Don Letts is acutely aware of his powers of persuasion. As the DJ at the infamous Roxy Club in the 1970s, he has often been cited as the man who instilled a love of reggae in key members of the punk movement – most notably The Clash, who went on to peddle hybrid rock dub classics like ‘Guns of Brixton’ and cover Junior Murvin’s ‘Police and Thieves’.
Like Henry Rollins, he has parlayed his punk prophet credentials into a career as a kind of alternative motivational speaker – rallying the despondent troops, now well into middle age, to Keep It Real. His music documentaries carry the same message. When I saw Letts’s Punk Attitude at the Melbourne Film Festival a few years back, I left the cinema energised by his ‘fight the power’ righteous anger and an audience pep talk by the man himself, who foraged deep into the crowd to answer questions and discuss the state of modern music.
And so his ‘gig’ was, as I expected, a DIY mix of film, music and audience Q & A, with the Corner Hotel decked out with chairs and tables and three large screens. At various times the normally cramped venue felt like a lounge room – and it was Don’s party.
The show opened with over an hour of archival Clash footage – Letts made nearly every live video they ever did. This was possibly a tad overlong, but it was followed by a candid and unruly audience question and answer session. Fielding questions such as ‘Did you ever meet John Peel?’ and ‘What do you make of Malcolm Maclaren?’ and sharing his views on race relations in the UK and the apathy of the under-30 mainstream, Letts held court, striding back and forth with his considerable mane of dreadlocks (some of that hair must date from 1977) tucked into a large green beret and stopping from time to time to read from his autobiography. From anyone else this might have seemed a bit self-indulgent, but not from Don. His bullshit radar is finely tuned.
After the chat with the audience he showed his latest film – Soul Britannia. Yes, another feel-good music documentary, this time about British soul music since the 1980s. Ranging from Sade to Soul II Soul and from Massive Attack to Amy Winehouse, it’s a fascinating if far-from-comprehensive homage to the enormous influence of migrant culture on music in the UK, examining the unique way that country absorbs its influences and celebrates its subcultures in a way the US doesn’t. The end of the evening found him spinning some of those seminal reggae hits by Barrington Levy and Dawn Penn that probably fell upon Joe Strummer’s virgin ears all those years ago in the Roxy – it’s the most magical part of the evening.
Don Letts comes across as, in his own words, “a sort of town crier”. His discussions with the audience are wide-ranging, interactive and accessible and his quick wit allows him to do the ‘impromptu chat’ effectively, dealing with hecklers admirably, even the ones who dared to ask about his time in the still-daggy Big Audio Dynamite. And his films are fantastic – his very own form of revolution. At the end of the night I felt like punching the air. But Don Letts has that effect on people – just ask any ageing punk rocker.
