Cedric, we have to start by mentioning the new album, 'Back In The Black Ark'. Have The Congos come full circle now?
Cedric Myton: "Well, we linked up with Lee 'Scratch' Perry again for this album. He was really only involved in two songs though, 'Spiderwoman' and 'The Garden Of Life', but he also contributed some vocals for those songs, so you can even hear him on the album."
How was it to work with him again after all these years?
Derrick 'Watty' Burnett: "Man, it was like déjà-vu! It made me feel young again. I can't even put into words what I felt."
Roydel 'Ashanti Roy' Johnson: "The world is round, you know, so what goes around comes around. Lee Perry was our first producer. He produced the 'Heart Of The Congos' album, which in my opinion is one of the greatest albums ever to come out of Jamaica."
Watty: "That album is one that has never been equalled since. Even we as The Congos have never re-recorded those songs. We still do them live on stage, but we'd never dare touch them."
Cedric: "We have been through lots of strife and tribulation, but we managed to overcome that and we're still standing strong. When we went to meet Scratch at the airport, the first thing he said was: "We were preserved for this moment in time!", so that inspired me to write the song 'The Garden Of Life' which goes (starts singing): "We were preserved in this garden of life. We were preserved to be here in this time.""
Roy, you've known Lee Perry the longest as you went to school with him. Did the genius that was hiding inside him already shine through in those days?
Ashanti Roy: "Yeah man. In those days we used to play marbles at school and other similar games and Scratch was good at every single one of them. He was a magician from birth!"
Of course the Black Ark, through reasons of Lee Perry himself, doesn't exist anymore, so where did you record the album?
Cedric: "We have our own studio (Lions Den Recording Studio, red.). Part of the work was done there and the rest we did at Mixing Lab with Clive Hunt at the controls."
On the album you included a cover of the Sam Cooke tune 'Chain Gang'. Where did the idea to reinterpret that song come from?
Cedric: "That was really a request of Michel Jovanovich, the head of Médiacom. Originally we were planning to do an album composed entirely of covers, but after completing a number of tracks we felt the vibe wasn't right, so we decided to focus on original compositions again. ‘Chain Gang' is one cover that survived and still made it on the album."
These days The Congos count four members, but it used to be only two...
Cedric: "Yeah, originally it was just me and Roydel and shortly afterwards Watty joined in, but Tallash (Kenroy Fyffe, red.) is more than just a background singer, he's family, 100% Congos!"
Watty, if I'm correct, you were the only member of The Congos that was already working with Lee Perry before there was even talk of The Congos.
Watty: "Yeah, I started working with Scratch in 1968 and it wasn't until 1976 that Cedric and Roydel came to record at the Black Ark. When Scratch heard them he decided they needed a third voice and he asked me to step in. The reason I wasn't in the photograph taken for the sleeve of the 'Heart Of The Congos' album, was that I had taken off with a girl to Grand Cayman! (laughs)"
'Rainy Nights In Georgia', a song you did on stage here tonight, was originally recorded even before you joined The Congos, no?
Watty: "Yes, Scratch originally recorded that back in 1977 ('Rainy Night In Portland' was a version of Brook Benton's 1970 original 'Rainy Night In Georgia', red.), but when we were recording the new album he came up to me and told me I had to re-record that song. I just couldn't say no and it turned out great."
For a long time people believed that Lee Perry went into the country to record animal sounds he used in his records, but the cow sound on the 'Heart Of The Congos' album was you.
Watty: "Yeah man, I made that cow noise with my own voice (starts mooing), but back then I used a piece of aluminium foil to get it just right. Afterwards I read here and there that Scratch supposedly would have dragged a cow in the studio and slapped it on its behind to make it moo. I just cracked up when I read that. It was just me, man! I'm the original Black Ark bull! (laughs)"
Were you guys always involved in music or did you do the odd job left and right to make ends meet?
Watty: "Personally, I'm a certified electrician. I live in New York where I have a business installing surveillance cameras and fibre optics and the sorts."
Boris Gardiner was also around for the recording of the new album.
Ashanti Roy: "He played on a couple of tunes, yeah. He's our long-time bass player. The Congos like to work with professional musicians you know."
The music of The Congos is very spiritual music, but that doesn't seem to deter a younger audience.
Ashanti Roy: "Righteousness exalts the nation and sin is the reproach of the people (Proverbs 14:34, Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people, red.). The world is turning at an ever faster pace, so the youths are looking for righteousness as a way of holding on. There's a lot of music without a message too, but they who have eyes to see will see and they who have ears to hear will hear!"
Cedric, back in the seventies you were at the centre of an incident that would become a pivotal point in the emancipation of Rastafarians in Jamaica.
Cedric: "It was two separate incidents really. The first incident happened on the 8th of January 1976, a few days after Ethiopian Christmas (also known as Genna and celebrated on January 7th, red.). I was going home on my bike, returning from an Ethiopian Christmas celebration in Bull Bay. When I got to Denham Town a couple of policemen stopped me and ordered me to get of my bike. Immediately they started beating me and one guy pulled out some scissors and started trimming my locks. Now not too long after, my eldest son, Jabuki, was expelled from school because of his dreadlocks. My wife and I decided not to take this lying down, so we wrote letters to both The Gleaner and The Daily News. When these papers decided to run the story on the front page, it became a big story and shortly after I was contacted by both Edward Seaga and Michael Manley, who was Prime Minister at the time. Michael Manley offered us a place at a school near Jamaica House (Jamaica House Basic School is located right next to the Prime Minister's mansion at 1 Devon Road, Kingston 10, red.) and so for a period of time, my son was picked up at home every day by a soldier and dropped off at this school. More importantly though, Michael Manley then also passed a mandate prohibiting the trimming of dreads. They also offered me recompense for my dreads, but I told them that if they couldn't recompense all the Rasta's they had trimmed - and there where hundreds, men and women - I felt I could not accept their money. It was an important moment in the history of Rastafari and it's well-documented in Jamaica!"