55 f J

ames was riding the crest of the wave of openness to all kinds of music and its interconnection with all sorts of cultural expressions, like art and dance and fashion, which he’d jumped on at Hull. There, as well as the sublime Motorhead gig, he’d staged shows by Heatwave, KC and the Sunshine Band, Deaf School, and Martin Carthy: “Silly Wizard, a brilliant Scottish party band, played at the Christmas ball. It was amazing. A time when music was less sep- arated. People wanted to hear such a wide range: Northern soul, prog rock, punk, folk, reggae… you name it.” By the time he arrived in Hull, James’ personal taste also included the rock-blues of Little Feat, jazz-pop courtesy of Steely Dan, the art- punk of Pere Ubu, and of course Bowie.

A friend of his at Hull had a boyfriend at Oxford called Stephen Pritchard, who was on the team of the Bristol Recorder with Thomas Brooman et al. (fR413). Pritchard asked James along to the first meeting re. an idea called ‘Rhythm 82’, which was to incorporate music and dance from all over the world. “It became the first WOMAD. My role was to be tour man- ager for The Drummers Of Burundi.”

As they arrived during the summer holidays, James was able to take two weeks off work at ULU and meet them from the plane. “We supported The Clash at the Brixton Academy. We had a huge entourage, but the rider was six cans of beer and a couple of sandwiches. I was about to go out and buy everyone chicken nuggets and chips when Joe strummer popped his head round the door and said ‘Is that all you’ve got?’ and brought The Clash’s rider into our dressing room. Joe and Mick Jones stood in the wings and watched the drummers. He (Strummer) came to Womad a lot subsequently…”

That there were subsequent Womads after that brilliant inaugural but financial- ly fatal gig is in no small part due to James. Another friend, Michael Morris, “was doing this thing called Rock Week at the ICA whilst I was at ULU. He promised me a Rock Week.” James, realising that Womad’s name was mud, knew they need- ed to get it back in currency. Instead of curating Rock Week he proposed they put on a proper Womad line-up at the ICA (which included Kanda Bongo Man’s UK debut and Jah Wobble), and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.

That history continued in part to be shaped by James. During his four years at ULU he helped Womad and, in ’84, The Smiths’ tour of Ireland. The following year he moved to Bristol to work full- time for the festival. “I’d got the bug with the Drummers Of Burundi. I thought they were one of the greatest bands in the world.” His role was essentially to bring in the rock and pop artists and facilitate the connections between them and the artists from the rest of the world, from backstage football games to on- stage collaborations.

From the outset this was successful, as

the release of Zimbo Live, (the B-side of Echo and the Bunnymen’s The Cutter), showed. When The Bunnymen’s drummer Pete de Freitas invited the Drummers Of

AJ and Karlo – Yu Fe Danse Sound System

Burundi to perform with them in 1982, he presaged in a way the later Real World recording weeks.

Living in Clifton Village and immersed in the emerging ‘Bristol Sound’, James hooked up with Karlo Smith, the son of a reggae promoter, to form a DJ outfit, Yu Fe Danse, playing African, Latin and reg- gae music. They landed a show on GWR radio and on the pirate Emergency Radio station on 99.9 FM. “Grant and Mushroom (Massive Attack) had a show and John Sta- pleton had a hip-hop show. We were all on the same circuit.” In Bristol then, as in Lon- don and Hull before, James found no seg- regation when it came to music.

In his DJ incarnation James travelled the world and supported artists such as the Bhundu Boys and Thomas Mapfumo, whilst playing regularly at Womad, with he and Smith becoming the house DJs. “It was brilliant. We’d play reggae one night, house the next, the Whirl Y Gig crew would join and there’d be after hours at the Rivermead Centre and now it’s the Big

Red Tent.” Although James hung up his headphones in the late ’90s, he brought them out again when Pete Lawrence asked him to DJ at the Big Chill, which he did for about ten consecutive years, play- ing folk, ambient, and film soundtracks.

The late ’90s DJ hiatus coincided with James accepting a job at the Midlands Art Centre (MAC) in Birmingham. Though lov- ing life in Bristol, a more formal training in arts funding beckoned. In Birmingham he began Sounds In The Round in a 400-seat open-air theatre in the park. Along with shows by Ali Farka Touré, Olodum and Oumou Sangaré, James staged multi-disci- plinary events, featuring various combina- tions of music, dance, comedy and theatre whilst honing his fundraising skills. These also enabled him to produce large-scale sound and art shows that included taking artists into the landscape and creating/curating installations in local parks. “It was nice,” he says, “to come back being able to programme a venue with a culturally diverse music agenda.”

Thomas Brooman, Kanda Bongo Man and Alan James in Paris, 1983.

Photo: Chris Rydeleski

Photo: Mireille Gastaldi