Philip Burrell An Influential Jamaican Record Producer Dies

Details: Published on Sunday, 11 December 2011 06:49; Hits: 835

Phiilp Burrel Philip Burrell, one of the most prolific and influential Jamaican record producers of the last 20 years, died on Dec. 3 in Kingston, Jamaica. He was 57.

The cause was a heart attack, said his wife, Carmelita Bailey Burrell.

Mr. Burrell churned out two decades’ worth of hit records and championed future reggae stars like Sanchez, Pinchers, Luciano and Sizzla. But his most important achievement was upholding the music’s great sonic and spiritual traditions.

Like his predecessors Joe Gibbs and Junjo Lawes, Mr. Burrell — better known simply as Fattis — infused classic roots reggae with a contemporary edge. He kept Jamaica’s best musicians employed when drum machines and computers were putting them out of work. And he held his artists to a higher moral standard than most, insisting on socially responsible messages in his music.

“You cannot measure his contribution to the reggae industry,” said his fellow producer Donovan Germain of Penthouse Records, which distributed Mr. Burrell’s music. “Not only as a producer but also a manager. He didn’t just seek out the established artists. He was always giving new artists that nobody knew about an opportunity.”

Born on July 23, 1954, in the Trenchtown section of Kingston, a place as musically rich as it was economically poor, Mr. Burrell immigrated to England with his family when he was 5 and returned to Jamaica as a teenager. Starting in 1984, when he established the short-lived Lions & Kings label, Mr. Burrell carved out a career in the rough-and-tumble reggae business in the years after Bob Marley’s death, when the sometimes bawdy dancehall style was beginning to dominate and the music’s future seemed uncertain.

In the late 1980s he founded Exterminator Records, later renamed Xterminator.

“Philip said he wanted to eliminate slackness from the music,” his wife said, using a Jamaican slang term for sexually explicit lyrics. “That’s the meaning of the name.”

Although some of the label’s early releases had violent or explicit themes, he shifted to strictly positive lyrics.

“He’s all for cultural music, clean music,” Mrs. Burrell added, “because he wants his music to go all around the world and he wants everybody to listen.”

He came closest to that goal with Ini Kamoze’s 1990 single “Hot Stepper,” which was later updated by another producer and then remixed into a No. 1 single in the United States. Beyoncé interpolated Mr. Burrell’s original version of the song into “Baby Boy,” her hit duet with the dancehall artist Sean Paul.

“The pain and care that Fattis took with his music is incomparable,” said Luciano, who was managed by Mr. Burrell through most of the 1990s, and whose second album for Exterminator Records, “Where There Is Life,” landed him a contract with Chris Blackwell’s Island Jamaica imprint. When Luciano went on tour, Mr. Burrell insisted that his renowned studio band, the Firehouse Crew, accompany him.

His son Kareem Burrell, who collaborated on his most recent productions, of the up-and-coming artists Jesse Royal and Kayla Bliss, said Mr. Burrell taught him “to know what you stand for, stay focused, and just stick to uplifting music, music with a message.”

Mr. Burrell suffered a mild stroke and was hospitalized two weeks before his death. He had recently returned from a trip to Zimbabwe with the singer Cocoa Tea.

In addition to his wife and son, he is survived by his sister, Edris Millicent Burrell, and seven other children.

SOURCE: NY TIMES