by Clayton Goodwin
Cleon Roberts and Clayton Goodwin made an agreement back in 2015 that they would meet for an interview about her renowned father Sonny Roberts. Then something happened – time intervened. Covid, illness, busy schedules – you know the sort of thing – but they kept in touch and now they were ready to meet. It was February and a rainy day in London. Yet the story which Cleon had to tell was well worth the waiting. Her father had not only stood at the crossroads of the birth of Jamaican music in the United Kingdom, he was the crossroads. “His trailblazing work in music was down to his vision and his passion” said music mogul Chris Blackwell, and I don’t think anybody will disagree.
Southgate, or rather its adjoining suburb Oakwood, at the northern extremity of London’s Piccadilly underground-train line, is not the place to be talking about the sun and the sounds of Jamaica – especially when the rain is sleeting down and the temperature chilling enough to freeze the blood. So, you would think. But, then, surely, the echoes of the Caribbean are the very welcome antidote to those elements. And when Cleon located me in the small but friendly café, Blends & Beyond, adjoining the station, and put down her umbrella, we could fantasise that in time and place we were indeed somewhere beyond the rain-cloud. For understanding there was no medium better than the legacy of Sonny Roberts who, I was surprised to learn, had passed away merely five years earlier.
He had come into the world in 1931 on the family farm at Spice Grove in Manchester, Jamaica. From an early age Roberts showed an aptitude for carpentry, which was appropriate and useful as he was about to construct an entirely new industry. Sonny came to London in 1953 and settled in the inner western suburb Ladbroke Grove. He, personally, may have settled but these were generally unsettled times for Ladbroke Grove was adjacent to, and part of, Notting Hill the area which became infamously rent by racial tension and community riots by the end of the decade. Yet here, too, was located the renaissance of Jamaican/Caribbean music and the arts which engendered the now internationally famous Notting Hill Carnival. Among his carpentry and set-design assignments Roberts built sound-boxes for the country’s first sound system which was dominated by Duke Vin and Count Suckle.
When Sonny Roberts opened his record shop in nearby Harlesden, and founded Planetone, the UK’s first black-owned recording studio, he shifted the magnetic centre of the nascent Jamaican music scene and attracted the attention of some influential figures, including Chris Blackwell, founder of iconic Island Records who described Sonny as being “remarkable and should be heralded as one of the great pioneers”. This was the age of Millie-mania (as described by the UK national press) and the emergence of Trojan Records. Cleon, who, as a young girl, helped in her father’s shop, can remember meeting all the great names of Jamaican music, including Count Prince Miller, of whom Caribcommx has particularly fond memories, and world-renowned artistes such as Jools Holland and John Peel. No wonder she was star-struck by the environment.
With the assistance of the Nubian Jak Community Trust and Trojan Records a much-treasured Blue Plaque was set up to “Sonny Roberts Pioneering Music Producer, catalyst for Trojan and Island Records” on the site of the Planetone Studio at 108 Cambridge Road, Kilburn, London NW6 5GR. Although she spends as much, if not more, time in Jamaica as she does in London, Cleon is staying on here for a while yet – it cannot be the weather that holds her here. She still has much to do, including her involvement with the commemorative stones of the Harlesden Walk of Music to honour the legends and their legacy.
Then it was out into the rain. Because of parking restrictions, Cleon had to walk a long way to the car. I faced an even further drenching and marrow-chilling freeze on getting to my home in Kent. My thoughts turned to the German poet Goethe “Dem Schnee, dem Regen, Dem Wind entgegen … Immer zu. Immer zu. Ohne Rast und Ruh” – against snow, rain and wind – always onwards, always onwards, without rest or peace”. What we writers have to endure for our art … but it was well worth the experience. An interesting and lively conversation with a lovely lady and devoted daughter …
And the music and the memories will linger on.