Former superintendent switches beats

• Moses Productions takes on Noddy, Jodi-Ann

Mel Cooke,  Gleaner Writer

Retired police officer, Superintendent Gladstone Wright, got into music through an unusual route - the prison system. And he made the move from a police beat to the musical beat on paper as a rehabilitative tool long before his Moses Productions took charge of singers Noddy Virtue and Jodi-Ann Pantry.

"It happened that in 1998 I sent a document to (then) Commissioner Francis Forbes, speaking to some of the things I thought the police could do to bridge the gap between the force and society, especially the poor in society," Wright said. He conceptualised adopting basic schools, especially in the inner city, changing the perspective of the young.

However, the plan needed funding, Wright reminding that "it takes cash to care", and the project never got off the ground.

However, it was revived when Lucius Thomas became police commissioner, the funding now slated to come through a concert. During a planning meeting, a police officer - a woman, Wright recalls - suggested that the then-incarcerated Jah Cure headline the commissioner of corrections pointing out the seriousness of Jah Cure's offences.

However, the letter which communicated the refusal sparked a memory, some two decades old. "As I read the letter I flashed back to the 1970s, to a stress management seminar I attended," Wright said. It was run by Noel Eldridge, who would go on to be deputy commissioner of police. "He said if you were able to identify the stressor, you could use it to your advantage," Wright said. "It occurred to me, if we could go into the prisons and start a programme doing Rehabilitation Through Music, we could get him and the other inmates to learn and earn from it and show that the system is not there to just incarcerate, but rehabilitate."

Wright stresses that there are many other rehabilitation programmes, "so we were not going to place, but enhance".

Wright said he met a Rastafarian at Helshire Beach in St Catherine, who outlined a song he had written about incarceration. "When we started the programme I thought it would be appropriate," Wright said. Wright said Duane Stephenson was involved in the project, along with guitarist Lamont Savory, with the plan being to do the song at a slow tempo.

It was done, but Jah Cure had a problem with one line, which Wright said he adjusted. It was recorded and Jah Cure's signature prison song, True Reflections, was born.

Police concerts

Even before that, Wright had been heavily involved in staging concerts done through the police force, his initial contact being musician Dean Fraser and the network gradually widening, Wright meeting Duane Stephenson as part of the group To-Isis. Even with that and despite True Reflections' huge success, he said, "I did not intend to get into music. I just thought it part of my duty to help someone who needed help."

Then he saw Noddy Virtue on Digicel Rising Stars and was impressed. "His range, his voice and the type of songs he was singing - Michael Bolton, Bon Jovi, Air Supply, Jimmy Cliff," Wright said. It did not hurt that Wright also has strong St Elizabeth connections.

They have worked extensively since an initial meeting, starting with a song that would have been released before the competition ended had all gone according to plan. Jodi-Ann Pantry, whose debut album Wright said is in the works, is also in the camp, as well as Changiz.

Next year is a big year for Moses Productions, Wright said. Addiction, Virtue's second album, which is all cover versions, is slated for release in February, in addition to a pair of albums out of the rehabilitation programme - an individual set by Serano Walker (on which Dean Fraser produces two songs) and a various artistes album in the same month. "It has got to be the year for the artistes I work with. If they make it, something will run off," Wright said. "But it is all about them."

An all-original set by Virtue will be released subsequently.

Wright, who is now retired from the police force, noted that "I have not done any work with Jah Cure since his release from prison, neither recording nor management, although I have watched his progress with interest." He emphasised that the inmates' intellectual property rights will be protected before the projects are released.

Wright couches his optimism for Moses Production in an overall context. "The year 2012 should see the resurgence of reggae music to its rightful place given the quality music now being produced and the artistes and show bands who have come to the fore in recent times," he said. And part of that 'rightful place' is honour to two of its brightest stars, Wright saying "Bob Marley should be our next national hero and due recognition should be given to Peter Tosh".