(Pictured: Paul Phillips)
Written By: John Masouri
Paul Phillips, owner of Black Echoes and later Echoes Magazine, died after a short illness on July 1st. He is survived by his wife Maureen and son James.
Paul was a Londoner, a soul music fan who got his start in Fleet Street and had advertising in his blood. He launched the black music weekly Black Echoes in 1976 at a time when a new style of conscious reggae spearheaded by Bob Marley and Burning Spear was on the rise, and soul was still defined by the likes of Al Green, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder.
The newspaper’s early offices were in and around Islington and Holborn but there would be many of them in the years ahead, all relatively short-lived and little different from one another. Everywhere you looked there would be piles of vinyl records, flyers, publicity shots, posters and back issues, either on the floor or stacked on the desks. The hi-fi system was always falling to pieces and Paul himself would be in the midst of it all, a phone glued to his ear and a cigarette smouldering in the ashtray. He was an old fashioned ad man who loved striking deals and yet miraculously, given the various characters who came through the door, he always managed to stay on the right side of everyone.
You’re asked to imagine a kind of low rent Mad Men with a cast drawn from Jamaican exiles, both cultural and actual, mixed with Cockney wheeler dealers and hustlers of all kinds, all busily trying to make their mark by making, distributing or selling records, putting on gigs, managing artists, or running sound-systems, labels, studios and venues. Black Echoes’ weekly charts, compiled from a nationwide network of specialist shops were avidly consulted, and its coverage of black music was unrivalled – a tradition that continued long after Black Echoes was renamed Echoes Magazine in the eighties.
Over the past forty-six years, an inordinate number of music writers and photographers have had their start thanks to Echoes – David Rodigan, Ian McCann, Cyril Saunders, Jon Futrell, Steve Barrow, Lindsey Wesker, Penny Reel, Stuart Cosgrove, Fusion, David Corio, John Masouri, Steve James, Kevin Le Gendre and current editor Chris Wells among them. This was thanks almost entirely to the affable Mr. Phillips – an inveterate betting man who knew winners when he saw them.
Under his watch and especially in the early days of both titles, virtually everyone from the worlds of soul, reggae and later hip hop passed through his office door hoping to get themselves, their artists or records written about in the paper.
In later years, as the Echoes’ staff – including Paul, in common with many other media people – began to work from home, the dynamics changed and his skills as a charming but doggedly determined dealbreaker were inevitably rendered less effective. Echoes Magazine continues to flourish however, and Paul himself will be fondly remembered by all those who knew him.
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