Pe­ter Ray Blood

Al­though it's long over­due, liv­ing steel­band icon An­tho­ny Williams was be­stowed an Hon­orary Doc­tor of Let­ters (DLitt) from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies last Sat­ur­day, at the St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus of the UWI.

The founder of North Stars Steel Or­ches­tra of St James, the band to win the first Panora­ma cham­pi­onship back in 1963, and the in­ven­tor of the Spi­der Web pan, Williams has been revered by col­leagues and the pub­lic for more than half cen­tu­ry for his in­no­va­tions in the na­tion­al in­stru­ment and his unique arrange­ments on pan.

In 1992, Williams re­ceived the Cha­co­nia Medal (Gold) and in 2008, he re­ceived the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T, the na­tion's high­est award. More re­cent­ly he al­so re­ceived awards from the pro­duc­ers of the St James We­Beat Live and Wood­brook/St James Com­mu­ni­ty As­so­ci­a­tion.

In re­lat­ed news, the man­age­ment of Caribbean Air­lines In­vaders Steel Or­ches­tra held true to their word to de­liv­er the In­vaders 75th An­niver­sary Awards to two of the or­ches­tra's found­ing mem­bers: El­liot "El­lie" Man­nette in Os­age, West Vir­ginia and Em­manuel "Cobo­jack" Ri­ley in Brook­lyn, New York.

De­siree My­ers, mu­sic co-or­di­na­tor and Michael Din­chong, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, trav­elled to New York cour­tesy the band's spon­sor, Caribbean Air­lines, to make these pre­sen­ta­tions.

Friends and stu­dents of the Man­nette Mu­sic In­stru­ments Work­shop in West Vir­ginia host­ed a spe­cial re­cep­tion, where Din­chong pre­sent­ed Man­nette with the band's award in recog­ni­tion of his his­tor­i­cal con­tri­bu­tion to­wards the for­ma­tion of the leg­endary Wood­brook steel­band. Man­nette al­so re­ceived a copy of the In­vaders' his­to­ry book en­ti­tled In­vaders Steel Or­ches­tra: The his­to­ry of a leg­endary T&T Steel­band by Dr Jean­nine Re­my and Ray Funk.

In his pre­sen­ta­tion speech, Din­chong re­marked that nine years ago the gov­ern­ment of T&T de­clared 147 Tra­garete Road, Wood­brook, a na­tion­al her­itage site, and that 147 Tra­garete Road has been the un­tenured home of In­vaders since its birth in 1940.

"It was the home of El­lie Man­nette and the sa­cred grounds where many of his in­spi­ra­tions bore fruit un­der the fa­mous 'bread­fruit tree'," said Din­chong.

He added: "This de­c­la­ra­tion in essence im­mor­talis­es In­vaders Steel Or­ches­tra. It al­so im­mor­talis­es the name El­lie Man­nette."

Man­nette ex­pressed his sen­ti­ments of ap­pre­ci­a­tion and was moved by the man­age­ment's ef­fort to de­liv­er the award to him per­son­al­ly.

In Brook­lyn, the re­cep­tion for Ri­ley was or­gan­ised by the In­vaders' New York El­ders. Up­on re­ceiv­ing his award from My­ers, Ri­ley com­mend­ed the band's man­age­ment for recog­nis­ing his con­tri­bu­tion at this mile­stone in the band's his­to­ry and stat­ed that it was an ho­n­our to re­ceive the 75th An­niver­sary Award.

Ronald Den­nis and Ter­rance Hinds, two of In­vaders' El­ders re­sid­ing in New York, al­so re­ceived their 75th An­niver­sary Cer­tifi­cate of Ap­pre­ci­a­tion from My­ers.The band's man­age­ment has ex­pressed thanks to Caribbean Air­lines for its sup­port in mak­ing these pre­sen­ta­tions a re­al­i­ty.

To end on a sad note, the steel­band fra­ter­ni­ty has lost an­oth­er one of its stal­warts. Al­fred "Sacks" May­ers de­part­ed this life at the age of 82 on Sat­ur­day.

He was a bam­boo to pan vet­er­an and was the first per­son to play a triple sec­ond tuned by Lin­coln Del­ga­do Noel, and is cred­it­ed with lead­ing the first steel­band to Guyana in the late 40s. He was the leader of the Red Army Steel­band in the 40s and the Mer­ry Mak­ers Steel­band be­fore start­ing Pandige­nous, and had been play­ing with the band up to the time of his pass­ing.

May­ers' pan-play­ing skills saw him vis­it­ing many coun­tries, in­clud­ing Ar­genti­na. One of the first pan mu­si­cians to per­form on a cruise ship, May­ers was a re­cip­i­ent of the Hum­ming Bird Medal of Mer­it (Bronze) forhis con­tri­bu­tion to steel­pan cul­ture. He was al­so recog­nised by Pan Trin­ba­go for his ded­i­ca­tion and ser­vice to the in­stru­ment and move­ment.

