67 Park Lane (Band)

Cecil Morris' first outing with the music business, he had spent £500 on a drum kit and formed a group and the went to London to make the last release for the Toast record label. Vicki Wickham and Dusty Springfield were there during the session.

The Spotlight Allstars 'Black Man Time' was a 1979 recording featuring the vocals, arrangement and production of Cecil Morris. the flip was a DJ version  by Jah Kenneth called 'Message To The Blackman'' now sadly removed from youtube

Black Cinema Club

In 1977 Cecil Morris decided that Birmingham lacked it's own Black cinema, and he was going to do something about that. This was at a time when Kung Fu and Black Exploitation films were popular in the USA and before home video machines had taken off, so footage of this type this was not found in the community.  So he approached various cinemas in the city with his ideas, without much luck, but finally the Elite Cinema on the Soho Road in Handworth agreed to let him do a Midnight Movie show on Saturday evenings. So he then approached local film distribution warehouses to obtain films and they told him that he would need a special license to take this role on, and to contact the film companies agents in London. 

The Elite Cinema, Handsworth

The Gaumont, Leics

So Cecil wrote off to the appropriate places and eventually obtained all the necessary paperwork to run his own films here in Birmingham. The flyer shown was printed by hand on an old press that he had purchased is all that remains from this enterprise, but you can see he was running some interesting films, such as Blacula and Fritz The Cat, he recalls; "the cinema was packed every Friday night Mickey, and with an entrance fee only a £1.00, I ran films through that Summer period running two 'X' rated ones each night." So it was so popular that Cecil was then approached by the owner of the Gaumont Cinema in Leicester Town center to do the same thing there on a Sunday evening, that to was also very popular.

 Cecil recalls a time when a London Rank film executive called at his terraced home where he lived at the time, wearing crisp white suit and driving a Rolls Royce, just to discuss the film leasing deal. He said that they both got on well and after his visit all the film companies started to mail him. Sadly though it wasn't to last, after a while, seeing his success, the Elite owners wanted to run the club themselves and forced him out using underhand methods, like not having the heating turned on in the venue during the Winter months, causing his audiences to freeze and lose interest. If you have any memories of the Late Night Movies and blankets over your legs,  please comment below and I'll add your memories to the page - thanks.

Blacula is a 1972 American blaxploitation horror film produced for American International Pictures. It was directed by William Crain and stars William Marshall in the title role about an 18th-century African prince named Mamuwalde, who is turned into a vampire by Count Dracula and later locked inside a coffin by the Count after a party at the latter's castle in Transylvania that he attended with his wife Luva (Vonetta McGee). Two centuries later, the now-undead Mamuwalde rises from his coffin attacking various residents in modern day Los Angeles, the first two being the interior decorators who unknowingly release him after purchasing and bringing his coffin from Dracula's castle in Transylvania. Mamuwalde later meets Tina (also played by Vonetta McGee), a woman he believes to be the reincarnation of his deceased wife Luva.

Blacula was released to mixed reviews in the United States, but was one of the top grossing films of the year. It was the first film to receive an award for Best Horror Film at the Saturn Awards. Blacula was followed by the sequel Scream, Blacula, Scream in 1973 and inspired a small wave of blaxploitation themed horror films.

A Vietnam veteran returns home to find drug dealers and addicts now rule his old neighbourhood, and that even his own wife has fallen victim to drugs. Together with three of his buddies from Vietnam, he fights back.

Original street poster 1982

Countryman (1982) synopsis

A moonlit tropical beach, a solitary fisherman paddles out to the reef and casts his net. Suddenly, out of the night sky comes the sound of a small aeroplane in trouble. COUNTRYMAN starts paddling for the shore as the plane crashes into a swamp. The flare of an explosion lights up the sky.

There are two young Americans - Bobby (HIRAM KELLER) and his girlfriend Beau (TINA ST. CLAIR) - in the plane. Beau's rich daddy owns the aircraft, which has been taken without his permission. But the crash is only the start of the couple's troubles: they have, unwittingly, become part of a sinister political plot contrived by the menacing Colonel Sinclair (BASIL KEANE).

