Carroll, saying Carroll Thompson is saying lovers rock. Wikipedia's definition of lovers rock goes as follows: While love songs had been an important part of reggae since the late sixties, the style was given a greater focus and name in London in the seventies. Lovers rock represented an a-political counterpart to the conscious Rastafarian sound dominant in Jamaica at the time. Was it that for you as well?
Carroll Thompson: "Well, it wasn't consciously so, but at that time there was a lot of great American music coming into the United Kingdom and lovers rock gave female singers, who weren't really ready to do roots and culture, a way to express themselves. We wanted to sing love songs with beautiful arrangements, like we heard coming in from America, but keep them in a reggae setting. Lovers rock also allowed a lot of female vocalists to enter the otherwise male-dominated reggae scene."
Why was the reggae backdrop so important? You could just as well have opted for a career as a soul or gospel singer?
Carroll Thompson: "For me, coming from a Jamaican heritage and growing up in a predominantly Jamaican neighbourhood, ska, blue beat, rocksteady and reggae were the music genres I grew up with. It's the music I respond to on a very basic level, so I've always felt reggae to be the music I felt most at home with. That doesn't mean I'm not influenced by many other musical genres, though. There weren't that many female reggae artists to look up to anyway, so I would turn to the vocalists from America were you had Motown, Philly sound, Stax and so on."
Lovers rock has always been a very UK thing; it never really caught on on the European mainland. Why do you think that is?
Carroll Thompson: "It's kind of bizarre, especially when you see that the whole roots movement has had tremendous success in Europe. I don't think the lovers rock producers at the time really thought things through properly. We never really toured for example. It's even as if the genre was invented to fulfil a need in the UK and was never intended for branching out abroad."
Was Mad Professor different in that aspect, because he worked with a whole host of female artists for his Ariwa label?
Carroll Thompson: "Mad Professor arrived on the scene at a somewhat later stage, somewhere in the mid-eighties. I think he just saw it as music and wanted to bring the staple of artists that he had built up on the road. His somewhat different vision on things was also the reason why I went to record an album with him ('The Other Side Of Love', red.), and I also liked his sound of course."
Together with Janet Kay, you're known as the queen of lovers rock. Is that a title you carry proudly?
Carroll Thompson: "Yeah, I do actually. At first I used to feel quite embarrassed by it, but as the years passed I feel that we actually created music that has sustained, that has lasted and that people still want to listen to today and carry fondly in their hearts. Sometimes, I see people in the audience crying when they hear a certain song being performed, simply because that music was so important to them when they were growing up, remembering them of their first love or a time when they broke off a relationship."
When the lovers rock scene started fading in the UK, Janet Kay built a very loyal following in Japan. Was that the case for you as well?
Carroll Thompson: "Yes, the same was true for me. It was amazing, because when the Japanese love something they really give it their all. They totally embraced the music. It was a great experience. I also released a number of albums that were only ever released over there."
Greensleeves now seems intent on reviving the whole lovers rock vibe with the release of their ‘Songs For Reggae Lovers' compilation series. Can we really talk about a revival?
Carroll Thompson: "I think lovers rock was never really fully exploited and a lot of people are still being introduced to it only now. If we can get new talent to add their influences to the mix, it can lead to a revival, yes, why not. It's the same as what's been happening with the classic Studio 1 and Treasure Isle stuff; it's a whole new generation keeping it alive now. I host a lovers rock night in the West-End (London, red.) every month, called the Lovers Rock Lounge and I see a lot of new talent emerging there as well."
You own a degree in pharmacy. Did you ever put that to practical use?
Carroll Thompson: "(laughs) No, I only did that to please my parents. I always knew I was going to sing, but these three years at least taught me some discipline, so they weren't wasted all together. I guess, it was a sort of academic rite of passage of sorts. (laughs)"