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RESPONSE TO 'A FI WI! ANO FI DEM!'
MERRICK NEEDHAM
Thursday, July 02, 2009
I read with interest but also in respect of two particular paragraphs, some disbelief, John Maxwell's full-page piece under the heading above, in the Sunday Observer of June 21. John is an old friend and someone for whom I have much regard, as well as respect for his writings in many subject areas, notably including the environment - and for whom I wish the best of health.
MERRICK NEEDHAM
However, in his article written on the 50th anniversary of the launch of the former Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation he stunned me just as much as he stated, of the JBC, "We stunned Jamaica."
Immediately after that short sentence, he went on to write of "the Jamaican accents which had never before been heard on radio. Until then two kinds of diction were permissible on Jamaican radio: the clipped BBC accents of Dennis Gick and his ilk with their JB Priestley plays, or the real (and occasionally fake) American accents of the announcers on Radio Jamaica".
John, you graciously apologised in a subsequent letter to the editor for your omission of any mention of Sonny Bradshaw's unquestionable contribution to Jamaica's music development, especially through the JBC in its earliest days. However, I really feel you owe a similar apology to the RJR of the 1950s and all the many Jamaican-sounding Jamaicans whose voices and talents were regularly heard on that station throughout the decade that preceded the advent of the JBC.
"Jamaicans heard... for the first time at last, the voices of Miss Lou (Louise Bennett-Coverley), Mass Ran (Ranny Williams), Charles Hyatt, 'Pro Rata Powell' (Ken Maxwell), Jack Neesberry (sic) (Carol Reckord)."
No, John; with the possible exception of Carol Reckord they had all been on RJR repeatedly in the decade before the JBC existed. How could one make the accusation that Jamaican accents "... had never before been heard on radio", when Archie Lindo was an RJR staff broadcaster throughout the 1950s, so was Ken Maxwell in the first couple of years of the decade; Alma Hylton (later MockYen) similarly was a staff broadcaster through the second half of the 50s.
Dorothy Hosang (later Tang), Carey Robinson, Adrian Robinson, Roy Reid, Lascelles Anderson, Brian Arscott, Dick Pixley, Tony Verity, David Ebanks, Desmond Elliot and the famous sports commentator and general broadcaster, Roy Lawrence, were all Jamaicans (with the exception of Verity) with perhaps moderated (just like the JBC announcers) but definitely Jamaican accents. Even Richard Harty, whom the article credits only as one of the JBC's Jamaican news readers, was previously an RJR staff announcer for nearly 10 years - although his delivery was accurately described elsewhere as "more British than most Britishers, but always pleasing".
To say that with the advent of the JBC, "Jamaicans heard for the first time at last" the voices of Louise Bennett, Ranny Williams and Charles Hyatt, totally ignores the earlier RJR comedy series Bim and Bam and Life With the Morgan Henrys, broadcast entirely in Jamaican creole - and all well before the JBC existed.
There were the political commentaries in the educated and unaffected speech of Jamaican-sounding Jamaicans such as the late Frank Hill, Morris Cargill and Louis Byles. Among other well-known Jamaican voices of the day heard regularly on RJR were Vere Johns and Joe Pinchin.
Then there was the news; certainly partly because of the forthcoming advent of the JBC, the local news was already being "written and edited" in a Jamaican newsroom - and for years before that had been read mainly by Jamaicans, including Richard Harty - at RJR. Incidentally, for supplementing my memory I am obliged to Alma MockYen's book Rewind, the acclaimed and definitive history of the first half-century of broadcasting in Jamaica.
Indeed, RJR had a very real sense of its public obligations and exercised it pretty satisfactorily throughout the 1950s - especially for a station with a clear and officially accepted commercial mandate - and to the general acceptance of a quite alert Broadcasting Authority, which had nothing else to worry about or focus on but Jamaica's one and only, single-channel radio station. Chief Minister Norman Manley, in a congratulatory broadcast on the station's fifth anniversary in 1955 said, among other things, "I have only to remind my listeners of the zeal with which Radio Jamaica covers important functions which attract the attention of everybody. Whenever there is a public ceremony they can be relied upon to be there and to give a living picture to their listeners of what is taking place." Most such broadcasts were essentially not revenue-producing ones.
The emphasis on "American accents" (actually four Canadians) to which my friend John alludes was a deliberate RJR campaign at the onset of the JBC. At that point RJR, perfectly reasonably, felt that the JBC's advent now relieved it of some of its former public obligations. With competition ahead, RJR then went for majority Jamaican audience share - and got it; three years after the JBC's opening, RJR still held nearly 80 per cent of the national audience.
Unquestionably, the prolonged vicissitudes and eventual demise of the JBC was a tragedy but the mythical implication that not a vestige of worthwhile Jamaican content was carried by RJR in its first decade from inception in 1950 is just that - a myth.
As a friend of mine said, "John Maxwell is too fine a journalist to become creative with a historical account."
Merrick Needham's broadcasting career spanned 17 years, during which he was RJR programme director from 1956-61, then JBC director of programmes and production and later, general manager. For the past 35 years he has worked in the field of logistics and protocol.