Countryman (from cine slide)

Even as COUNTRYMAN pulls Bobby and Beau from the wreckage, a police helicopter hovers over them. COUNTRYMAN,  however, rescues the couple and takes them to a hidden refuge. By the time morning comes Bobby and Beau are victims of Sinclair's devious scheming. He has planted a cache of guns in the crashed plane, together with documents that purport to implicate the opposition party and the CIA in a plan to disrupt the forthcoming general election. The government calls a State of Emergency and several members of the opposition are arrested. But to make the charges stick, Sinclair has to produce the pilot. A substantial reward is offered for information leading to the capture of the pilot. By a simple trick of fate the two Americans are on the run, fugitives in the Jamaican wilderness under the protection of COUNTRYMAN as the police and army hunt them down. COUNTRYMAN is no ordinary man; he is a man of the sea, a man of knowledge, in effortless harmony with everything that lives and breathes. And when the violence peaks and COUNTRYMAN is attacked by a squad of armed thugs, he annihilates them in an awesome display of acrobatic hand to hand combat.

This is a classic adventure story of good against evil, of power misused, of fear against fate. COUNTRYMAN, the film, is an exciting mixture of modern adventure and ancient magic.

Watch full movie here!

Birmingham Black Music Awards

Cecil Morris & PCRL presenters receive The Birmingham Black Music Awards circa. 1988 (Kenny B, TC Shore with the late Angel 'A' (Angela Lewin) and Soca Queen)

Cecil Morris interviews Miss PCRL (Moxan) and the runners-up in 1987 (tape machine playing up)

Cecil Abraham Morris (PCRL Founder)

Born in Clarendon Jamaica on 28-6-1946. He grew up with both his grandparents who took turn in showering with lots of love and affection. He recalled fondly the memories of his childhood growing up in Jamaica. "Whenever I was naughty one of my grandparents' home", I'd run away to my next grandparents home, he replied.
 The first of nine boys, he grew up in the church and from an early age formulated his life around a reverential fear. From a musical family, he remembered his days singing on the church choir and his uncle playing guitar and sometimes the trumpet. " My mother is a brilliant singer, even now", he said.
 I left Jamaica and came to England in 1962 and headed straight for Birmingham where he's lived ever since. At the age of 17 he became more and more interested in pop music. He followed singers like The Beatles. Otis Redding and some British pop stars. With £500 saved he decided to invest in a drum kit to kick-start his career into music. This was to take him all over the country.

 After a while he started his own management company looking after artistes like The JALN Band, Capitol Letters, Herthers etc. Spotlight Entertainment ran regular talent shows and handled bands such as Steel Pulse, Beshara, Matumbi and many others about the time the early lovers rock began to emerge. By this time the young MM had grown up to be a singer, musician, entrepreneur business man, husband and father of four.
 "I got involved in radio because as I got to understand the music business I quickly realized that what was needed to get the music to the public". And at that time black peoples music was not represented in main-stream radio". He mused. BRMB (Birmingham radio station) had just been started at the time and a group of black entertainers from the music industry along with Music Master approached them about doing a radio programme for the Black group. Their reply was less then encouraging. MM explains, "They (BRMB) said that they are English speaking people and there was no need for any specialist programme and that the radio station covered programmes for everybody, black, white and Asian."
 Undaunted by this set back, our heroes took their petition to the BBC Radio WM who weren't  themselves very eager. By this time the youths were becoming very frustrated, talented though they were, their music were going nowhere. "I  kept pestering them (radio stations) said MM, then finally we were making some progress'" The men sat down to talk.

The management of the BBC were offering us thirty minutes to do a programme on Sundays' I was disgusted. And I said, "we (black group) make up 10% of your listening audience, we pay licence fees like everybody else, and we deserve 10% of your air time". MM began to calculate. "Your total station time is 140 hours a week. 10% of that is 14 hours per week, so expected air time works out to be 2 hours per days". That sounds logical enough. "They thought I was mad", MM retorted. During the Handsworth riot MM set up a transmitter to warn people not to go out to Handsworth and that was the birth of MM in radio.

Why PCRL ?
This Group was formed in 1980 as a pressure group to highlight the lack of input into the broadcasting media for the ethnic community. When we approached the BBC and the IBA Stations in our area, negotiations were held but no meaningful improvement was forthcoming. We then applied to the IBA in 1982 for a Radio Franchise to broadcast to the dis-enfranchised groups.

We were informed that the only frequency available for the Birmingham area was already allocated to BRMB and they could not entertain our request for several years to come. Our next step was to approach the then home Secretary - the Rt. Hon. Leon Brittain ­ for a Special Test Transmission Franchise for Community Radio. Our letter from the Home Secretary stated that Britain's airwaves were governed by the European Broadcasting committee in Geneva and negotiations would be taking place for an extension of frequencies to accommodate community radio.

