Leroy Sibbles
The Early Days

Interview by Lesli Singer
Photograph by
Originally published: November 1986

He's hard to catch, but once you've got him he's one hell of an interview. Of course I'm referring to Leroy Sibbles, former lead singer of The Heptones, who has established a very successful solo career in Toronto.

Recently he completed Bunny Wailer's U. S. Tour, the Sunsplash USA tour, and an appearance at Reggae Sunsplash '86 in Montego Bay. The interview that follows took place in Sibbles's hotel on August 30th. He had so many stories to tell, I hardly had a chance to ask a question. Highlights from part one of our conversation follow.

Leroy Sibbles grew up in Kingston 12, the area called Trench Town that also happened to be the home base of the original Wailers. During the 60s and early 70s, Trench Town enjoyed the reputation of being the musical hotbed of the young reggae scene. "I can remember meeting Toots for the first time," recalls Sibbles, "I was walking down West Road in Trench Town and there was music playing across the street and this guy came up to me and said, 'It's me that's singing there, you know.' It was like one of his early songs, way back. I can't remember exactly which song it was right now, but I said, 'Yea? Wicked,' and he say 'Yeah, mon, me name Toots, mon' and after that he said (lowering his voice) 'Wha'appen, mon, buy a stick of weed from me around the corner'!"

Sibbles grew up with his mother and one of their favorite pastimes on Sundays was to sing duets after their evening meal. He also sang at his grandmother's church. According to Leroy, "My background really in music was from my mother's mother. 'Cause my grandmother was in this revival thing that I used to go to and listen to singing. That's where I think I developed my harmony skills. Because I used to be singing and doing their stuff almost all night. I used to be there for the food, though. 'Cause they would have a table spread and I used to have a great appetite as a kid."

After Leroy finished school, his mother took him over to Jonestown to apprentice with a mechanic. Unfortunately for Sibbles, he was fired the next day for fooling around during his lunch break. The next attempt to teach him a trade took. His mother brought him to a man called Porter on Maxfield Avenue to learn welding. Sibbles liked Porter, got on and eventually went on to work at welding at other places. While he was working he would sing and other welders would say things like, "Hey, you're not supposed to be doing welding, man, you supposed to be singing!" But at that time it was not Sibbles's intention to get involved with music.

His first involvement came later with a trio that was practicing around the corner. Sibbles used to check them after work and eventually became a member of the group's background singers. The group disbanded, but Sibbles had met Barry Llewellyn and Earl Morgan, who soon became the other two members of the Heptones. One morning they came by to tell Sibbles of an audition that was taking place downtown. That evening they wrote "School Girls" and "Gunman Coming to Town" and rehearsed. "I can remember clearly, we went and the guy liked us and we recorded the songs and for the first time, about a week later, I heard over RJR - there was just one station then - I heard myself for the first time on the radio. I think it was "Gunman Coming to Town" I dashed out of my house and ran down the street yelling, 'Listen, listen.' I was about sixteen and I was excited. I ran right through the whole neighborhood, you know, and those songs played for awhile. They didn't do too good because it wasn't a big producer, it was a little guy tryin' his thing, right? But that gave us the buildup and momentum and we worked together and during all that time I was still doing trade.

"So I saved some money and bought my first guitar. My mom was furious 'cause the money was like a saving, right? And it's in the ghetto and in the ghetto you have so much other needs than a guitar. 'What the hell can a guitar do for you? I don't see you as no superstar.' She's not thinking of the future. She don't know what God has in store for us."

Sibbles took his guitar to a Rastaman called Huntley, who taught him to play along with some other youth. Leroy proved to be an apt student playing chords and moving ahead of the others. "When I started putting chords together and getting more of an insight of music, then I started writing some really good songs. Then we decided to go to Studio One. Coxsone was just a short walk away from us. We went on a Sunday and it was Ken Boothe and the Gaylads, another group which was really big then, who took the audition. And I can remember clearly, and I keep telling him this - he doesn't like it but he's there, right? When it was our time to sing we started singing our song and he walked away. Ken Boothe. Said we sounded like some other group which was a lie. 'Cause up until today nobody don't sound like the Heptones. But the Gaylads loved it! They said, 'Come back in a week. We're gonna record ya.' We came back in a week and recorded a song called "A Change Has Got to Come." I wrote that song. I did most of the writing. During that time with the Heptones, there was about four or five songs that those guys did write.

