Applause for docufilm on the life of Crown Prince Dennis Brown
Entertainment players show up for reopening of sector
Published:Sunday | July 4, 2021 | 12:09 AMYasmine Peru - Senior Gleaner Writer
Exactly twenty-two years after his July 1, 1999, passing, and on the day that is celebrated as International Reggae Day, Dennis Brown commanded the spotlight at the Little Theatre, with the world première of the docufilm, Dennis Emmanuel Brown: The Crown Prince of Reggae; the Man and the Music.
Coincidentally, Thursday, July 1, 2021, was also momentous for another reason. It was the official opening of the entertainment sector, which has been padlocked for far too long, and the players in the industry showed up and were counted on this ‘freedom day’. Led by Olivia Grange, friends of ‘D Brown’, as he was affectionately called some of whom were also featured on the docufilm, assembled inside the protocol-observing space and enjoyed performances from L’Acadco dancers and singer Richie Stephens before glueing their eyes to the screen.
Tommy Cowan and wife Carlene Davis, George Nooks, Whitfield ‘Whitty’ Henry, Donovan Germain, Gussie Clarke, DiMario McDowell, Lloyd Parkes, Dancehall Queen Carlene, Novelyn ‘Lovey Silk’ Banton, widow of Garnett Silk and two of their children, Wayzero and Garnet Jr; Father Reece, Ewan Simpson, Bridget Anderson, members of the Ruff Kut band and Dr Kurdell Espinosa-Campbell, director, Emergency Medical Services at Ministry of Health and Wellness, were among the guests. Also present were the no-nonsense COVID marshals.
They all watched as family and industry players spoke glowingly of a man who was defined by his amazing talent, his quiet spirituality and his legendary kindness.
Some believed that Dennis Brown’s passion for giving opened him to abuse, and, as veteran toaster Big Youth declared, with a dismissive hand gesture, “Dem tek him kindness fi weakness.” For super producer, Gussie Clarke, working with Dennis Brown “was easy like Sunday morning” but, the interruptions, owing to his kindness, were endless.
“Dennis loved his craft and was a quick learner, but there were so many people who wanted to be around him, and he didn’t know how to say ‘no’. I had to get the police to hold the gate at the studio one day when we were doing a recording session,” Clarke revealed, adding, “I am honoured to have been in his space at that time.”
SEMINAL FIGURE
Listening to tales of Dennis Brown, this seminal figure in Jamaica’s music industry came across as the Pied Piper, a man whose personality and charisma was a magnet that drew people to him. He was the singer who, if he was walking with an entourage of 20, by the time he reached the end of the road, at least 50 people would be walking in his footsteps. He was also the man with the megawatt smile that lit up his entire countenance and everything in its path, and many people wanted a piece of him – literally.
“You notice that after a while his locks looked like it was getting thin. The women used to lay wait him after concerts and pick out his locks for souvenirs,” Dennis Brown’s aunt shared.
His friend, Junior Lincoln, the chairman of the Dennis Brown Foundation, spoke of a singer who, at 17 years old and, visiting England for the first time, had “manners like yuh never see before”. Saxophonist Dean Fraser recalled that “when Dennis went to England, it was like a breath of fresh air”.
Producer Mikie Bennett, in his interview, revealed that nothing had prepared him for the first time that Dennis Brown sang the first line of a song. “Dennis Brown, as a singer, can be compared to Michael Manley as a speaker,” was Bennett’s assessment. It was Dennis Brown’s perfect pitch and melody that fascinated legendary bandleader Lloyd Parkes, and Richie Stephens hailed D Brown as a glorious hitmaker.
“No, I wouldn’t say that he did too many songs. When someone is blessed with so many songs, they just want to put them out. The thing about Dennis Brown is that all his songs became hits. So, he would do four Sly and dem hit; then he would go to Scorpio and do one song, and it hit; and then go across to Jammy’s and do another three, all hits. So, 10 songs feel like 50 because they are all hits,” Stephens said.
At 12 years old, Dennis Brown recorded his first single, No Man is an Island, for producer Coxsone Dodd’s famous Studio One label. But he had been performing long before that, going around the island as an opening act for Byron Lee and the Dragonaires. “Dennis was accompanied by his father, or his older brother, and we had to put him on a box to reach the mic,” Tommy Cowan, who would, in later years become Dennis Brown’s manager, recalled. Ronnie Burke, a member of the original Reggae Sunsplash Dream Team, also had fond memories of little Dennis “propped up on two beer boxes” in order to reach the mic, which in those days could not be adjusted.
LAST DAYS
The closing minutes of the docufilm – commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, with portfolio minister, Olivia Grange, as executive producer and Judith Bodley as producer – focused on Dennis Brown’s last days leading up to his death at 42 years old, fuelled by substance abuse. Ronnie Burke mentioned Dennis Brown’s “bad habits that got in the way”, but Tommy Cowan was more forthright. “He had a problem of drugs … and as his manager, I had to learn where these places were that he used to hang out.”
It was clear that nobody was prepared for Dennis Brown to make his transition so soon, and the hour-long docufilm came to a sad ending that showed that big men do cry. Applause, whistles, and shouts echoed throughout the Little Theatre as the curtains closed, and the producers should surely take a bow.
Dennis Emmanuel Brown was the Boy Wonder who went on to become not just the prince, but the ‘Crown Prince of Reggae’, a title bestowed on him by Cowan. A prince is a male member of a monarch’s family who is not an heir to the throne, but Dennis Brown was more than a prince because he was recognised as the heir apparent to Reggae King, Bob Marley.
It was a clever piece of marketing by Cowan, who seized the moment, and, in February 1984, while promoting a show at the Tree House Club in Negril, stuck on a title that Dennis Brown would carry honourably to his grave – the Crown Prince of Reggae.
In the decades that followed, reggae royalties have abounded, but there is yet to be another crown prince, and Gussie Clarke summed it up well: “There was only one and will always be only one Dennis Brown.”