This was subsequently granted in 1983. As a result of this a pledge was made that by the end of that year the first Community Stations would come into being. We were very optimistic when twenty-one Test Franchises were promised - but alas this was abandoned. In the meantime, we set about training would-be broadcasters in the practical elements of radio broadcasting. As a result of our continuous lobbying and a visit to the House of Commons we engaged the support of key MP's; leading church figures, local Councillors and other major organisations. PCRL was one of a number of groups consulted prior to the formation of a Local Media Skills Training Initiative. Many PCRL Presenters have benefited from the creation of the Community Radio Training Project which was funded by a local Charitable Trust as a result of these consultations.

We were very much encouraged when in 1988 the IBA announced that they were to issue twenty Incremental ILR Contracts and on 2 December 1988 they received our letter of intent. We are talking about the black community for the first time having control, i.e., editorial control, production control, control of who is involved and who can become members of the station. As we train more and more people we increasingly prove that anyone can learn the skills of radio broadcasting and thereby there will be alot more cultural debates, more political debates and different sorts of music.

During the time that we were on air we concentrated on the music and information that existing radio station just don't give enough of. I think that we have enough interesting and closer relationships between the radio station and its off air work. I see our developments as complimentary to public service broadcasting and we shouldn't be regarded as a threat, on the contrary, we have always striven to work hand in hand with all existing media.

During the time I have been with the organisation we have also established a training ground for would be broadcasters with the introduction of community radio training course, because from a community base one can then move to local regional and then hopefully into mainstream. We see that afro Caribbean's are the people that are least satisfied with services which are provided because of the way the mass media is structured. It is generally expected by all that the media has a very powerful influence on its audience - if this is so where is the justification in preventing the public in deciding for itself?

I would suggest that PCRL and the British Media in all its forms is allowed to have freedom of speech and leave an intelligent British public to decide whether to support it or not.  (Cecil Morris - 1987)


D.T.I. Pressure
In 1978 a man had a vision about us black people in Birmingham. Our own radio station that would cater for all nationalities, and so Radio Star, Mother of P.C.R.L. Radio 103.5FM was born to serve this community more than any media.

When we are in a jolly mood we listen to P.C.R.L. When we are down we listen to P.C.R.L. When we want to communicate with loved ones, family, friends, we listen to P.C.R.L. Radio. In times of celebration weddings, births, birthdays, announcement of bereavement, we use P.C.R.L. This organisation P.C.R.L. has picked up the mantle for Black People here in Birmingham, and fought a struggle on our behalf so we could be more educated about ourself and others through radio.

The legal Media/Radio and T.V. who are predominantly white are run and programmed without any positive input for Black People P.C.R.L. applied for a Broadcasting Licence with a backing of £300,000 and because P.C.R.L. will not turn coat and be a coconut (black on the outside white in the inside.) They were robbed of that licence that went to Buzz FM who went bust three times in their short life span.

Now after we have got our own Radio Station P.C.R.L. the D.T.I. (Department of Trade and Industry) are hell bent on taking our radio station. The D.T.I. raided 151 Dudley Rd, Ideal Record shop on Wednesday 19th August 1992. They were searching for evidence of who really runs P.C.R.L.

P.C.R.L. Radio Station, that is our Radio is under attack from the Home Office Officials namely ISI (Radio Investigators Service D.T.I.). Unless we the community start UNITING TOGETHER to save this Radio Station P.C.R.L., we will live to regret this. So let us come together and show the authorities that we are not going to stand aside and watch them break down and abolish the inspiration that found our Foundation of, Peoples Community Radio.

March we will on Black History Month on the same date that one of our National Hero walked. Paul Bogle walked for freedom on Sunday 11th October 1865 in Jamaica. P.C.R.L. Radio will March by 100's of 1000's on Sunday 11th October 1992 in tribute to Paul Bogle and for Freedom of speech, LEGALISE BLACK RADIO STATION P.C.R.L. NOW.

The March will take place from:­ Handsworth Park, Hinstock Rd, Oxhill Rd, to Rookery Rd, off Soho Rd, Dudley Rd Edgbaston to Winson Green Rd, back onto Soho Rd, off Soho Rd, Whitehall Rd back to the Park.

This March MOTTO is: Healthy Walking, Unity to be together and freedom to demonstrate our frustration without BLACK RADIO and P.C.R.L.

HEALTH, UNITY, AND FREEDOM

(1992 from the Ideal Cinema Club book)

Audio from Pirate Archive (click on 'music master')

Music Master 26-05-85

Sadly Cecil passed away January 8th, 2026. He had recently suffered a stroke and was also type 1 diabetic. He will be missed by all his family and friends - Editor