"And then we recorded another set of songs and the first one we release was "Fatty Fatty," which played on the radio about three times and then the government said the song is too suggestive. But that didn't stop it. That song, it haunted me for years. The first year I was afraid to go out of my house because everywhere I went that song was being played. It was in every jukebox in Kingston. It was too much and from then we did somethin' that only one person ever did after us. Because by that time JBC had come in and we had two songs on both stations, number one and number two positions. Only U-Roy ever did that. Then the Heptones started movin,' you know. The next song, "Why Did He Leave," all the kids loved that song for the bass line. Then I started to feel alive because I came from the ghetto never knowing what's going to happen because all you see is pure poverty around you. When I say that it takes me right back to Huntley. That man gave me my first smoke of herb, which opened by inner self, made me see certain realities. He was a dreadlocks, he was so musical he cold take a piece of bamboo and make a flute that when he blow it would be in total pitch. That's how good the guy was.

"What got me more developed in music was when I went to Studio One. I started to mingle with professional musicians like Ernest Ranglin, Jackie Mittoo, the Skatalites, all these people who were really practical and theoretical in music. Then I started pickin' up more chords; I even started teachin' my teachers some chords. And one day Jackie Mittoo, he and I was really close, he said, 'Hey, Leroy, I have a job for you to do, you know.' I said what is it? Does the job pay? He said, 'You, man. Play bass with me. I know you can do it.' I say what? Me play bass for you? You're sleeping! He said, 'Come man, it's easy. Play this line.' And he showed me and it wasn't that strange because I had guitar. So the songs we are supposed to play, we practiced in a day or two. We went to the place, and on the first night I couldn't believe it! The place was packed.

"Jackie Mittoo was one of the first guys I ever seen playing two keyboards. He was playing rhythm onone hand and lead on the other hand. They never used to do that; Jackie was the first guy. He was one of the greatest keyboard players I've ever seen. It was a club called Tit for Tat on Red Hills Road and we played there for a couple of months and every night the place was packed. We had fun but Jackie got involved in this drinking thing. It was a mess after each show because he came to work sober and by the end Jackie was completely out of it. But you know what amazed me? No matter how out of it Jackie Mittoo was, he was never not able to play his music.

"After Jackie Mittoo left Studio One, Coxsone's studio went to Canada. I am the one who took over studio arrangement. They tried to make Ernie Ranglin do it and he couldn't because he hadn't the touch of what the people want. The ghetto style, the street people style. And as a youth I had this all in me. I mixed Dennis Brown's first album and his first hit song under Coxsone, "No Man is and Island." I arranged it, I played, you know. "Satta Amassagana" . . . there's so much songs, I can't think how many music. Stuff that I arranged and played. It seemed that we were so much ahead of our time. So that's how much work I was doing. Did my own stuff plus others, that's what burned me out a lot to why I left and went and cooled out for awhile. We used to record at least six songs every day.

"I went to Canada and it was a thing coming a long time before that 'cause a lot of things had died over the years. Feelings amongst each other - this thing always goes on with me because being an Aquarian, it's really the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The month that I born under is Joseph, right? In the Bible Joseph had a special gift that none of the other eleven tribes did get. And that makes the other eleven tribes envious of you no matter now good you try to be to them. And with the Heptones it was the same.

"Barry Llewellyn was the handsome guy in the group and he thought he should be getting all of the credit and all of the attention but they want to say Leroy because they know it was me doing all of the work and I was the social person, too. I was, I still am popular with people and not because I'm trying or want to be. So that jealousy was always there and I tried to live with it because the group was established. But after awhile, when I moved to Canada the money that was being collected, came to Jamaica on records, on all them things. The guys, because I'm in Canada, they collect the money and use it all.

"Now I sat home and write most of these songs, them. And what is coming now, I can't even collect and it was nothing much. To try to keep the group together, I used to split the money three ways, even though these guys was mostly backup singing. One of these guys was an alcoholic and he was very slow 'cause I used to be teaching him his part all the time. And this was getting to me, man. So I said I don't need this 'cause I need to concentrate on my own side.

"So I went to Canada; I was really in transit when I stopped there, right? And I like the place and decided to spend some time. But I had it in the back of my mind to kill the group thing because the last thing that pissed me off, this same guy was on stage in England where we were touring with Toots and the Maytals. This guy is on stage and I see people laugh and all the girls laughing at him so I look over and I see the guy's zip, the pants zipper is split and I say, yeah, okay. This guy was drunk, singing off key and his zip was way down. The only thing left was for his thing to fall out and start shakin' outside! I say okay, I've had it, I can't take no more of this 'cause they're taking me under with them, too."

Look for part two of this interview in our special holiday issue of Cool Runnings. In the second part Sibbles brings us up to date in his career and discusses the future of reggae music. Until then.