Contributed
Laughton Davidson (right) poses with veteran singer Ernie Smith in Ontario. Davidson has established Sharty B Productions to help in the administration of the music in Canada.
Teino Evans, Staff Reporter
Sharty B Productions is a Canadian-based company that has undertaken to ensure a steady flow of reggae music into the Canadian market.
As Laughton Davidson, publisher of the record company, explains, despite specialising in different genres of music, including gospel, pop, jazz, rap and reggae, it has become obvious that there is much love and demand for reggae music in Canada.
However, he says he has found that the administrative arm of the music was lacking.
In 1999, Laughton Davidson, along with Andrew Nezbeth, manager, (both Jamaicans living in Canada) and Mackendy Dorcilhomme, music composer/songwriter from Haiti, formed Sharty B Productions. The company is located on Rideau Street in Ottawa, Ontario.
"There was no one doing administrative work in the music industry in Canada where Caribbean music was concerned, so most of the times when Jamaican artistes came up, they didn't get the mainstream push because the administration was not really there. It was something that we saw lacking, so we basically took it up on ourselves to put one in place," Davidson said.
According to Davidson, not everybody who grew up in Canada was really versatile enough to use reggae music to penetrate the market. He says many thought that the market was too harsh and despite the high demand for the music in places like Vancouver, it was just not being marketed
properly. Until now.
artistes in the company
The company currently has a number of artistes who they are working closely with, from reggae, pop and hip hop, to jazz, compa and gospel music genres.
"We have a reggae artiste by the name of Alton Willis and the first album we did with him was a combination with Bingy Barker called Rebel.Com which was released in the mid-1990s. He also came to Jamaica and did a single called Sketel before completing a second album
entitled Elegant Woman," Davidson said.
albums released in Ja
In fact, two tracks from the second album, Elegant Woman and Rasta Man Want Yuh, were released in Jamaica.
Another Jamaican reggae artiste, named 'Sharti', who lives in Texas, also completed three singles, Ethiopia Shall Stretch Forth Her Hand, Gleaning and Call On Jah Name, with the company.
Kale', an 11-piece French band, another group that they work with, sings Compa or world music.
"Compa is like the French version of reggae and this band performs their songs in both French and English," Davidson said.
According to Davidson, the French cities in Canada, like Montreal and Quebec, enjoy Compa, while in cities like Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, English reggae is more popular.
Davidson says because Canada is very multi-cultural, they already have a ready market. However, because Canada is also very formal in its dealings, the administrative work is very important. He explained that any artiste who wishes to perform in Canada on a mainstream basis has to endure some formalities.
arrangements handled
"If his music is underground, he could perform at a club, where the media is not present, but if the artiste wants to
perform, on a mainstream show, where he may be on television, he has to go through a number of formalities, like submitting a track list of songs he intends to perform and these tracks will be passed on to the Society of Composers, Authors and Songwriters, who will ensure that the royalties will go where it is supposed to go after the performance," Davidson said.
Sharty B productions handles such arrangements.
"We have a website,
shartybmusic.com and
persons can email us at producer
@shartybmusic.com. We welcome all artistes, genres and so on, because sometimes people even come with only the lyrics, not even arranged as yet, and we arrange for them, compose it, get them the rights to use certain music and even link them with other artistes. We also do reggae and gospel shows. The last
reggae show we did was with Freddy McGregor in 2004 in Canada," Davidson said.