May­ers will be laid to rest af­ter a fu­ner­al ser­vice at Clark & Bat­too Fu­ner­al Chapel, Trager­ate Road, Port-of-Spain, to­mor­row, at 8:30 am.Pan Trin­ba­go Inc has ex­tend­ed its con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly and friends of May­ers.

Ca­lyp­so is al­so mourn­ing a loss with the pass­ing of ca­lyp­son­ian Gas­ton "Lord Smi­ley" Nunes on Mon­day at his home at Baird Street, Care­nage.

This Robin sings sweet­ly

Juli­et Robin will be hav­ing her an­nu­al Christ­mas Con­cert at Kaiso Blues Cafe in New­town on Sat­ur­day, No­vem­ber 5 and show­time is 8 pm. Robin's last con­cert was her birth­day gig at which she gave 17 gifts to peo­ple who had a birth­day around the same time, and there was her huge birth­day cake that every­one got to share.

This time Robin is not hold­ing back and has in­di­cat­ed that it is Christ­mas, so you nev­er know what can hap­pen. She will be per­form­ing her new parang so­ca song–Hap­py Busi­ness. She com­posed the lyrics and melody, with mu­sic, arrange­ment, pro­duc­tion and mas­ter­ing by Bri­an Mitchell, own­er of Black Spear Mu­sic Stu­dio.

Robin has been very busy in the stu­dio work­ing on sev­er­al new re­leas­es for Car­ni­val 2017 along with Druce Jag Joseph at Black Spear Mu­sic Stu­dio. She is al­so work­ing on re­leas­es for sum­mer and Christ­mas 2017.

For her No­vem­ber 5 con­cert, Robin has the same line­up of mu­si­cians who will be per­form­ing with her, in­clud­ing Sean Fri­day (bass); Tam­ba Gwin­di (per­cus­sion); Richard Joseph (drums); Derek Cado­gan (key­boards). The newest ad­di­tion will be gui­tarist James Jessy Joseph. There will al­so be ex­cit­ing sur­prise guests. Robin in­sists that peo­ple walk with com­fort­able shoes to dance in. She says guests will be treat­ed to some ex­cit­ing pop­u­lar cov­ers of Christ­mas songs which she has re-arranged, and will al­so hear some of her orig­i­nal songs.

MORE IN­FO: Ad­mis­sion is $100 in ad­vance and $120 at the door. For more in­for­ma­tion, call 723-8883.

She is a hap­py wan­der­er

Leah Skeete, bet­ter known as DEZii, is a 28-year-old singer/song­writer who launched her first EP (Wan­der­er), a Su­paY­outh pro­duc­tion (Joshua Sal­cedo), last Sat­ur­day night at Kaiso Blues Cafe.

This tal­ent­ed young la­dy has been singing for 17 years in every­thing from school to church choirs, and from record­ing stu­dios to stages in Los An­ge­les and Nige­ria. In 2007, she rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the World Cham­pi­onships Of Per­form­ing Arts in Bur­bank, Cal­i­for­nia. In 2010, DEZii held her first con­cert and has held one every year since.

DEZii's The Wan­der­er Tour will be held at var­i­ous venues across Trinidad with its first stop be­ing at The Rush (for­mer­ly, Beve­ca) on No­vem­ber 2, fol­lowed by a per­for­mance on No­vem­ber 11 at Fi­es­ta Plaza, Movi­etowne, Port-of-Spain. A date is yet to be con­firmed for the fi­nale of The Wan­der­er Tour at the Big Black Box in Wood­brook.

Artistes billed for The Wan­der­er Tour in­clude Nailah Black­man; Aaron Ifill; LA Rose (Rosezan­na Her­nan­dez Win­ches­ter); Tehilla Jones; Mya Scott; Kyle Richard­son; Neb­u­la 868; Mark Hardy (Mar­cus Brave­boy) and Yung Rudd (Isaac Rud­der); John John (John Fran­cis); and Greg B (Gre­go­ry Bur­ris) and Jose Free­dom, ac­com­pa­nied by Mikhail Sal­cedo (pan), Joshua Sal­cedo (drums) and Dar­i­on Den­nis (bass).

Al­so signed to per­form are Leigh Tang Wing (key­boards); An­na Roberts (vi­o­lin); Ke­mi Ible (gui­tar); Charl­ton Al­fon­so (bass); D'An­dre Wil­son (bass); and, Adri­an Kong (sax­o­phone).

Dezii is de­scribed as "ver­sa­tile and has a mixed repert­eroire of jazz-fu­sion, reg­gae, pop, EDM and R&B mu­sic."