Michelle Loubon

A rose is a rose is a rose. Culled in the gar­den at Bethel, To­ba­go, T&T boasts its queen of ros­es, Mc Cartha Lewis. She bloomed un­der the care of her par­ents Al­ti­no Sandy, a Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist leader, and Durecha Forde. Car­ni­val 2011 has been ded­i­cat­ed to Lewis, fond­ly known as Rose. Ca­lyp­son­ian Ann Marie Parks-Ko­jo, known as Twig­gy, penned a trib­ute, Mu­si­cal Rose, in Lewis' ho­n­our. It was done un­der the aus­pices of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC). Pre­vi­ous­ly, ca­lyp­son­ian Win­ston Scar­bor­ough penned a trib­ute to Lewis. Ador­ing­ly, he re­ferred to her as "Queen of the Road."

While Lewis makes the rounds of the en­ter­tain­ment cir­cuit, she has been ho­n­oured by Ger­man am­bas­sador to T&T Ste­fan Schter, who pre­sent­ed her with the Life­time Award at Ladies Night Out, at Jean Pierre Com­plex, Port-of-Spain, on Feb­ru­ary 17. When she's not flash­ing her broad smile at an event, she can be found re­lax­ing at the Carl­ton Sa­van­nah Ho­tel, St Ann's. Vis­it­ing Queen Eliz­a­beth of Britain al­so stayed at the ho­tel dur­ing her vis­it for the 2010 Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Con­fer­ence.

Quizzed on her C2k11 trib­ute, Lewis gushed: "I feel very good. Thank God they de­cid­ed to do it be­fore I ex­pire. Just look at the late Ar­row (Alphon­sus Cas­sell), Duke (Kelvin Pope) and Con­queror (Leroy Paul). "I am ho­n­oured and hap­py and I must say thanks. I re­al­ly ap­pre­ci­ate it."When Kaiso House de­buted at Queen's Hall, Port-of-Spain on Feb­ru­ary 7, Lewis was a roy­al guest. She was treat­ed to gems like Glo­ry Days from Broth­er Valenti­no and Karene Ashe's Un­cle Jack. As a lagniappe, Twig­gy de­liv­ered the trib­ute to Rose. Lewis roared her ap­proval. Re­flect­ing on Twig­gy's trib­ute, she said: "It was nice. I wish her suc­cess in all her en­deav­ours. She is my daugh­ter in whom I am well pleased."

"I went through hell" Lewis said she fought many bat­tles to achieve the in­ter­na­tion­al star­dom she now en­joyed. The path to ca­lyp­so/so­ca suc­cess was paved with naysay­ers. "I went through hell. They were try­ing to daunt my spir­it." The war­rior spir­it that she cap­tured in the mega hit Ju Ju war­rior pre­vailed. "I kicked the door down. I jumped over the bar­ri­ers. I broke the hur­dles. That's why I am stand­ing to­day at this age. I was de­ter­mined to pur­sue my ca­reer in life." The first ca­lyp­so she sang was Glass Thief, a com­men­tary in which she wit­nessed a thief steal­ing a pair of spec­ta­cles from a man at the San Juan mar­ket. Among her ar­se­nal were Give Me More Tem­po and Fire In The Wire, Rosie Mak­ing A Ba­by, Come Leh We Jam and Palette and Jam.

Quizzed on her so­bri­quet, she said: "I chose Rose; Rose is the moth­er of all flow­ers." Up­on clos­er in­tro­spec­tion, Lewis per­son­i­fies the pu­ri­ty and bright­ness of the white rose. Com­pared to the pink, she is a sym­bol of re­fine­ment and el­e­gance. Af­ter Car­ni­val, Lewis will con­tin­ue to fly the ca­lyp­so/ so­ca flag in places like New Zealand, renowned for Lake Taupo. Bumper stick­ers re­fer to the na­tion's largest lake as The Rain­bow Trout Cap­i­tal of the Uni­verse. Lewis will un­leash her in­tox­i­cat­ing mu­sic in Aus­tralia, fa­mous for its great red mono­lith of Ay­ers Rock. It is revered as a spir­i­tu­al cen­tre of pow­er by the Abo­rig­ines whose an­ces­tors are be­lieved to have lived there as much as 20,000 years ago.

Tak­ing T&T to Venice, Mo­roc­co

Apart from en­ter­tain­ing and mu­sic, Rose morphs in­to an am­bas­sador ex­tra­or­di­naire, con­duct­ing work­shops in ex­ot­ic des­ti­na­tions. Be­tween March and Ju­ly, she is booked for places like Los An­ge­les, Mo­roc­co, Ger­many, Venice and Por­tu­gal. She in­forms and ed­u­cates par­tic­i­pants about T&T's amal­gam of races, its cos­mopoli­tan na­ture, palat­able cui­sine and Car­ni­val mores like win­ing. Lewis said: "I will be spread­ing the mu­sic of T&T. I want to ex­port my mu­sic. I want peo­ple to know how much I love my coun­try. Thank God he has an­swered my prayers." Sym­bol­i­cal­ly like a red rose, Lewis per­son­i­fies loy­al­ty to T&T and kin­ship to her fel­low­men. Her ster­ling con­tri­bu­tion has earned her the Hum­ming­bird Medal.

She's a liv­ing leg­end

Com­ment­ing on the piece Mu­si­cal Rose, Twig­gy said: "She made a tremen­dous con­tri­bu­tion to the art form and she is still mak­ing a con­tri­bu­tion. Every time I sing the song I pay trib­ute to her. "I am the on­ly one who came through the era with Ca­lyp­so Rose and Francine. I start­ed in 1974. Francine is per­form­ing at the East Zone ca­lyp­so tent. Rose is a liv­ing leg­end in ca­lyp­so."

To­ba­go-born ca­lyp­so queen Mc Cartha Lewis says she will wel­come the con­struc­tion of a stat­ue in her ho­n­our at Scar­bor­ough. Lewis, fond­ly known as Rose, was re­spond­ing to Min­is­ter of To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin's pro­pos­al that a stat­ue be built in her ho­n­our in her na­tive To­ba­go. Lewis said: "I would ap­pre­ci­ate that. I would feel great. I would want it to be built in To­ba­go. I would pre­fer it in Scar­bor­ough, al­though I was born in Bethel." Lewis boast­ed she was linked to clans in­clud­ing the Sandys in Ply­mouth, Charles in L'anse For­mi, De­noons and Pauls in Canaan, Bon Ac­cord, Spey­side and Ply­mouth. She said: "That's why I say I could nev­er mar­ry a To­bag­on­ian; they would be fam­i­ly." She even­tu­al­ly tied the knot with the late Aubrey Lewis from the Unit­ed States Vir­gin Is­lands.

Ex­cerpt from Mu­si­cal Rose

"Born Sandy Mc Cartha Lewis from To­ba­go

The world knows her as Ca­lyp­so Rose

The undis­put­ed cham­pi­on of ca­lyp­so

The fe­male to the Spar­row I sup­pose

Rose, sprite and zep­py

She give we Tem­po. She give we fire

We doh know how long

She go­ing to be around

So let this trib­ute ring out

Be­fore she re­tire."