Film / News
Don Letts comes to Bristol to discuss a new film about his life
Described as a ‘cultural mover and shaker, filmmaker, musician and raconteur’, first generation black Briton Don Letts was at the centre of the great cultural crossover between punks and Rastas in 1976 and 1977, which found an outlet locally at the late Tony Bullimore’s Bamboo Club.
He went on to become part of The Clash’s inner circle, helped John Lydon to find Jamaican reggae acts to sign to Virgin, forged a career as a pop promo director, founded Big Audio Dynamite with Mick Jones and won a Grammy for his documentary Westway to the World: The Story of the Clash.
Don’s eventful life story is told in a new documentary, Rebel Dread, which draws on extensive footage – much of it previously unseen – from his own archive, to explore this great coming together of disaffected youth in Thatcher’s Britain, against a backdrop of racism and unemployment.
Don Letts in front of the police line during the Notting Hill Carnival riot of 1976. Pic: Rocco Macauley
“For the children of immigrant parents as well as the working class white kids of Britain alike, there were no jobs, no hope and no future,” says director William E. Badgley. “But for both, out of the desperation and the hopelessness came beauty, art and music unlike anything that had come before it.”
Don with Andy Warhol backstage at Shea Stadium in 1982. Pic: Bob Gruen
Interviewees include Jazzie B, John Lydon, Mick Jones, Vivien Goldman, Norman Jay and Daddy G of Massive Attack.
Don Letts today. Pic Raymond Thompson Jr.
Don will be present for a Q&A after a special screening of Rebel Dread at the Watershed on Tuesday 8 March, organised in partnership with We Are Parable and Bohemia Media. Go here for tickets.
Main pic: Don Letts on the New York subway in 1981. Pix: Lisa Jones
All images supplied by Bohemia Media.
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