“IN A FAIR world, I think Billy’s one of the people that would be knighted forever. He should be treated like royalty and I wanted to make that statement.”
Swedish filmmaker Goran Olsson is referring to his use of jazz lingo’s honorary prefix, HRH, (His Royal Highness) but also to this hour-and-a-half long documentary of veteran Philadelphia soul artist, Billy Paul; Am I Black Enough For You?
“Fifteen years ago I was driving from LA to Las Vegas and I stopped for gas and we bought a cassette of Billy Paul. I fell in love with the music. Billy’s more than a singer; with his voice he’s a composer, arranger and interpreter.”
Later, back in “cold and depressing” Sweden, Billy’s music helped Olsson deal with troublesome bouts of northern angst.
“ I had all Billy’s records on my iPod and it was comforting. I used it as therapy basically”. Olsson cites this film as payback.
Billy Paul is best known for his 1972 Grammy award-winning single Me and Mrs Jones, and to mainstream audiences for not much else, but this jazz-trained singer with a richly textured and sophisticated voice is regarded by many as one of the most underrated performers of the soul era.
Now in his early seventies, with a brace of black music awards and the keys to numerous cities across the States in his pocket, he continues to tour and to run his own label with his wife, Blanche.
The follow up single to Me and Mrs Jones was the eponymous Am I Black Enough For You? It was a move that, despite his black consciousness, Billy Paul was against, and one that nearly destroyed his career, given the socio-political climate in the US at the time.
Olsson says: “That’s the storyline of the film. He had a conflict with the record company and we explore that in the film as a narrative structure.”
The record company was Philadelphia International Records, owned by the legendary writing and producing duo Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.
“Gamble and Huff were very militant, they were friends with Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. They used Billy as a political tool. He wanted to be a popular singer”. Am I Black Enough For You? received almost no radio airplay from nervous radio bosses, and it took until 1974 for Paul to re-enter the Top 40.
More recently, in 2003 Kenny Gamble lost a lawsuit to Billy Paul for unpaid royalties, resulting in a payout of half a million dollars. Gamble appears in the film and Olsson says their relationship is complicated.
“Gamble and Huff sold I think around one hundred million records around ‘72, ‘73 and became enormously rich. They started with real estate and things and abandoned the record company and the artists in some ways. It was common in the music industry, it took a long time for artists to know the contract and claim their rights; it’s a nasty industry.
“I wouldn’t say that Kenny Gamble is a crook, but that it’s a crooked business”. But I respect him. And Billy Paul was not an easy character, he was a wildcat.”
Olsson thinks involvement in his film has had an influence and that they are approaching each other again: “They’re not enemies anymore, they’re over the hurdle and patching things up.”
Olsson and crew spent a summer with the Pauls in Philadelphia and followed them on tour to Brazil and Paris, much to the bemusement of Billy and Blanche: “Coming from Sweden they thought it was an unlikely thing for us to want to do; we’re Swedes, we look so blond and they think we’re like Eskimos and they loved that we paid attention to this stuff.
“But he’s a smart guy and he understood.”
Olsson also wanted to deal with Paul being married to the same woman, who is also his manager, for forty years; their relationship, love and respect: “Blanche is very much part of the film, she’s very witty, funny and entertaining”. The film also features Questlove; producer and drummer with hip hop band, Roots, hip-hop artists Scholly D and Malik B and music industry legend Clive Davis.
Visually, Olsson took his inspiration from Bruce Weber’s film about Chet Baker, Let’s Get Lost. “I did a very close analysis of Bruce Weber’s masterpiece and I took a still image of every single cut in the film and made a montage on the wall.
“It’s black and white, it’s in the ‘50’s, it’s in California and it’s about heroin. We transformed that to the ‘70’s, colour, Philadelphia and cocaine.
“I wanted to treat it as respectfully as I could. I wanted to make a beautiful film so we shot it on film and we did it all, except for one scene, (where Billy places a gardenia on Billie Holliday’s grave) during nighttime because I wanted an intimate, soul feeling to it.”
Olsson has tackled more controversial subjects in the past, like that of notorious Swedish rapper, Leila K, but he says this is “basically a fan film”. As to whether the finished result fulfilled his aims he replies: “I don’t know yet. I’m thoroughly happy that I got the opportunity to meet these people and to put light on these beautiful artists. So I’m feeling blessed. I don’t care about the rest.”
Am I Black Enough for You screens today at Grosvenor (18.45) and tomorrow at CCA (15.00) as part of the music and film festival. Click here for tickets and further information.
Blogger: Allison Young
