Rudeboy gets UK premiere
RITISH film-maker Nicolas Jack Davies’, documentary, Rudeboy: The Story of Trojan Records, premiered last Friday at the London Film Festival. A large turnout of music industry officials and reggae aficionados viewed the 86-minute film which celebrates the label’s 50th anniversary.
“It was fantastic, absolutely amazing,” said Anthony “Chips” Richards, a former marketing executive at Trojan Records. “They got actors to play the parts of Duke Reid, Dandy Livingston, Ken Boothe and Derrick Morgan, so it was very authentic.”
Music producer Bunny
Lee, former Trojan Records and Island Records boss David Betteridge and Martin Gopthal, son of Trojan’s co-founder Lee Gopthal, also attended the premier.
Rudeboy is part of yearlong celebrations marking Trojan’s golden anniversary. A book and multisong album have also been released.
Lee Gopthal and Island Records’ Chris Blackwell started Trojan in 1967 to expose Jamaican music to the United Kingdom’s music scene which had become increasingly diverse due to the influx of West Indian immigrants.
The label helped break songs like Desmond
Dekker and The Aces’ (007) Shantytown and Israelites to white British youth, as well as Wonderful World, Beautiful People from Jimmy Cliff, Red Red Wine by Tony Tribe and Boothe’s massive Everything I Own.
Gopthal died in 1997 at age 58.