Barbados is losing out on revenue from Jackie Opel’s music, as an expert warns that the cultural and economic value of the late singer’s recordings has been severely underestimated.
At the launch of a landmark publication on the Barbadian icon on Tuesday, international scholar Professor Mike Alleyne pointed to online prices as high as US$1 000 for Opel’s singles, saying it underscored the urgent need for a reassessment of the worth of Barbadian music and stronger business strategies to protect artists’ legacies.
Alleyne, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Recording Industry, Middle Tennessee State University, along with Dr Marcia Burrowes of The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, were the co-editors of the publication Jackie Opel: Caribbean Musical Visionary written by former campus librarian Dr Elizabeth Watson. The press launch on Wednesday at the Cave Hill campus coincided with Opel’s birthday, which is celebrated as Jackie Opel Day.
Professor Alleyne noted one instance in which a Japanese seller was offering a blank-label copy of one of Opel’s singles for over US$327.
In another instance, Opel’s Old Rocking Chair single from 1964 was being sold for US$1 000.
He said the cultural and economic value of vintage recordings by Barbadian artists is severely underestimated.
“Clearly, there needs to be a serious local reassessment of the value assigned to recorded musical product,” he said.
“As Dr Watson indicates, much of the cultural cache associated with Jackie Opel’s recordings arises from the misperception that he’s a Jamaican artist because that’s where he had his greatest impact and because the recordings he made in Jamaica were widely circulated internationally on several labels.”
“But the licensing and reissues of these recordings, probably now owned by countless untraceable parties, has left Barbados entirely out of the revenue flow equation. Consequently, as this book emphasises, there’s an urgent need for reappraisal of the business components related to Barbadian popular music in order to achieve long-term sustainability.”
Opel, widely regarded as the Father of Spouge in Barbados, was born Dalton Bishop and tragically died in a car crash on Bay Street in March 1970.
Dr Watson, who served The UWI for 46 years, wrote her doctoral thesis in Cultural Studies, Uncovering and Recovering Caribbean Popular Music: Jackie Opel as a Case Study, which received High Commendation from her examiners. She passed away in March 2019.
As Pro Vice Chancellor and Principal of the Cave Hill campus, Professor Clive Landis noted, her Ph.D. supervisors, Dr Burrowes and Professor Alleyne, thought that such a thesis on a Caribbean musical icon needed to be shared with Barbados, the Caribbean region and the world. With the support of the government and Dr Watson’s children, Kim and Raymond, the project proceeded.
Professor Alleyne said Watson’s work fills major gaps in the documentation of popular music in Barbados.
Beyond analysing Opel’s career in Barbados, Trinidad, and Jamaica, he said the book provides a roadmap for a national archival strategy to catalogue Barbadian popular music and place it in its proper historical context.
“The volume was long overdue and highlights the many inequities of the recording industry, particularly in an era characterised by the ruthless exploitation of artists lacking business awareness and adequate representation,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr Burrowes challenged the notion held by some that Barbados lacks culture.
“How do you explain Jackie Opel?” she asked. “It’s a lie! As Kamau Brathwaite would say, it’s an ancient and crooked lie.”
“What Elizabeth has done is given us a context and some text to argue, to make us look to ourselves. Jackie’s voice is the voice of cultural resistance, a way of looking forward. [To say] Barbados has no culture is an insulting narrative. Let me tell all Barbadians, ‘If anyone says that to you, say uh-uh, it sounds like you’re discussing your own problems’. We have culture; everyone has culture; all human beings have culture. Let us proceed to knock this thing down.”
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office with Responsibility for Culture, Senator Dr Shantal Munro-Knight, noted that in 2024, under the National Cultural Foundation, the Jackie Opel Legacy Lab was launched to ensure a contemporary interpretation of Opel’s work.
The project was showcased on Wednesday at the Richard Stoute Amphitheatre, National Botanical Gardens, during CARIFESTA XV.
“Jackie Opel’s work is not only about the past… It is also about what his contribution will do for us going forward,” she said.
Ian Randle of Ian Randle Publishers, also present on the island for CARIFESTA, said he had, like many Jamaicans, assumed years ago that Opel was a Jamaican.
He went on to describe the publication as being of “monumental importance”, praised Dr Watson’s research skills and commended both the campus and the government for supporting the project. (WILLCOMM)
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