career Most Famously The Two Tone Ska Band The Specials, Then Fun Boy Three With Neville Staple And Lynval Golding, After Which Came The Colour Field.

In 2019 The Specials (With Hall, Who Returned After Leaving In 1981 And Rejoining In 2008 As The Band Prepared To Go On Tour) Released ‘Encore’ Their First Album of New Material In Over A Decade. It Was On Universal & Island Records.

This Followed A Tour The Year Before Alongside Fellow British Group Chrissie Hynde And The Pretenders (Who Letts Was Going To See In Concert, At The London Palladium, The Evening of Our Interview).

Don Lett’s Album ‘Outta Sync’ (Produced During Lockdown And Said To Be An Expression of How The Pandemic Made Him Feel) Features A Number of Different Collaborations. The Late Terry Hall Was Meant To Be One of Them. However Terry Hall No Longer Appears on The Final Album.

Why?

Well According To Letts @lettsdon Whilst Hall May Have Agreed To The Collab’ Hall’s Record Company Didn’t.

Suffice To Say The Record Company Instructed Their Lawyers To Deal With The Discrepancy!

This Posthumous Turn of Events Brings To Mind The Cliched But Caring Refrain Often Made By Others When People Pass Away And A Gesture Is Made In Their Honour – “It’s What They Would Have Wanted”. This Self-Centred Behaviour By The Record Company Concerned Seems To Be The Absolute Opposite of What Hall Would Have Wanted.

It’s A Crying Shame And Frankly Something of A Corporate Disgrace. As A Matter of Opinion.

Miser Ebenezer Scrooge Tells Us That Self-Centred Business Practices Are Nothing New. Dickens Will Have Got His Inspiration From Somewhere or Someone Back In The Day. The ‘Haves’ Squeezing The ‘Have Nots’ Is As Old As Time. And In The Music Business It’s Notorious.

Suffice Also To Say That This Is The Month of Halloween And Restless Spirits Are Known To Go Haunting.

Ironically Hall’s First Big Hit With The Specials (1981) Was Indeed Called Ghost Town.

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