Denroy Morgan paused career for Heritage sake

• Says group will have to record together again
  

 Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

The family group Morgan Heritage's story reads like an aspiring artiste's breakthrough fantasy. Introduced to Jamaica by the family's patriarch, Denroy Morgan, who hit huge in 1981 with the disco song I'll Do Anything For You, at the now defunct Reggae Sunsplash in the early 1990s, they were quickly signed by MCA Records.

Their first album, Miracles, enjoyed nothing like the success of the full-length sets that followed their return to Jamaica. Initial Heritage members Peetah Morgan, Una Morgan, Roy 'Gramps' Morgan, Nakhamyah 'Lukes' Morgan and Memo 'Mr Mojo' Morgan released Protect Us Jah, One Calling and Don't Haffi Dread before the turn of the millennium, and established a strong following inside and out of Jamaica.

Through it all, until some Morgan Heritage members started doing solo projects after their 2008 album Mission in Progress, Denroy Morgan was highly visible with Morgan Heritage as well as LMS, a trio of his younger children.

Now he has released the album Link Up to Ethiopia and tells The Gleaner that despite the huge success of I'll Do Anything For You - or maybe because of it - he became a musical guide for his children. Morgan said that the royalties arrangements for I'll Do Anything For You, which he did not write, left him out in the cold.

Put career on hold

So, he said, "When I found out my children have musical talent, I put my career on hold to protect them from the vampires of the business. As a group they did not have to face it. I was the bulldog for them."

Now that Heritage members Peetah and Gramps are firmly set on their individual paths, the latter with the album 2 Sides of My Heart Vol. 1, Morgan has relaxed in his role behind the music somewhat. And he says that eventually Morgan Heritage will have to pick up where they left off musically as a unit.

"The period we are now going through as a family is a path that was already set for us, whether we wanted to do it or not," he said. And while there was no conflict between the siblings, he said that conflict would have existed eventually if they had not found an outlet for individual expression. Still, he said, the Heritage legacy has guided the solo projects.

"The public had accepted Heritage as a conscious, reggae, family group and these things come in like a badge when individual ambitions start to bubble in individuals," he said. And Morgan said, "Them have ego too, them have pride. Them is human too."

Questions about Morgan Heritage as a unit would not have been raised, he said, if the individual projects had been presented in the family context, such as 'Morgan Heritage presents Gramps Morgan'.

Still, Denroy said, "Eventually, they will have to come together and do what the people want them to do, not what they want to do for themselves. It (the solo efforts) will work for some, not for some … . People may wonder if the integrity of our collective movement is real. It is real. We have our responsibility to our fans and we should not confuse ourselves.

"I am proud of them. I give thanks for what they did in that period and I give thanks for what they are doing now."

And he is very clear that "I still represent the family". In doing that, Denroy Morgan is still behind the music with his son Laza, whose One By One combination with Mavado has gained significant traction. The two performed at Studio 38, New Kingston, in July. "I am looking at what is happening with One By One. He (Laza) is depending on Daddy. Gramps and Peetah no need Daddy no more. Laza, him need him father now. Me can't run down my career now. It is too late for that," Denroy Morgan said.

"Right now Laza a help him father live that life on the reggae tip."