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Islands Expressions: Scott Fagan



Scott FaganScott Fagan spent an impoverished childhood on St. Thomas, but without that background his music might not have become the honest celebration of the Virgin Islands that it is.

Fagan’s family was the poorest of the poor, he says, even at one time living in a dwelling made out of cardboard. But living in poverty is not without some joys, and Fagan fondly recalls friends and neighbors who were like family and, as often happens in V.I. society, helped to raise him and his siblings.

This greater sense and appreciation of community as family is one of the aspects of Fagan’s character that helped to shape his world view and his songwriting

Fagan gives a big nod to local station WSTA for influencing his music education.

"What happened for us here is that we had one radio station," Fagan says. "WSTA played some of everything — we were exposed to the entire spectrum."

Fagan even recalls WSTA’s running the gamut from Puerto Rican jibaro to military march music. "El Gringito" is on the new album because he was exposed to jibaro.

Listen to Fagan’s music and you’ll hear a voice calm and soft as gentle waves on a warm beach. Listen to the lyrics you’ll recognize the same warmth you feel when someone you don’t know smiles at you for no reason as you pass on the street.

Fagan has a unique approach to charging people for his music, best explained by this note on his website:

"To those who can afford and are willing to meet the price that we have suggested, I am grateful. This will allow me to continue (with less distraction) to write and sing and record. To those who cannot afford the price that we suggest, but wish to contribute to our ability to continue writing, singing and recording, I understand that condition and invite you to take what you would like, embrace it and enjoy it. To those who are unable to offer any support at this time, I understand that condition as well, and invite you to take what you would like, embrace it and enjoy it."

Fagan has also released "Sandy the Bluenosed Reindeer," a Christmastime operetta for tropical climates.

"Sandy is a little female reindeer sent to the North pole as a Christmas present for Santa one Christmas Eve a long time ago by the girls and boys in the Home for Almost Forgotten Children somewhere in the tropical islands …," according to the description on Fagan’s website.

Lately Fagan has been in the studio working on his next album. Yet to be named, the album is about 50 percent finished, he says.

Spotlighting the songs "Annalee" and "The Virgin Islands Song," Fagan says the new work will also showcase poetry, local dance and humorous written pieces.

"It is an absolute celebration of what it is for me to be a Virgin Islander," Fagan says. "And I am really proud of our society, and I am really proud to represent it."

Fagan hasn’t spent his whole career here; in 1964 he set sail for Florida on a 50-foot sailboat. Fans in Florida helped Fagan get a bus ticket to New York where, with just 11 cents left in his pocket and one phone number, Fagan got himself signed with Columbia Records by the legendary Doc Pomus, who wrote "Save the Last Dance for Me," "Teenager in Love" and "Viva Las Vegas."

Rather than a feeling of elation, Fagan says his reaction to getting signed was one of relief.

"I was extremely gratified to have someone as important in rock and roll consider that I was someone of talent, but it was serious business," Fagan says. "I had to get signed, get in the studio, had to have hit records. They had to be promoted and played and then you had to be paid and then with that money you had to save your mother and young brothers from welfare. We were far from elated."

Things for Fagan started happening fast, and the industry’s powers of the day wanted big things from him. Fagan’s early hits were "Give Love a Chance" and "Tutsie," which he says was a big jukebox hit in the territory.

His first album, "South Atlantic Blues" came out in 1968, and that, along with "Many Sunny Places," established Caribbean contemporary — or Caribilly — as a musical genre. The genre is still popular today with Parrotheads and other fans who pack Jimmy Buffet-style concerts.

"I believed in the music, and I was product of this environment," Fagan says. "In this environment we sang calypso, and I could sing calypso and knock the people out with it. When I got to the States as a white calypso singer, I ran into some conflict."

Fagan’s career was doing well, and he was rubbing shoulders with some of music’s biggest songwriting names, with an office in the same suites where songs like "Great Balls of Fire" were written.

"Otis Blackwell was in the room next door," Fagan recalls. Blackwell helped to develop Elvis Pressley’s style and wrote "Don’t Be Cruel" and "All Shook Up."

But Fagan’s sunny skies turned stormy soon after he and partner Jose Silvio Martinez Kookoolis wrote "Soon," the first rock opera ever produced on Broadway. The people who paid the duo to write the play wanted a piece that would compete with the musical "Hair."

However, what Fagan and Kookoolis wrote was less an entertainment than a criticism of the music industry.

"I thought that we could change the world with music," Fagan says. "I had come out of here seriously committed to racial and social justice. I wanted to catalyze a revolution in the music business. As things progressed, we were fired from the theater."

The strong need to make a positive impact on the world Fagan attributes to his impoverished childhood.

"My mother and sister and I were the poorest white people that I’d seen anywhere, and this distilled my strong feelings about racial and social justice and the emotions that came from being the poorest people of any color," he says. "We were really bereft, and lived on the hillside in a piece of cardboard. I was a homeless boy when I left here. [Once in New York] I felt that I was to use my gift to bring about change. [The music industry powers of the day] thought that I was to use that gift for entertainment."

Here was the central conflict of Fagan’s entire career. His mother ended up losing his bothers to welfare and to foster homes.

"I had to make the money to pull us up and save our lives, but at same time had to use the gift for change and social justice," Fagan says.

After "Soon," Fagan found himself blacklisted, unable to find work, and busking on street corners.

"I thought that "Soon" would catalyze a revolutionary change in the music business," Fagan says. "What it did was get Kookoolis and I banned from all aspects of the business."

There weren’t even royalty payments to sustain him.

"I never got one cent of royalties in my friggin’ life," Fagan says. "But I am not unique in that. The music business is a terrible thing."

Looking back, Fagan says that while he would have looked for the same outcome, he would have used less self-destructive means.

Nowadays, Fagan is focusing on his new album, but never forgets his roots.

"I am a singer, who began to write because there were important things that needed to be written about," Fagan says. "But what is most unique is I try to represent our Virgin Islands society as absolutely honestly as I can."

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