Photographer Pogus Ceasar gives Richard McComb a tour of black music in Birmingham over the past 25 years
The colour scheme is stark, unyielding, the white studio space flooded with sunlight from the overhead windows on this early spring morning.
Black and white photographs, framed in black, hang from the walls. There are no fancy, bawdy colour flourishes here. Welcome to the monochrome world of photographer Pogus Caesar.
When I walk into the room – actually, there are two – there is no one else about. But I am not alone, far from it. Similarly there is no sound, no audible chatter. And yet the place is ringing with voices, thumping with drums and bass, buzzing with a cacophony of rhythm and melody, roaring with visceral pleasure.
It is said every picture tells a story but in the case of the 37 images displayed inside Fazeley Studios, Digbeth, they also sing a song. The pictures capture some of the biggest global stars of soul music, R & B and reggae, many of them taken during performances and visits to Birmingham. The collection represents an unrivalled record of the city’s black music experience of the past 25 years. Birmingham may never rival Detroit’s Sweet Sound of Motown, or Kingston, Jamaica, but the city has given a stage to their legendary sons and daughters.
The pictures spark different associations for each individual visitor to the show, titled Muzik Kinda Sweet. Looking at some of them, it is hard not to hear an act’s trademark hit playing in your head. The eye is caught by rapper MC Hammer, wiggling in those ridiculous sequined balloon pants, during a show at the NEC. I defy you not to hear: “Can’t touch this.” Jazzie B, of Soul II Soul fame, is kicking back at Pebble Mill studios in 1999, giving the peace sign: “Back to life, back to reality...”
There are funkmeisters Cameo, codpieces and all, strutting at the Odeon Cinema in 1986. You can almost hear singer Larry Blackmon yowl: “Come on baby tell me what’s the word. Word up!”
Some of the stars have been around so long it’s difficult to generalise. What do you hear when you look at Pogus’s image of Lionel Richie, caught looking slightly bemused at a local radio station stand at Cannon Hill Park? It probably depends on your age. If you’re unlucky, the saccharine mush of Hello (and that video) will infuriate your senses. If the sweet gods of soul are looking down, you’ll hear Easy or Sail On.
“Every picture sings,” says Pogus. “When I look at them, I hear songs. I like to think that everyone who comes in here has a memory of the artist they are looking at.”
Pogus, who was born in St Kitts but grew up in Birmingham, has had a varied career in presenting on television as well as producing and directing, focusing on black culture and music in particular. His work, and reputation, has given him access to the big names featured in Muzik Kinda Sweet (the title is a play on the language of his West Indian heritage).
The most recent photo in the show, taken of Grace Jones straddling a fan’s shoulders, his head nestling between her thighs, was taken from the front stalls at Symphony Hall. Like all of Pogus’s work, it was taken with his trusted Canon Sure Shot Auto Focus, yours for less than 20 quid on eBay although Pogus reckons he paid about £7.
Viewed by some as a photographic dinosaur, Pogus adores his Sure Shot. There is no digital jiggery-pokery, no image manipulation, no lipstick and blusher courtesy of Photoshop. Pogus’s style – Think & Feel, Point & Shoot – has become second nature.
The Grace Jones image, taken in January this year during her Hurricane tour, shows other fans trying to snap the singer on their phone cameras but it is Pogus’ robust “old-school” lens to which she is drawn, glowering like an exotic cat, all teeth and defiance.
“She’s looking straight into my camera lens,” says Pogus as he walks me round the show. “My pictures aren’t airbrushed. You can get spots and pimples and scars.”
Pogus’s love of photography and his fascination with performers can be traced back to his childhood in Sparkbrook, when he fell under the spell of music. His parents listened to Jim Reeves, Ella Fitzgerald and Sam Cooke on their Ferguson radiogram.
Pogus recalls: “They would play the tunes every Sunday. As soon as they were out of
the house I would have a little glass of sherry or QC wine and listen to the music. There was Andy Williams, Nat King Cole, the great crooners.”
In the 70s, he discovered the magic of soul and reggae, taking in a huge musical sweep from Stevie Wonder to Lee “Scratch” Perry, both of whom are featured in the Fazeley Studios show. The revolutionary spirit and political bite of the performers was inspirational.
What followed was an education in sweet soul and the joy of skank, courtesy of the Birmingham touring circuit. The biggest names in music came to Brum. Pogus saw them all. At the Odeon in New Street, he watched Bob Marley, the Four Tops, the Jackson 5, George Clinton, Barry White, Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway. Across town at the Hippodrome, there was Ben E King and Earth, Wind & Fire. He saw Otis Redding at the venue but can’t remember it (a friend reminded him the other day).
“Is there a reason for that? Why you can’t remember seeing Otis?” I ask.
“No!” says Pogus, laughing.
But he does recall the stars he saw at the Top Rank in Dale End. “Solomon Burke. Wilson Pickett and Ike and Tina Turner. It cost something like 10 shillings to see these people,” says Pogus.
It was his love of the music and desire to capture Birmingham’s music legacy that prompted Pogus to become the city’s unofficial recorder of performing black icons. Some are caught on stage, such as The Wailers at the Tower Ballroom, Edgbaston, in 1986, an image that encapsulates the steamy atmosphere of an intimate reggae session.
Other performers are photographed out of the “office” including singers who were later cut down in their prime. There is a haunting picture of the R&B star Aaliyah, taken six years before she died in an air crash. A cool looking Lynden David Hall, who appeared in the film Love Actually as a wedding singer, is taken outside The Drum in Aston in 1999, the year after he picked up a MOBO for best newcomer. He died of cancer three years ago, at the age of 31.
Pogus says it has been a humbling experience to meet so many stars, but if one encounter sticks out it is his session with Stevie Wonder. Pogus grew up listening to the star’s 1972 album Talking Book and was bowled over to be asked to film a video for Wonder when he came to the city in 1989. Wonder had been playing at the NEC and was working on a video at the now demolished Central Music Studios. Pogus was called to the studio after midnight. “Stevie had no concept of night and day and would just come in a record when he wanted to,” recalls Pogus.
His intimate image of Wonder, alone in the studio, caught in the moment as he plays out melodies on a keyboard, is the show’s emotional centrepiece. Here is the star stripped of artifice.
“I was like a child in his company,” says Pogus. “It has been an immense pleasure to spend time with people like him. But their is no point in that experience unless you can share it with people.”
* Muzik Kinda Sweet is at Fazeley Studios, Fazeley Street, Digbeth, Birmingham, until April 3.
