Caribbean Beat — January/February 2018 (#149)
A calendar of events; music, film, and book reviews; travel features; people profiles, and much more.
A calendar of events; music, film, and book reviews; travel features; people profiles, and much more.
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had reserved their favours<br />
for the US servicemen, now<br />
had to make do with local<br />
trade. In for a penny, in for a<br />
pound. A tide was turning, in<br />
personal relations as much<br />
as in politics, and Sparrow’s<br />
preening delivery suggested<br />
who he thought would end up<br />
on top.<br />
“Jean and Dinah” was oral<br />
history and penetrating social<br />
commentary, cocky and<br />
risqué, with lyrics deserving<br />
literary analysis and an unforgettable<br />
tune: a calypso to<br />
engage listeners’ wits as much<br />
as their waists. For most<br />
Trinbagonians, it’s as familiar<br />
as the National Anthem, a<br />
song of similar vintage and<br />
asserted confidence. And the<br />
famous last line of the chorus<br />
<strong>—</strong> “Sparrow take over now”<br />
<strong>—</strong> was an accurate prediction<br />
of the Birdie’s calypso dominance<br />
of the coming decades.<br />
Philip Sander<br />
1957<br />
Lord Christo / Nap Hepburn<br />
Chicken Chest / Doctor<br />
Nelson<br />
As in 1953, separate Road<br />
March competitions produced<br />
rival winners.<br />
1958<br />
Mighty Sparrow<br />
Pay As You Earn<br />
1959<br />
Lord Caruso<br />
Run the Gunslingers<br />
1960<br />
Mighty Sparrow<br />
Mae Mae<br />
1961<br />
Mighty Sparrow<br />
Royal Jail<br />
1962<br />
Lord Blakie<br />
Maria<br />
1963<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
The Road<br />
1964<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
This Is Mas<br />
1965<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
My Pussin<br />
1966<br />
Mighty Sparrow<br />
Obeah Wedding<br />
1967<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
Sixty-Seven<br />
1968<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
Miss Tourist<br />
1969<br />
Mighty Sparrow<br />
Sa Sa Yea<br />
1970<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
Margie<br />
1971<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
Madison Square Garden<br />
1972<br />
Mighty Sparrow<br />
Drunk and Disorderly<br />
1973<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
Rainorama<br />
Only once in the past century<br />
has Carnival’s traditional<br />
connection with the start of<br />
Lent been severed. In 1972,<br />
faced with a polio outbreak,<br />
the government threatened<br />
to cancel the festival <strong>—</strong> then,<br />
faced with public outcry,<br />
postponed it from <strong>February</strong><br />
to May, and from the dry to<br />
the rainy season, so that masqueraders<br />
were predictably<br />
drenched. A year later,<br />
Kitchener’s “Rainorama”<br />
recounted the drama <strong>—</strong> and<br />
won the Grandmaster his<br />
ninth Road March title.<br />
The song’s laid-back<br />
rhythm and sweet melody<br />
almost disguise the fact that<br />
“Rainorama” is an uncompromising<br />
defence of Carnival<br />
and its place in T&T’s national<br />
life, a riposte to those “so and<br />
so hypocrites” who call it an<br />
unneeded distraction or waste<br />
of time. This is calypso as<br />
history lesson and as protest,<br />
but so seductively composed,<br />
it allows no resistance. And<br />
for Kitchener it was such a<br />
big hit that when he built his<br />
dream house in Diego Martin,<br />
on Port of Spain’s western<br />
outskirts, he named it “Rainorama”<br />
<strong>—</strong> proudly declared<br />
in an illuminated sign on the<br />
front lawn.<br />
1974<br />
Shadow<br />
Bass Man<br />
Philip Sander<br />
It was the song that broke the<br />
Sparrow/Kitchener monopoly<br />
on the Road March title.<br />
I wasn’t even born when<br />
“Bass Man” won the Road<br />
March <strong>—</strong> but, growing up in<br />
a house with Shadow being<br />
played constantly, I decided<br />
early on that he is the greatest<br />
thing that ever happened to<br />
music in Trinidad and Tobago.<br />
Although he’s won the Road<br />
March title only twice in his<br />
long career, Shadow’s skill<br />
at storytelling and the way<br />
he plays with melody, his<br />
bizarre vocal range and the<br />
sweet sadness of his musical<br />
arrangements, make him<br />
the most avant-garde street<br />
philosopher we’ve ever had.<br />
In “Bass Man”, Shadow<br />
manages to capture the<br />
frustration of the calypsonian<br />
who can’t make a living from<br />
his art, yet the impetus to create<br />
is greater than the frustration.<br />
I don’t know how this thing<br />
get inside me. Which artist<br />
doesn’t know that truth? This<br />
song is the strong foundation<br />
on which Shadow has created<br />
an entire universe of feeling<br />
in his music: a different<br />
language and energy, a way<br />
to channel all the pain, all the<br />
sadness, all those feelings of<br />
inadequacy into the ability to<br />
have hope and dance in spite<br />
of it all.<br />
Attillah Springer<br />
1975<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
Tribute to Spree Simon<br />
1976<br />
Lord Kitchener<br />
Flag Woman<br />
1977<br />
Calypso Rose<br />
Tempo<br />
Port of Spain too small for the<br />
Carnival . . . T&T’s capital<br />
considers itself ground zero<br />
for the festival, but Calypso<br />
Rose dared sing this infectious<br />
tune about heading<br />
south to San Fernando, and<br />
took her first Road March<br />
title. It was history-making:<br />
for the first time ever, the<br />
Road March was won by a<br />
woman, and Rose successfully<br />
defended the title a year<br />
later, when she also became<br />
the first woman ever to<br />
win the Calypso King title,<br />
which immediately had to<br />
be renamed. After Rose, it<br />
was twenty-one years before<br />
another woman, Sanelle<br />
Dempster, won Road March,<br />
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