Self-taught musician and leader of the Couchman Family Band, 66-year-old Leon Couchman is hoping that music produced locally could attract corporate sponsorship in order to preserve Indigenous and other Guyanese rhythms as he has lost much of his own compositions because of production, copyright and sponsorship issues.
“Our music is to inspire and to make people happy,” Couchman said. “Some-where and somehow, if we can get some help to build our own studio we can also record all other Amerindian music. We have the time and ability to go where they are and record them. We have the ability to do these things. We would love to do it.”
In a recent interview with Stabroek Weekend, he related that owing to a lack of funding and sponsorship, the family band had not been able to record its music, though it performed when and where invited.