MERRICK NEEDHAM
Thursday, July 02, 2009
I read with interest but also in respect of two particular paragraphs, some disbelief, John Maxwell's full-page piece under the heading above, in the Sunday Observer of June 21. John is an old friend and someone for whom I have much regard, as well as respect for his writings in many subject areas, notably including the environment - and for whom I wish the best of health.
MERRICK NEEDHAM
However, in his article written on the 50th anniversary of the launch of the former Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation he stunned me just as much as he stated, of the JBC, "We stunned Jamaica."
Immediately after that short sentence, he went on to write of "the Jamaican accents which had never before been heard on radio. Until then two kinds of diction were permissible on Jamaican radio: the clipped BBC accents of Dennis Gick and his ilk with their JB Priestley plays, or the real (and occasionally fake) American accents of the announcers on Radio Jamaica".
John, you graciously apologised in a subsequent letter to the editor for your omission of any mention of Sonny Bradshaw's unquestionable contribution to Jamaica's music development, especially through the JBC in its earliest days. However, I really feel you owe a similar apology to the RJR of the 1950s and all the many Jamaican-sounding Jamaicans whose voices and talents were regularly heard on that station throughout the decade that preceded the advent of the JBC.
"Jamaicans heard... for the first time at last, the voices of Miss Lou (Louise Bennett-Coverley), Mass Ran (Ranny Williams), Charles Hyatt, 'Pro Rata Powell' (Ken Maxwell), Jack Neesberry (sic) (Carol Reckord)."
No, John; with the possible exception of Carol Reckord they had all been on RJR repeatedly in the decade before the JBC existed. How could one make the accusation that Jamaican accents "... had never before been heard on radio", when Archie Lindo was an RJR staff broadcaster throughout the 1950s, so was Ken Maxwell in the first couple of years of the decade; Alma Hylton (later MockYen) similarly was a staff broadcaster through the second half of the 50s.
Dorothy Hosang (later Tang), Carey Robinson, Adrian Robinson, Roy Reid, Lascelles Anderson, Brian Arscott, Dick Pixley, Tony Verity, David Ebanks, Desmond Elliot and the famous sports commentator and general broadcaster, Roy Lawrence, were all Jamaicans (with the exception of Verity) with perhaps moderated (just like the JBC announcers) but definitely Jamaican accents. Even Richard Harty, whom the article credits only as one of the JBC's Jamaican news readers, was previously an RJR staff announcer for nearly 10 years - although his delivery was accurately described elsewhere as "more British than most Britishers, but always pleasing".
To say that with the advent of the JBC, "Jamaicans heard for the first time at last" the voices of Louise Bennett, Ranny Williams and Charles Hyatt, totally ignores the earlier RJR comedy series Bim and Bam and Life With the Morgan Henrys, broadcast entirely in Jamaican creole - and all well before the JBC existed.
There were the political commentaries in the educated and unaffected speech of Jamaican-sounding Jamaicans such as the late Frank Hill, Morris Cargill and Louis Byles. Among other well-known Jamaican voices of the day heard regularly on RJR were Vere Johns and Joe Pinchin.
Then there was the news; certainly partly because of the forthcoming advent of the JBC, the local news was already being "written and edited" in a Jamaican newsroom - and for years before that had been read mainly by Jamaicans, including Richard Harty - at RJR. Incidentally, for supplementing my memory I am obliged to Alma MockYen's book Rewind, the acclaimed and definitive history of the first half-century of broadcasting in Jamaica.
Indeed, RJR had a very real sense of its public obligations and exercised it pretty satisfactorily throughout the 1950s - especially for a station with a clear and officially accepted commercial mandate - and to the general acceptance of a quite alert Broadcasting Authority, which had nothing else to worry about or focus on but Jamaica's one and only, single-channel radio station. Chief Minister Norman Manley, in a congratulatory broadcast on the station's fifth anniversary in 1955 said, among other things, "I have only to remind my listeners of the zeal with which Radio Jamaica covers important functions which attract the attention of everybody. Whenever there is a public ceremony they can be relied upon to be there and to give a living picture to their listeners of what is taking place." Most such broadcasts were essentially not revenue-producing ones.
The emphasis on "American accents" (actually four Canadians) to which my friend John alludes was a deliberate RJR campaign at the onset of the JBC. At that point RJR, perfectly reasonably, felt that the JBC's advent now relieved it of some of its former public obligations. With competition ahead, RJR then went for majority Jamaican audience share - and got it; three years after the JBC's opening, RJR still held nearly 80 per cent of the national audience.
Unquestionably, the prolonged vicissitudes and eventual demise of the JBC was a tragedy but the mythical implication that not a vestige of worthwhile Jamaican content was carried by RJR in its first decade from inception in 1950 is just that - a myth.
As a friend of mine said, "John Maxwell is too fine a journalist to become creative with a historical account."
Merrick Needham's broadcasting career spanned 17 years, during which he was RJR programme director from 1956-61, then JBC director of programmes and production and later, general manager. For the past 35 years he has worked in the field of logistics and protocol.
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