DJ Derek â€" aka Derek Serpell-Morris â€" is a 62 year old ex-accountant who now makes a living playing reggae at festivals and clubs across the country. Roxanna Mohtashemi asks him about his life, his music and his view of life.
62-year old DJ Derek is a household name on the streets of Bristol â€" renowned for his eclectic selection of records and his cooler than cool club nights.
(http://www.ageconcern.org.uk/AgeConcern//images/derek_cig_200px.jpg)
If you didn’t know what he looked like I’d be surprised if you were able to pick him out of a crowd â€" this man comes packaged in neatly pressed slacks, a smooth side parting, a smart casual shirt and glasses, not your typical modern day DJ.
Yet it is Derek’s passion for music, in particular Reggae, Dub and Dancehall, that has kept him at the heart of club culture and in the minds of many a young aspiring DJ.
Derek’s passion for music first developed when he joined a Skiffle band in the late fifties, he got into the Rock n Roll scene, and later developed a flair for Rhythm ‘n’ Blues.
‘In the late sixties the first big influx of Jamaicans came and a lot of them came to Bristol. And they were bringing American R‘n’B â€" I’d see people like Toots and the Maytals before anyone had ever heard of them,’ says Derek
The other surprising thing about this ‘not so big’, white, older man is that he seems to have a rather heavy Jamaican accent, and he hasn’t even been there on holiday!
In the Seventies he started working for a Jamaican friend from Birmingham who needed an accountant to work out the finances.
‘If you’re discussing money and everybody is talking so fast that you can’t understand them, you always feel you’re being stitched up. That made me consciously learn to speak, what some people call Jamaican Patois, but it’s actually a separate language as far as I’m concerned,’ he says
So, in a bid to learn the language, Derek spent a lot of time sitting in a local Jamaican Barbers shop,
‘I got to the extent where I could ring up a black record producer in London and when they met me they’d be amazed I was a white man.’
After a rough period in Derek’s life in the 1970s, which ended in a broken marriage and the death of both his parents, Derek decided to pack in his nine to five job as an accountant to concentrate full-time on his music.
‘Somebody who was just opening a club asked me if I’d be interested in doing their books and doing some DJ-ing. I started to introduce this predominantly white crowd to a lot of West Indian music that they’d never heard, and it used to go down really well.’
As Derek’s talent for playing tunes to adoring crowds grew so did his reputation. And it wasn’t long before he was playing in a Jamaican club to Jamaican fans. As the styles progressed through the years Derek kept on playing the tunes he knew and loved.
With his own unique style, Derek’s music career progressed rapidly. In 1994 he starred in a BBC 2 documentary that he believes had a great impact. ‘It changed my life because people outside of Bristol got to see and hear me. I had write-ups in every national newspaper’
Today, with a following of fans between eight and eighty Derek doesn’t feel age to be an issue for him at all. ‘Age is a number on a page.’ he says. He plays at club nights as well as events such as the Bath Ethnic Minorities Senior Citizens Dance. He says: ‘The thing that amazes me is that the older I get the more people are interested in booking me.’
‘I make a joke out of how old I am when I go on stage. I say: ‘Have no fear the old man is here’.’ He even has a following of young girls, who call themselves ‘The Derekettes’ which keeps him young in body, if not in age.
Derek sees definite advantages of getting older. ‘I can’t wait to be 65 because I’ll start getting a basic pension on top of what I’m making,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to stop working while I’m physically capable of doing what I do and people are ready to book me. I can’t see any reason to stop â€" I’d be bored to tears if I didn’t have anything to do.’
But money is not the most important thing. What Derek values most is the feeling he gets when he’s out on the streets of Bristol and passersby greet him with a respectful salute, regardless of their race or age. ‘If I can be an inspiration to any older people, I’ll be very glad! I get so many young people who come up and say you’re an inspiration to us, it’s wonderful that.’
(http://www.ageconcern.org.uk/AgeConcern//images/derek_bw2_200px.jpg)